Nups
This review may contain spoilers
I could go a whole lifetime without seeing someone eating chicken and beer ever again
The sets, the action, the ideas and scenes looked beautiful and exciting… but those can’t carry a weakly written story.
Identity crisis:
So this show had somewhat of an identity crisis. The first episode was really epic and things were set up in an exciting way, the direction and action showed a lot of promise – I was sure I was in for a legendary ride, the budget was through the roof(not without consequences). Then some time later as the king arrived at Korea the tone suddenly shifted into ‘quirky romance s shenanigans’ for a bit, and tone shift was way too jarring as compared to what I had seen earlier. Then over time it meanders into like a police/detective (?) show, then some more fantasy, time travel, then slow dramatic romance all over again, history and even politics with naval combat? Like just pick one or two overarching themes and focus. You can’t just jam in romance, detective, history, fantasy, revenge, politics, monarchy, war and expect them all to gel and make sense nor expect to properly explore any of them when you have literally no time in just 16 episodes to deal with all those themes.
Product placement:
I’m sure this has been talked about a lot but I’ve never cared about product placement in any show I’ve seen before, but Jesus H Christ was it way too distracting in this show. Halfway into it or so there was up to 3 blatant adverts every single episode, to the point that the camera would obviously zoom into the product so you can read the name while the characters were CONSTANTLY eating and snacking and drinking the same shit all the damn time. They even made Lee Min Ho actually say a line about the coffee how it was ‘just as good as the coffee served at the palace woow it’s so good’ like damn that’s just too much. Not to mention how many times these people were eating chicken and beer it must have been almost ten times over 16 eps – at that point I had it at the back of my mind that if the ‘parallel universe stuff’ doesn’t kill them then their eating habits will anyway. When I’m watching a show what the characters eat kinda matters, it shows a lot about them, but if they’re forced to eat unhealthy snacks and massive bottles of coffe and plain chicken with beer constantly, I start feeling a bit sick despite myself and am taken out of the show every time. It’s understandable that a show like this would cost a ton, but at what point is it worth it when the product placement breaks your immersion so much that the beautiful sets and locations isn’t enough to get you immersed anymore.
Characters:
I liked the dynamic between Lee Gon and Tae Eul initially since I find it fun to see dislike to friends to lovers develop, but for some reason Tae Eul went from dislike towards Lee Gon to suddenly in love with him very abruptly, I was really really confused about what had she found out or what even happened?? Why does she suddenly like him so much? Even in the first place we weren’t given enough reasons why Lee Gon even liked Tae Eul all that much besides him thinking she saved him, she proceeded to treat him badly all the time but it didn’t deter Lee Gon at all, which was boring and a missed chance for more drama down the line, at some point in the first half of the show I started wondering why does Lee Gon still like her so much again? As for Tae Eul, she found out that Lee Gon had not lied to her and had been truthful about who he was the whole time and then she was in love with him… wait… why?? If she didn’t like him in the first place, it didn’t mean she would suddenly fall in love with him just because he wasn’t lying about being a king from a parallel universe unless him being truly rich and famous is all it took, yikes.
Tae Eul herself was a cool character if they managed to keep her that way the whole show, once she was for whatever reason in love with Lee Gon she would be constantly crying or super affectionate with him, and the writers had her stare vacantly into the distance with her mouth open or at Lee Gon way too many times - it just didn’t feel like the same no-nonsense, independent character anymore. Not to mention, sadly the chemistry just wasn’t there, likely because of how as explained their relationship wasn’t developed properly. Honestly, not joking when I felt more chemistry between Lee Gon and Jo Yeong in some of the initial episodes, would have been interesting to see that play out instead lol.. the way Lee Gon looked at him.
Jo Yeong/Eun Sup were definitely the best characters to see on screen, Woo Do Hwan managed to out charm and charisma everyone else few times over and the acting performance was great. Best part in this drag of a show.
