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The Scholar Who Walks the Night korean drama review
Completed
The Scholar Who Walks the Night
1 people found this review helpful
by ltspada
Feb 4, 2021
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 5.5
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers

Great Acting, beautiful costumes but some elements that didn't work

8/10 is my rating. This is a 2015 South Korean paranormal television drama with 20, 60 minute, episodes.

Jo Yang-sun (Lee Yu-bi) lives in an alternate Josean dynasty as the daughter of a deposed nobleman. Although not guilty of treason, with no way to prove the false claims, her family loses everything. Yang-sun dresses up as a man in order to sell books to support her family. Kim Sung-yeol (Lee Joon-gi), is over 100 years old but has the handsomeness and virility of the young man he once was. He is a guardian vampire responsible for punishing those of his kind who break the rules. He tragically lost his first love to an evil vampire and has spent years mourning and blaming himself for his loss. His focus has been finding a way to defeat this much stronger and more ancient vampire. The vampire was summoned by the royalty to establish and protect the elite structure and serves above the current monarchy. There is a document many are looking for that holds the key to destroying Gwi (Lee Soo-hyuk), the evil vampire, but it has been carefully hidden and zealously guarded. Fate binds Yang-sun, Sung-yeol and the current Crown Prince and their paths entwine throughout their lives. Will they have the courage to do what must be done to destroy the evil vampire? Will love blossom in the most unlikely place?

Despite a lot of flaws I still liked this drama. The story itself is very compelling and the acting by the entire cast is very good. T in the love story is believable and the chemistry between the leads is good. Spoilers*** I found parts just a bit silly in that the vampires were not completely real looking. In parts it was apparent that the male lead had a wig and not a great one at that. It was also apparent this was filmed several years ago as the film quality was just slightly less than what they do currently. What really lessened this for me was the way so many of the characters seemed to be on a suicide mission so that they would even argue about who should live and who should die. You, you should live but no I am going to go do this thing that will lead to my certain death. Well, if you die then I am going to die. And then it would start again. The "2nd guy" who was the crown prince for much of the story, seemed to fall in and out of love dramatically quickly. He also would make these statements about dying for the cause but, when it came right down to it, he would be scared and emotional. Then a couple of scenes later he is right back to talking tough. 2nd guy also let lead girl get literally tortured. She didn't forgive him which was good because he literally allowed her to take the blame for him and then was aware of her being severely tortured. 1st guy also did not come to her immediate rescue. I think one of my favorite characters was the evil vampire, Gwi. He was so consistent throughout and just very vampire like. It ended okay but they did the typical I am just going to go off for a year and you are going to wait and pine for me. The lead girl was so pretty when she was dressed as a girl I would have liked if she had more screen time as a girl. And there were so many opportunities for side romance I found it disappointing that the side romance wound up being between 2nd guy and a look alike of the male lead's first love. They fell for each other so quick it was not completely believable and then she just dies which made it pointless anyway. So it is a good film of the genre - actually very good but it was so close to being great that, the fact that it could have been lessens the enjoyment a little.
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