Historical Dramas Club

 WandereR:

So far for 2021, the two big historical dramas that have aired are The Rebel Princess and The Long Ballad.  I think the other big ones are due out soon, just a matter of after July or even August, when the centenary celebrations are hopefully over.  There are quite a number of lighter historicals in between but I'm not sure what's really good to recommend since I'm not watching them. 

Actually I'm also experiencing a bit of C-drama historical slump currently, which is why I'm focusing on older dramas and some Republican ones, which aren't everyone's cup of tea lol.  

Even K-drama sageuk is getting less these days.  After RWTMR, there's only Bossam now which I heard quite positive feedback on it.

Maybe I should share some trailers for upcoming productions, just to get you all excited :D

Ancient Love Poetry 

The Golden Hairpin

Luoyang

Dream of Chang'an

Thanks for sharing!! :)

+1 for Ancient Love Poetry for having the best all around trailer. Though I should say this doesn't mean much for the drama itself 'cause most of the times trailers can be deceiving (both in a good & a bad way)!! But the visuals & the cgi at least seem stunning!!!

Dream of Chang'an screams edgy angst to me, so maybe I'll pass, or not, depending on my mood at the time…

Luoyang is the most anticipated for me out of these 4.

And with that I'd like to share my Historical Drama journey of this year so far, if you don't mind! 

Here's my personal ranking (in ascending order) of all the historical/costume dramas I watched during 2021 (not necessarily aired on 2021, just me watching them now), along with any possible "awards" I'd give them, as well as my ratings (but don't take the ratings seriously, I rate chaotically):

12) Wonderful Fate (2021) - 6.5/10

11) Lovely Swords Girl (2019) - 7/10

10) Princess! You have Five Husbands! (2021) - 7.3/10

"Crack award of the year"

9) Cupid of Chou Dynasty (2019) - 8/10

8) My Heroic Husband (2021) - 8/10

7) The Sword and The Brocade (2021) - 8.6/10

"CP chemistry award of the year", "Worst mother-in-law award of the year"

6) First Sword of Wudang (2021) - 8.7/10

"Sword-fight award of the year", "Action scenes award of the year"

5) Ancient Detective (2020) - 9/10

"Melancholy I'm still thinking about award of the year", "Atmosphere award of the year", "Squad goals award of the year"

4) The Rebel Princess (2021) - 9/10

"Spouse award of the year", "Most promising premiere award of the year"

3) The Blessed Girl (2021) - 9.1/10

"World-building award of the year", "CGI award of the year", "Father I'd adopt award of the year"

2) Legend of Yun Qian (2020) - 9.3/10

"GL ftw award of the year"

1) The Long Ballad (2021) - 9.5/10

"Character development award of the year", "Pacing award of the year"

Edit

 I'm currently watching:

• Haechi (2019)

• Killer And Healer (2021)

• Young Blood (2019)

 Vya van Velaris:

A bit off topic, but I always wonder when I see ratings that are not a whole or half number. Like, how do you decide on a 9.3 or 8.6? 😋

I already have trouble choosing between 7.5 or 8 or 8.5. If I have to choose all .x between them, I'll probably end up not rating anything. 😅

Well, MDL only supports .5 or wholes, lol. But it's because I can't really decide between 8.5 and 9, or 9 and 9.5, and such, that I put these ratings, and to rank them properly -- as I said, don't take them seriously!!! :D

Even more off topic, we can use emojis on the forums, too, now?!? 😮😍😄

Edit: I guess we can't, they were visible for a moment, but then they disappeared again?

 Estelll:

My personal opinion is that you never know until you try them for yourself, so I'd advice to try it nevertheless whenever/if you have the mood (and of course the time), but just keep your expectations lower.

Yeah, I kept it in my regular folder but removed it from my highly anticipated list.

 Estelll:

My personal opinion is that you never know until you try them for yourself, so I'd advice to try it nevertheless whenever/if you have the mood (and of course the time), but just keep your expectations lower.

I agree with this.  When I first read comments about Siege in Fog I was not sure about it because I saw quite a lot of negative comments but surprisingly I really liked the show.  It's a republican era show in case anyone is curious. Similarly there are those overly hyped shows but when you watch it you find it's a bit meh. 

Looks like there are few god shows to look forward to later this year.  Thanks for sharing those :) 

 Caspleo:

Going to re-watch the Untamed with my mom starting today!  I am curious to know her thoughts on this one :D

I have rewatched this twice lol... always found something I missed and get more understanding. How is your mom liking it?

So yesterday, I found a bunch of old notes that I wrote about dramas I watched years ago. I didn't say all that much about most of the modern dramas, but I really went to town on the historicals. I've been reading over them and it's really pretty funny. I basically wrote a book on Queen Seondeok. I really liked The Legend, but was quite miffed about the love triangle. I complained A LOT about Jumong (I was literally just ranting to no one because I hadn’t discovered MDL yet to vent my frustrations, lol). I had some very strong feelings about Empress Ki (lots of typos, I think I can now understand how people end up writing incoherent internet comments). The highlight might be this comment from Warrior Baek Dong Soo, "___ is annoying and just won't die." That underscore is not me censoring the comment, that's really what I wrote (I must not have known how to spell the name or something). I think the name that belongs there is Dae Woong. The best part of reading all this stuff is that I realized I've been telling people things about certain dramas that I didn't even believe ... Whoops! :P

I don’t even know why I was writing this stuff since it wasn’t like I was ever planning to share it with anyone, but I’m actually really glad I did. I’ve been trying to make lists where I write my thoughts about all the historical dramas I’ve watched and I was really struggling to know what to say about some of the sageuks I watched years ago. Anyway, this was kinda random, but write down your thoughts on everything, that’s my advice.

 xinya:

How is this one?

Thanks for the great advice! Btw, do you have a link to your notes? I'd love to read them. 😁

I couldn't complete Haechi but you could give that a try to see how you like it.