I had an ok time, but any show that’s just 16 episodes long and makes me think ‘gosh is it over soon? I do want to move onto something else’ halfway through will get less than 5 stars from me.
Identity crisis:
So this show had somewhat of an identity crisis. The first episode was really epic and things were set up in an exciting way, the direction and action showed a lot of promise – I was sure I was in for a legendary ride, the budget was through the roof(not without consequences). Then some time later as the king arrived at Korea the tone suddenly shifted into ‘quirky romance s shenanigans’ for a bit, and tone shift was way too jarring as compared to what I had seen earlier. Then over time it meanders into like a police/detective (?) show, then some more fantasy, time travel, then slow dramatic romance all over again, history and even politics with naval combat? Like just pick one or two overarching themes and focus. You can’t just jam in romance, detective, history, fantasy, revenge, politics, monarchy, war and expect them all to gel and make sense nor expect to properly explore any of them when you have literally no time in just 16 episodes to deal with all those themes.
Product placement:
I’m sure this has been talked about a lot but I’ve never cared about product placement in any show I’ve seen before, but Jesus H Christ was it way too distracting in this show. Halfway into it or so there was up to 3 blatant adverts every single episode, to the point that the camera would obviously zoom into the product so you can read the name while the characters were CONSTANTLY eating and snacking and drinking the same shit all the damn time. They even made Lee Min Ho actually say a line about the coffee how it was ‘just as good as the coffee served at the palace woow it’s so good’ like damn that’s just too much. Not to mention how many times these people were eating chicken and beer it must have been almost ten times over 16 eps – at that point I had it at the back of my mind that if the ‘parallel universe stuff’ doesn’t kill them then their eating habits will anyway. When I’m watching a show what the characters eat kinda matters, it shows a lot about them, but if they’re forced to eat unhealthy snacks and massive bottles of coffe and plain chicken with beer constantly, I start feeling a bit sick despite myself and am taken out of the show every time. It’s understandable that a show like this would cost a ton, but at what point is it worth it when the product placement breaks your immersion so much that the beautiful sets and locations isn’t enough to get you immersed anymore.
Characters:
I liked the dynamic between Lee Gon and Tae Eul initially since I find it fun to see dislike to friends to lovers develop, but for some reason Tae Eul went from dislike towards Lee Gon to suddenly in love with him very abruptly, I was really really confused about what had she found out or what even happened?? Why does she suddenly like him so much? Even in the first place we weren’t given enough reasons why Lee Gon even liked Tae Eul all that much besides him thinking she saved him, she proceeded to treat him badly all the time but it didn’t deter Lee Gon at all, which was boring and a missed chance for more drama down the line, at some point in the first half of the show I started wondering why does Lee Gon still like her so much again? As for Tae Eul, she found out that Lee Gon had not lied to her and had been truthful about who he was the whole time and then she was in love with him… wait… why?? If she didn’t like him in the first place, it didn’t mean she would suddenly fall in love with him just because he wasn’t lying about being a king from a parallel universe unless him being truly rich and famous is all it took, yikes.
Tae Eul herself was a cool character if they managed to keep her that way the whole show, once she was for whatever reason in love with Lee Gon she would be constantly crying or super affectionate with him, and the writers had her stare vacantly into the distance with her mouth open or at Lee Gon way too many times - it just didn’t feel like the same no-nonsense, independent character anymore. Not to mention, sadly the chemistry just wasn’t there, likely because of how as explained their relationship wasn’t developed properly. Honestly, not joking when I felt more chemistry between Lee Gon and Jo Yeong in some of the initial episodes, would have been interesting to see that play out instead lol.. the way Lee Gon looked at him.
Jo Yeong/Eun Sup were definitely the best characters to see on screen, Woo Do Hwan managed to out charm and charisma everyone else few times over and the acting performance was great. Best part in this drag of a show.
I had an ok time, but any show that’s just 16 episodes long and makes me think ‘gosh is it over soon? I do want to move onto something else’ halfway through will get less than 5 stars from me.
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