Mostly good

Honestly, the drama should have ended after 12 episodes, after Min Hwan and Soo Min got married. That seemed to be the logical conclusion to the main plot of revenge and second chances. Instead, we got new characters and convoluted plotlines for the next 4 episodes involving an evil ex-fience and greedy parents. Those elements were completely unnecessary and felt very forced just to stretch the story until the last episode.

The acting was mostly good. The villains were very convincing. But I was not so sure about Ji Hyuk. I liked Na In Woo in River Where the Moon Rises, but aloof characters just don't work. Even the most stiff-looking character needs a personality and he cannot fully hide emotions. Ji Hyuk was uninteresting most of the time and that affected his chemistry with Ji Won. The kissing was hot, but everything else in between was kind of bland.

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Fun!

So fun! This drama manages to cleverly mix comedy with an actual plot involving conspiracy, murder, and corruption.

All the good characters are likable. All the villains are deplorable. ML and FL have really good romantic chemistry and are so much fun together. I normally don't like love triangles, but I didn't mind this one because it didn't drag out the romantic tension too much and settled who was going to be the endgame couple relatively fast.

Even though the drama was short with only 12 episodes, the pacing was good and the story wrapped up nicely. The acting was awesome. Kim Young Dae and Park Ju Hyun are both really good actors and have amazing onscreen chemistry.

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Started out so well

The drama had a lot of positives: good acting, compelling plot, romantic chemistry, and a complete lack of cliche tropes which I really appreciated. But, convoluted plotlines really brought the quality down.

ML went through a very intense character development starting as a clumsy and goofy mountain man and graduating to a giga-Chad "God of War". Na Im Woo playing Dal really helped in developing the character. He is probably the biggest man I've ever seen in Asian drama, so it was completely fitting for him to play an unbreakable warrior. Writers did a great job at flushing out Dal's motivations for fighting. Being a pacifist, he stayed away from conflict. But falling in love gave him something to protect. Him calling Ga Jin his "country" was very meaningful and it showed that she was the center of his universe and everything he did he did for her.

While the drama had really good characterization and good romantic chemistry, the plot gradually became very convoluted with more plotlines than it could handle. The story started out as a political drama where ML helped FL fight political corruption and an uprising against her family. This should've been the only plot line because there was plenty of story to work with. Unfortunately, the plot got entangled with additional characters and storylines involving outside forces that had nothing to do with the main plot, the assassin's sect and another country, none of which had anything in common with the main story. The writers tried to tie it all together, but it wasn't really convincing. The assassin's motivation for revenge was the murder of his family. But the writers didn't develop the character enough for us to care. There was one flashback of his family dying and that's it. Other than that, he was just a plot device for the main characters to act and drive the main plot forward without getting any meaningful development of his own.

The writers also seemed to be confused about Dal's character direction. His personality went full circle back to pacifism because the writers unnecessarily created too much conflict that involved unnecessary fighting. Fighting was his own decision to protect the woman he loved, which was enough to resolve his internal conflict between staying peaceful and fighting for love. Some reviews here put the blame on the princess who fixated too much on the country's problems and disregarded Dal's feelings. I cannot agree with that. Ga Jin was the princess who had the weight of the world on her shoulders and a warrior trying to protect the country and her royal family against assassination attempts and a political revolt. She did not have the luxury to worry about feelings, even when it came to Dal. Dal just worried about Ga Jin and followed her. Creating an additional arc about his feelings and just have him leave went completely against everything he worked for. Ga Jin was his entire world. He lived for her. The way he was originally written, he would've never left her.

And then the ending... **SPOILERS**

Honestly, it would've been better if Dal died in battle. Even his "death" scene was underwhelming - getting randomly ambushed after the war ended and pretending to die by getting into suspended animation so he could disappear from civilization. What were the writers thinking? Why couldn't Dal and Ga Jin just retire from war and live a peaceful life. All of these unnecessary and far fetched story lines really cheapened the plot and made me not care about the characters. If the writers stuck to the original plot involving political intrigue, the show would've been so much more interesting. Moreover, the last few episodes introduced a completely new storyline which did not even fit into the original plot. I didn't want to drop the drama because I was so close to the end, but I couldn't wait for it to end.

Overall, I really loved the drama even with all of the unnecessary plotlines, but the ending just completely disappointed me.

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Great drama

This has got to be one of my favorite historical dramas.

