To my surprise, the first episode had me completely absorbed. Before I knew it, I was past the point of no return and found myself rooting for Empress Dowager Chun Chu to get control of Goryeo's throne; for Kim Chi Yang's duplicity and betrayal to be revealed; and for the Empress Dowager of Khitan to prevail over her son, the Emperor, who wants go to war and make Goryeo a tributary state.
The story obviously had me engrossed. Among the characters and the actors who portrayed them, the actor who plays the role of the mad king, whom Chun Chu marries, stands out. The role requires the actor to be rude, boorish, churlish, etc., and I can only imagine how fun that was for the actor to play and it shows in his acting, which is at times both electrifying and laugh out loud funny. As to Chae Shi Ra, she plays her lead role with consummate skill. She has to lest the entire drama crumble and collapse.
Finally, I learned something watching The Iron Empress. I had no idea that the Khitan or the Liao Dynasty was a massive and influential power that rivaled the Song Dynasty. I learned they were a nomadic tribe that transformed itself into a civilized culture and military superpower, a precursor of sorts of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire.
Two more things: I gave the drama an overall rating of 8 because there are about 15 episodes that are fillers or padding, and the fighting scenes showing the character Gang Jo wielding his spear is the most awesome display of martial arts I've seen in all of K-Drama.
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Lets just start off by saying that this Drama was VERY GOOD! i`m impress with the story line. The plot was very good and almost everything made sense. According to my reaserch the story line followed closely to actual evens that happened.
The Drama is basically about Goryeo told form the eyes of Empress Chun Chun. Depecting the hardship she when thru fighting to make her country prosper. Brace your self for ACTION, POLITICAL SCHEMING & INFIGHTING. It gets really emotional towards :'( i wont say more tho. You will love it if your a real Historical Drama like i.
Acting
the acting was above average and good. I wouldnt go that far to say it was awsome, but very good indeed. persons who stood out due to their acting skills.
* King Gyeongjong - The mad King, i really enjoyed his acting as a mad king lol.
* King Mokjong - like father like son, the rebelous son who didnt want to be king i must say well played. that laugh lol
*Empress Chun Chu - loved her from her younger days to her dying days. Strong woman both as a leader and mother in all aspect well played MAMA!
*King Sung Jong - Played the part of a very peace loving king, but the lengths he would go to preserve peace was too much of a price for the country to pay, Hense y Empress Chun Chu had to step in.
*Empress Moon Hwa / Lady Kim - she played the Empress for awhile, wife to King Sung Jong Empress Chun Chu brother. I mentioned her because her acting got to have an impact on me towards the end especially when her own village turned on her.
Music
It was ok especially during war and time high anticipation. i gave it a 8.5 because it aided they show in moments of happiness & sadness.
Rewatch Value
Good Drama indeed and lots of good moments i would rewatch, However the 8 was given due to its lengths and short coming in dragging out some episodes.
Some say this Drama was too dark & depessing, but all in all the era was a hard time for Goryeo with the Khitan invasions of the country. The last remaining episodes were very sad indeed i hate that chu anywayz I really enjoyed watching this for i`m real lover for Historical Dramas, Asian history and History overall
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As I was saying, the ratings are more emotional than rational, therefore take this as a review from somebody who is sensitive to stories that are unbalanced and frustrating - which I felt her story was! But, then again, so was the era in which the Empress lived in...
If you are like me and want to see a story that has both dark and light moments, both tears and laughter and some hope in the end (something like in the Emperor of the Sea when they flee with the child), then try to avoid this drama or prepare yourself with a thread to lead you out of the depression maze.
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The acting overall isn't that great. It isn't terrible, but a lot of it is wooden or two dimensional. The Iron Empress herself is either wailing at the top of her lungs or looking angry. Both male leads aren't very good either, with the actor playing Gang Jo almost as wooden as you can possibly get. Lee Deok Hwa is one of the best parts of the drama, character-wise and acting-wise, but he has a tendency to be the shining part of an otherwise abysmal drama. King Gyeongjong was pretty entertaining, a little hammy in a Jang Hyuk kind of way, but the actor has charisma, so overall I liked the performance. The Khitan empress was also a good character and well-acted, to the extent that I started to wish the drama was about her instead. Some of the minor characters are surprisingly good but they don't have nearly enough screen time compared to more major characters.
