teomin
Highly recommend to watch Jeong Do Jeon 2014 before watching this drama even though it was released 5 years later than this drama but it is a prequel and provide more back story and context to this show.
What I like:
The story for most part is very well written, most the episodes are intense and engaging. The characters are complex and multidimensional, you know each (whether it is main or side) character's motivation and personalities through their actions (for most part, I'll talk about further why I had some problem with the characters as well). The story cause me to think about my own life, without getting into spoilers, I think the show has a lot to do with power, our perception of power, especially as human how we view ourselves, how we should be treated like what we think we deserve, it is very interesting to see all the characters struggle for power.
Acting here are excellent all around whether it is main or side characters, children or teenage or adult actors I sometimes forget they are acting, whether it's emotional scenes or scenes whereby characters are talking to each other.
Music is beautiful in my option and fits well into the scenes.
The problems I had:
I think the biggest problem for me is the focus on the main character and side characters are not very well balanced, the side characters' stories while interesting they take up a lot of screen time as compared to the main character King Sejong, his name is the title of this show and he only appears 40-50% of the screen time most of the episodes while the rest of the screen time are side characters. I feel there are parts of story missing such as certain characters just disappeared from the show without explanation. The last quarter (70+ to end) wasn't as strong as the rest of the show, I find the characters keep repeating themselves, complex characters suddenly become one-note. The last episode also felt abruptly ended. There are some episodes that has its tropes and melodrama.
For the acting, I find the actor playing Jang Yeong Shil is kind of wooden at times, the character's romance also felt forced and the couple has no chemistry with each other.
Overall I would recommend to those who are into political thriller, concern with good storytelling, good dialogue and like to see faithful adaptation to the real history.
What I like:
The story for most part is very well written, most the episodes are intense and engaging. The characters are complex and multidimensional, you know each (whether it is main or side) character's motivation and personalities through their actions (for most part, I'll talk about further why I had some problem with the characters as well). The story cause me to think about my own life, without getting into spoilers, I think the show has a lot to do with power, our perception of power, especially as human how we view ourselves, how we should be treated like what we think we deserve, it is very interesting to see all the characters struggle for power.
Acting here are excellent all around whether it is main or side characters, children or teenage or adult actors I sometimes forget they are acting, whether it's emotional scenes or scenes whereby characters are talking to each other.
Music is beautiful in my option and fits well into the scenes.
The problems I had:
I think the biggest problem for me is the focus on the main character and side characters are not very well balanced, the side characters' stories while interesting they take up a lot of screen time as compared to the main character King Sejong, his name is the title of this show and he only appears 40-50% of the screen time most of the episodes while the rest of the screen time are side characters. I feel there are parts of story missing such as certain characters just disappeared from the show without explanation. The last quarter (70+ to end) wasn't as strong as the rest of the show, I find the characters keep repeating themselves, complex characters suddenly become one-note. The last episode also felt abruptly ended. There are some episodes that has its tropes and melodrama.
For the acting, I find the actor playing Jang Yeong Shil is kind of wooden at times, the character's romance also felt forced and the couple has no chemistry with each other.
Overall I would recommend to those who are into political thriller, concern with good storytelling, good dialogue and like to see faithful adaptation to the real history.
Was this review helpful to you?