The story started out resembling Gone with the Wind. FL is a beautiful and spoiled noble woman who has a slew of young men pining after her and who loves attention, and who happens to idolize her childhood friend. ML is a mysterious older man who doesn't put up with her shenanigans and tells her how it is. Everyone enjoys a carefree life until the war breaks out. This is where the drama starts to get really interesting. FL is forced to flee her home and survive against the enemy onslaught and we get to find out that there is more to ML than we originally thought. The drama does a great job switching gears to a more serious and intense tone showing what people, especially women, had to do to survive and the absolute gender disparity between the sexes. On top of that, FL is forced to undergo some very intense character development and transitioned from a spoiled young brat to a serious, dependable, empathetic young woman with a strong sense of responsibility.

The first part is not so much about romance, but survival and building a bond. ML and FL did not spend very much time together, but the few moments together were very meaningful where he had to save her life allowing her to see him differently in a more positive way. Moreover, he didn't allow her to be spoiled with him and made her think, making their dynamic completely different from her relationship with other men around her.

The message here is that a person cannot be stuck in perpetual childhood and will eventually have to grow up either by virtue of life's circumstances or if they want to be taken seriously, as Jang Hyun told Gil Chae.

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Decent drama

The drama was mostly enjoyable, although the slow-burn romance between ML and FL started to get really painful by episode 30. After being married for two years, they still had no sex, slept in separate beds, and had very PC tropey interactions where the female repelled from the male as soon as he came near her. That could've been flushed out a lot better without taking 30+ episodes for them to finally confess and consummate, when it was evident much earlier that they had feelings for each other.

Some of the story lines were very cliche but in reverse. If there was any miscommunication or a misunderstanding, it was all planned. Every cliche trope was a scheme between Shiyi and Co., which wasn't very clever or original. It felt more like a cope out from making an effort to create something meaningful. The writers recycled old tropes backwards in a gotcha way with lots of flashbacks to show what really went on, instead of coming up with something original.

I did like the nature of Shiyi's and Linyi's relationship being based on mutual trust and respect, instead of following the same old cliches where someone felt wronged or betrayed due to an asinine misunderstanding, and then we were back to square one.

MIL was unbearable throughout the entire show - a pompous, shallow, narrow-minded geriatric moron who only fully started to appreciate Shiyi when she was about to get executed, which was a lazy way to completely avoid holding any character responsible for their wrongdoing. I would've much rather preferred MIL being poisoned or "accidently" falling down the stairs. She was just terrible. And, the biggest letdown was how the story treated Ou Yanxing, who was the nicest character. He was treated completely unfairly - banished forever because of the actions of his stupid relatives.

Although, the drama had a happy ending, it didn't really feel happy. ML was a terrible and negligent husband and a grown man completely unable to make his own decisions in everyday life, although he was a military hero. He was also incapable of standing up to his mother and let her get away with some very terrible schit, just because she was an elder. I didn't buy the filial piety trope. Mommy dearest wasn't just a moron, she was a cruel moron who punished Shiyi without any evidence while always reminding her that she was the "matron" of the house. A matron with no power but all the responsibility. Because of Lingyi's callousness and negligence, a lot of women suffered, which made me wonder why we should cheer for him and Shiyi at all when their relationship was built on the backs and tears of other women. It was rather convenient to banish one concubine, poison another, and send the last one away to live with her son. The Ming dynasty was a nightmare for women.

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A decent medical drama with lukewarm romance

I liked the medical aspect of the drama involving figuring out difficult diagnoses and treating patients. It was also interesting how doctors resolved the moral dilemma between saving lives and ensuring the quality of care for terminally ill patients, and, the moral implications of voluntary euthanasia.

I didn't really care for FL and found her a bit boring. At the beginning, she had her own story and trauma, which made her interesting. Later on, her arc was forgotten and she just obsessed over Dr. Cha's diagnosis involving a lot of overacted crying on her part. This was a bit disappointing because trauma was what allowed FL and ML to form a bond. Overcoming their issues together would've been an interesting character and plot development. The romance was also a bit underwhelming. After FL confessed, the story was left at that as the plot centered around Dr. Cha's illness until the romance arc was nicely wrapped up at the end in a feel-good way. I do like happy endings.

I did like the resolution to the Dr. Cha's/prosecutor's/nurse's arc relating to the murder of their children and the resentment from Dr. Cha's mercy killing of the suspect. We had a very genuine apology, a heart-to-heart conversation, healing, and moving on. I also liked that Dr. Cha helped with the prosecutor's cancer which allowed them to actually become friends at the end. This story left me feelings really good and hopeful that even the worst of tragedies can be overcome with forgiveness, acceptance, and moving forward.