The writing was inconsistent. The first several episodes made sense, and the characters behaved and grew as you would expect characters to evolve, but by the end of the drama, characters are making choices merely because the plot demands it, and not fitting with their character development, personalities, or previous actions. And honestly, too much time was spent on ministers arguing. If done right, as in Six Flying Dragons, the political maneuvering can be almost as engaging as the fight scenes, but when they're merely bickering along party lines the scenes are tedious and pointless. The antagonists are absolutely not sympathetic for the most part, and while a few of them briefly have moments, they quickly lose their character development and again become basically stock characters. It also felt like the writer was trying to whitewash some of the characters from history to make them more palatable, but in the process made them bland and unlikeable instead of complicated and interesting like they should have been.
At about episode 36 I started just wanting to drama to end. Some characters that I had started to like, I then started to strongly dislike and that didn't improve throughout the series. The plot would drag for several episodes at a time, sometimes there would be a good episode or two, then it would start to drag again. I think that total you could take all of the good parts/episodes and put them together and it would be about ten episodes.
The historical accuracy was also not on point despite the narrator butting in at times to tell the viewers about what was written in the Goryeosa. When you're altering events and characters but then explaining what really happened about other events, it gets a little schizophrenic. I'm fine with not sticking to history if you're making a compelling drama, but veering away from accuracy for no reason but to make characters look better, it starts to feel like fanfiction.
If I had to compliment anything about the drama, it would be that some of the battle scenes were on a pretty decent scale and were also decently if not amazingly choreographed. A lot of dramas skip over that type of scene, so it was nice to see them actually done for once. But any time CGI is used in a battle scene it is awful and laughable. The practical effects are miles better. I also had no issue with the soundtrack. I think that maybe it should've been more utilized, since it's a pretty solid sageuk soundtrack that reminded me a lot of Queen Seondeok. Any other way this drama could be compared with Queen Seondeok is really, really, really not favorable. And while I did complain about the historical accuracy, I kind of liked the random narrator moments where he explained the background of events and their significance. I don't know too much about Goryeo history so learning a bit was fun and interesting for me.
Really, I blame other reviewers and Kim Ji Hoon for convincing me to tackle this enormous beast of a tedious drama. I wrote this review specifically to warn other possible viewers to be prepared for what this drama offers. There is no humor, the romance is bland and annoying for the most part, the action is okay but not compelling. Overall, I'd honestly say it was more tedious and difficult to get through than watching most documentaries.
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Only average!
It started pretty well, but overall it's just average. I think 78 episodes is way too much. The acting is good, but the writing could've been better. There's like 3 or 4 characters who's actually good, but basically everyone makes dumb decisions. I think 40 episodes would've been enough. Also, the fight scenes, especially in the war scenes, are hard to watch because there are too many cuts. Most of the time it doesn't feel like a war, I didn't felt anything except when a main character did something. Overall, it's not a bad drama but without Chae Shi Ra, I don't think I would finish it. She's literally carrying the whole show. The music and the score aren't the best also. There were a couple of great score, but that's all, honestly.Was this review helpful to you?
Do better!
It's called The Iron Empress so it's expected for this empress to carry certain characteristics as implied by the title but eventually everything boiled down to her being super stubborn gradually making me dislike her over time. It messed up her character value in one way or another. All of the characters that were in position of power were delusional and gullible which is exactly what the drama was built on. This is a cheap way to create melodrama to drive the drama, it's fundamentally annoying no matter how they spin it and justify it. So don't expect any clever plays by these samples. The drama clearly lost focus by the end. The writer wrote the story into a corner after a very long, repetitive and tiring melodrama and didn't have much to show for the ending so they resulted in throwing new events to have an ending rather than having both events running in parallel. How historical accurate that last portion was is irrelevant if it was presented with poor storytelling. This wasn't an enjoyable watch. The Iron Empress needs to touch some grass.Was this review helpful to you?
