Mr. Sunshine clearly takes itself VERY seriously. It tries to be a grand, sweeping drama dealing with Life and Death, Revenge, and Loyalty to the Cause. I use capitals because I feel like the Drama uses capitals to pound those issues into one’s head, having no subtlety and nuance. The cinematography employs every overplayed melodramatic stereotype in the book, including slow motion Epic Battle Scenes and dramatically backlit heroes staring far far away into the distance. The distant stare is an attempt to inject profound meaning and gravitas into the scene but it comes across as affected and pretentious. To make sure that we know there is a Very Important Moment to be had the music swells portentously to end in a dramatic crash or, during scenes filled with bathos, wails mournfully in the background. To make matters worse, the writing is simply horrible. The characters are your by-the-dozen stock, sterotyped figures. Beautiful heroine who is a kind, much loved and sheltered aristocrat by day and a crackshot rebel warrior by night? Check. Her loyal jolly sidekick servant? Check. Steely but sensitive hero with a tragic past? Check. Seemingly cold-blooded, but really just hurting inside, leader of a ruthless group? Check. Sharp and hardened woman who cooly plays both sides but falls in love with the hero? Check. One-dimensional and physically unattractive villains? Check. And on and on. The dialogue plods along leadenly and predictably, the plot does likewise. Finally, the acting, or, rather, lack thereof is cringe worthy. Please, someone, hire a bunch of competent English-speaking actors to move to Korea for a year and act in all movies and dramas requiring their presence. I don’t know whether Koreans simply hire English-speaking people off the streets because they look the part but I am tired of watching these “actors” woodenly standing while woodenly delivering their wooden lines. And the writer makes matters worse (if possible) by making them stock, stereotyped characters. That not only makes the foreign actors look stupid but it also unfortunately makes Koreans look stupid by implying that Koreans are not smart enough to see beyond stereotypes. I know that that's not true. I’m not as sure about this writer.

One example (of many) of Mr. Sunshine’s writer's cringe-worthy attempts to be clever is the plot point around the meaning of the word “love." I mean, come on, the heroine is soooo interested in the word that she brings it up with Mr. Lead Guy yet when she starts to learn English she somehow fails to find out first thing what it means? As a device to score cute couples points it was hilariously bad. Nope. I watched four episodes (which were three too many) then skipped around trying to figure out why people raved about this drama. It's a mystery to me.