Why is this show so popular?! It was trash; basically. I'm not trying to be cruel, it was just a very badly made melodrama. I would have dropped this but I watched it with my mother and for some inexplicable reason, she was obsessed with watching this to the end even while complaining that the show is terrible...so we watched it, all the way to the end. I think maybe part of the issue is that this show is just very old and from a time when Kdramas didn't always try to be good. But this was just so cheesy! And it wasn't like Moon Lovers, that show is so obviously cringe, I mean the first time we meet the princes they're bathing! That show was so unserious and in your face with its awfulness that it was fun to watch it but this show was almost good! There are so many strong actors, the plot is serious, and it's like it's trying to be taken seriously but it falls short, my god it falls very short!
So first off, the plot here is convoluted but also underdeveloped, with a bit of tweaking this could have been so much more interesting. How? Some mystery would've been nice! The audience knows every single mystery of the plot the whole time (minus the one in episode 19 but by that point, you know these characters so well you will never fall for the plot's tricks.) So basically if we knew a bit less, it would have been so much less tedious to watch characters find out about stuff 10 episodes late. Secondly, this romance had less substance than cheese puffs! Why are these characters in love? Meeting twice and having three interesting conversations is a good build-up but it was just not enough for the epic romance this was set up to be. Also, the plot seems to have given up on using brain cells the moment the characters reached adulthood. The childhood era was actually nice, it tricked us into thinking the show is good. But then, everyone is suddenly dumb as an adult, especially the female lead who was so sharp and intelligent as a child. I get that that's what the amnesia plotline does to any respectable woman so I guess I just hate amnesia plots then. ._. And that's the other thing, the female lead is so passive. The literal moon that is in the sky and is shown, frankly too frequently, was more proactive in this plot than her. In fact, despite being the female lead, she barely has any role throughout the story. She's just there for everyone else to act around! Then there's the fact that events have no consequence as long as the female lead is involved. In fact, a major issue is how hard the show bends logic to protect the female lead's protagonist's halo. It's so frustrating. It was all so frustrating. I was either falling asleep from boredom or rolling my eyes from frustration while watching this.
So the casting...it's really good?! But why is everyone behaving so weird?! I don't know why but these really class actors were delivering absolutely no emotional impact. I could not care less about these characters and the acting made me so uncomfortable, everyone was so cheesy. I only liked Jung Il Woo, he was surprisingly a very strong actor and seemed a bit wasted here. The female lead was a nightmare and I bet Kdramaland unanimously sighed in relief when she married and gave up acting 'cause YIKES! what is that?! It was like she was allergic to expressions and having a personality...though the second one is probably the writer's fault! Everyone else was over acting. I like Fl's mom though. She was in Jewel in the Palace and I just like this woman a lot and her crying scenes were the only emotionally touching ones.
Music....do not even ask...
Production was terrible too but that should go without saying.
And I will not rewatch this, I barely wanted to watch it!
Overall: So many shows are popular on this website for no logical reason! Maybe they made sense 15 years ago, barely any of them hold up now. And I know there are good old shows but none of them are as popular as the bad ones! At least, so far in my experience. I'm gonna watch Goblin and hope for the best...