in reality, i hate to rain on somebody's parade, and since a lot of people truly love this drama, i apologize, but what must be said must be said.
i can not relate to this drama but from a truly split personality perspective, since it has the "good, the bad, the ugly" and more. all that the other viewers write about it is mostly true - mind-bogglingly beautiful scenery (the scene where ae-shin is walking with eugine on the icy lake takes your breath away and will stay with you forever etched in your visual and emotional library, whether it's in your brain or in your heart, and the entire story is kind of symbolic of walking on thin ice at all times), in general the choice of sites in the drama can be used for tourism in korea - guaranteed to work even today, the cinematography is up there with the most outstanding dramas and/or movies from all times, the characters especially the main 3 males and the female hotel owner hina are extremely multidimensional, like it is in real life and their continuous development is very satisfying, the acting of all actors is as good as it gets, especially lee byung-hun as eugene choi (i first saw this actor in "all in" while i was chasing after ji sung, and discovered lee byung-hun, and the rest was history... his charisma, his manly charm, his superb acting, his ability to go from extreme toughness to extreme softness - he was raised to my top best korean actors from that moment on) and he does not disappoint in "mr. sunshine", he stays true to himself as an artist, as always gives it his all, and shines with unmistakable inner beauty. one more thing that i noticed, when he gazes at ae-shin or even other people, he slowly blinks just one time, and the blink is like a cat that blinks to his/hers owner expressing love, it's really special, if you know cats. the other actress that i enjoyed very much is of course the adorable, mysterious, badass kim min-jung as kudo hina, she truly kept me on my toes, with her non-ending french designers dresses, hats, jewelry, her quirky intelligence and female intuition, her courage, her undeniable charm. these two characters or i should say actors kept me wanting to see more and more of them, even when i wanted to just leave this show many times throughout, the slow paste of it drove me crazy, the lengthy looking in each others eyes for minutes at a time without any movement or action - i wanted to scream enough already, we get the idea, we are not dumb... the heart breaking good byes between ae-shin and eugen, too many, not justified and always coming back together just to say good bye again - really? some other things that annoyed me to no end i will mention later here... the other two characters that is worth mentioning is yoo yeon-seok as goo dong-mae, perfectly cast in this role, so strong, gorgeous looking, evil, always with endless pain bubbling to the surface, always staying a step ahead of death, and byun yo-han as kim hee- sung, the typical spoiled rich brat, always gambling, loosing and drinking on the account of others. both of these characters, one was born in the lowest class of that society, the other was a son of the richest aristocrats in this area. dong-mae like a ticking bomb on the verge of exploding and taking down all around him no matter how, who or what. kim hee-sung, the aristocrat, who loves all things beautiful, easy going, trying to charm everybody no matter who, making a joke out of any situation. frankly, i did not like these two all the way till the last third of the drama, and then they kind of woke up, tapped into their own morals, grew on me and developed into characters that slowly charmed my heart and i got deeply invested in them all, only to be devastated at the brutal end. the question for me, was it worth spending so many annoying hours of this drama, to finally get to the last third part and especially the last 5 episodes, to finally get so emotionally attached to this characters only to be completely heart broken at the end? i truly did not answer that question yet. and now the most baffling part of this drama - the main female character, ae-shin. i think her character was completely screwed up by the writers, she was the only one one- dimensional as it can be. yes, they wanted to show her burning patriotism for her country and cause, but they deprived her of humanity. wasn't she a physical body like all of us? didn't she have emotions that a woman would express through some kind of affection to the love or her life? the one who gave up ALL that he had in this world for her, his adopted country that he was so proud of, his military career that he loved, his best friend, and finally his own life in exchange of hers. (by the way, eugene choi succeeded somehow to express his love without touching her ever, but it felt like he was stopped by her inner desire to avoid any physicalness) and at all times, there was not a single hug, kiss or any other form of expressing love. how on earth can that be? even when they got married, no hug, no kiss - nothing. and i understand the writers or directors idea of showing extreme patriotism above all, but show at least something... something that would move us and make us believe that she really loves. that was my greatest disappointment and the biggest flaw of this drama. and last but not least i wanted to mention the politics in this drama, that was supposed to be kind of the background to anything else, but took over and became the major part of it. although interesting in terms of korean history (and made me truly hate the japanese cruelty), it was too much of it and became simply boring many times. now that you know "the good, the bad and the ugly" you decide if this drama is for you, if you can tough out to the third part of the drama.