Nothing's what it looks like.

It was fantastic and thrilling. At least the first half.
The story was good. It looks too obvious at first, you think you already know everything and may think it's boring, 'cause why watch it, when they tell us everything, but no, the things here are not that simple. You have to watch it, because nothing is what it looks like. Because of the twists and turns, it kept me in the screen all day, not to mention the OST (my favourite was that one with the organ), and the acting (especially Lee Seung Gi's, he was just fantastic).

But as we went on the story, and as we went nearer and nearer to the end, it became a little draggy. Things became more clean, the story became more predictable, the plot wasn't that dark and thrilling like before, the twists weren't surprising anymore. I suspected a way darker ending and deeper things behind all the happenings, and the last episode was just like they were in a hurry, and felt like they 'had' to answer all the questions in only ONE episode. In the last episode, things just happened one after another, like it wasn't whole, like they torn it apart to little peaces to answer all our questions and solve all the leftover problems, which they could've done better if they did it little by little maybe in the last 2-3 episodes.

And the ending - after I watched it, I just felt I really, really want to cry. It was unfair. I wanted something else. The person (I don't want to spoil) who recived the punishment, wasn't the same person anymore who DESERVED that punishment (if you watched the drama, you know what I mean), and it just felt so, so unfair, even if I know it was the proper thing to do.

After all, I gave this a 9, because I'm in deep love with the first half. It compensated me for everything they've done in the end. I've put this in my "TOP" favourites list, and it's possible that I will watch it again some time later.

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Hatred can never be gone in this world.

I love the moral of the story. Firstly I thought it will be just a simple investigating story about revealing what is this shop in reality and who the shopkeeper is, but soon I realized it is not just like that. It is about people and the way what hatred can do to someone: hatred can distort a person's moral and mislead them to do things what normally they wouldn't do, and after that they have to learn to bear the consequences and to live with them. Maybe you just want to seek a little revenge and prank the people you hate - but what happens, when you accidentally kill them? Did it worth it? Did it satisfy you to humiliate the others? And what will happen, if someone does the same to you?
In this series there isn't only good and bad characters - everybody has a good and a bad site, everybody has love and hatred equally in themselves, even Supasit, who did the worst thing what someone can do just for power.

And then there is the second thing what this story is reflecting to us: it is the fact what Power and the will to gain more and more power will do to a person's mind. What Supasit did for this power is unforgivable and disgusting, and it doesn't matter how many times he cries and says sorry, he can't reverse nor erase what he did. Even if he truly regretted it. Power can also distort someone's mind, and this series lets us clearly see this. It isn't a simple horror/thriller show were people just killing each other and blood pours everywhere, no, this is that kind of series what lets us learn morals, from power isn't everything to appreciate the people around us and spend time with our loved ones, because we can't know how long we can be with them.

I really loved this series, and can recommend to everyone.

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Not what I was expecting...

Firstly I have to say: I really loved Gu Yanzhen :D He was my favourite character!
The first half of my review won't contain spoilers, so you can read it, I wrote down where I'm starting to write about spoiling things.

I finished this drama only because lately I just keep dropping and dropping dramas, and I didn't want also to drop this one. The story at the beginning looked good and promising, like we're going to see a woman pretending to be a man and join the army, which was a good starting point, but as the story kept going, the quality just kept dropping.

I would like to start with the story. A lot of things happened, which was meant to be exciting, but too much thing happened, and after a few episodes they closed every storyline, so it felt like nothing really happened at all. There was some plotholes and unnecessary scenes, and for some things we didn't get explanation or the explanation just didn't make sense. After a time it was boring, also because we knew everything, they told us every secret and every situation, which weren't surprising anymore when the main characters learned about them. Since I've watched quite some dramas, I always had the feeling that the creators just could've deal with the scenes somehow else.

Secondly, the characters. The main characters were mostly ok, I loved Gu Yanzhen, Xie Liangchen, Shen Junshan, Huang Song, and also Ji Jin, but for the others, they felt too boring, they were too annoying or I just didn't like them. Especially Qu Manting. I hated that woman. There were also times when the acting looked forced and a little cringy.

But to say something positive, the OST was really good. Sometimes we could hear that they cut together or apart the songs, but most of the OST's were good and I liked to listen them :D

Thirdly, I would like to talk about concrete things about the drama. It's gonna be full of SPOILERS, so don't read it if you didn't watch the show.
- How could Xie Xang pass the medical examination at the first episode? The doctor clearly said she can't pass if she's not going to get undressed, but she magically passes the examination? :D
- The two characters death at the end (I mean Huang Song and Li Wenzhong's deaths) was really unnecessary. I know they wanted it to be sad and emotional, but it felt like they killed Huang Song only for this reason. For Li Wenzhong's death, I couldn't understand at all. Why did he get himself killed? I get it that he felt bad for Huang Song, and he felt like it was his fault, but please, don't kill characters for this reason, it's unnecessary, Li Wenzhong could've done a lot of useful things instead of getting himself killed for nothing! -.-" This is really annoyed me.

Overally, I wanted it to be better, I wanted it to love more. But it is only a 6.5 for me...

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