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Good drama

It was a solid drama with some flaws. It took place over several lifetimes and told a love story between Ye Hua and Bai Qian. The first arc between Sin Yi and Mo Yuan was a little boring. Nothing exciting happened. She became his disciple and trained with him. It was evident that they were close but there was no romance between them. The romance was actually between her and Li Jing who cheated on her and broke her heart.

The saddest arc was between Susu and Ye Hua. Susu was a mortal who was dragged into the heaven realm while pregnant where she was abused, blinded, and then jumped to her death. That scene was very well done and conveyed the hopelessness and heartbreak that the characters felt. It was probably the highlight of the entire show.

The arc between Bai Qian and Ye Hua was sometimes frustrating. Bai Qian was the nine-tailed fox goddess. Nine-tailed goddesses take the form of beautiful and seductive women. Bai Qian was a beautiful woman but she was anything but a seductress. She was actually quite obtuse when it came to matters of the heart, which went completely against whom she was supposed to be. Her interactions with Ye Hua were often awkward. He was very handsy and pushy with her. She looked uncomfortable. Those scenes could have been filmed better with less awkwardness and a little more tact from Ye Hua. I did like their sexual chemistry. It was refreshing to see kisses between adults not looking like toddlers pecking each other on the lips.

The show could have developed Bai Qian's character a bit more where she came into her own as a goddess. She didn't really do much besides sleeping on tree branches and drinking wine. She was a high goddess and answered to no-one. Even the heaven emperor respected her. The only time when she showed any backbone was when she confronted Su Jin. It was a very satisfying scene watching Su Jin getting her comeuppance.

I didn't care about most secondary characters. Li Jing pining after Bai Qian for tens of thousands of years, while ignoring his wife, was very boring. I didn't care about his sister either or anything that was going on in the ghost realm. Even though it was a long drama with almost 60 episodes, there were way too many characters who brought little value to the plot.

Overall, it's a good drama and I watched it twice.

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It's ok

This show should really be taken with a grain of salt. It is funny and it doesn't take itself seriously. That's why it is so ridiculous.

One thing that I didn't like about it was that it didn't stay consistent with the genre. It's a romantic comedy. Therefore, it should be light and upbeat. General Jin Fu's sister dying was completely unexpected and unnecessary. There should've been another way to find out that the wedding dress was poisoned without breaking out of the genre. Unfortunately, this happens a lot in Asian dramas. They often mix comedy, tragedy, and drama into a muddy mess.

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Dumb

The legal show deals with some very serious issues like sexual harassment, bullying, and child abuse, but the drama can't figure out whether it is a romantic comedy or a legal drama with romance.

As a lawyer, Yuri acted like a hysterical and unbalanced teenager who threw temper tantrums and started physical fights. She was supposed to be a strong woman, but she acted like a screeching hyena yelling every time she was faced with adversity. Every episode was filled with her yelling at something or at someone. And, OMG, her overacted crying was like watching a 5 y/o throwing a tantrum in a toy store.

The constant yelling was so annoying that it was hard to take her or the show seriously. Did the writers honestly think it was an appropriate way to portray a strong female character? And it wasn't just Yuri who behaved like that, Jeong Ho did the same. Both of them spent the majority of their time bickering about some stupid crap, yelling, and cursing. Everyone's behavior was rude and tacky, making the characters annoying and unlikable.

It wasn't only the constant screaming, the writers purposely put the characters into situations where they acted ridiculously. In episode 8, Yuri unintentionally ate a bunch of marijuana rice cakes and behaved like a clown. So now, we had characters who perpetually acted stupid in a story about lawyers. Oh boy.

Finally, the show would've been more believable if Yuri opened her own practice and got Jeong Ho to work with her, them being childhood friends at all. Running a coffee shop while doing legal work, and presumably not getting paid, was a pretty silly plot idea. A hard pass.

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Nope

Honestly, I didn't expect much from this adaptation because the plot of Hana Yori Dango (HYD) is quite awful. Yes, it is a beloved classic, but it can't get away from its very horrible storylines - normalization of bullying and abuse of power, entitlement, abusive male lead, toxic relationships, betrayal, flaky female lead, absent parents, abandoned children. A re-make means recycling these terrible storylines because they make up the main plot.

One of my biggest gripes with HYD is that the F4 are portrayed as rich and popular boys who are good at everything, except they don't do anything to be good at everything. This show did a very good job at showing them wasting time not going to class, bullying their classmates, partying, and drinking alcohol all the damn time. I would think a modern adaptation would flush out this plotline to show them participating in some activities to make their talents more believable and to give them some goddamn personalities. When Domyoji /Thyme is not a psychotic bully, he obsesses over Makino/Gorya making her want to get away from him.

To make up for the lack of character development, the actors overacted the characters' feelings making the scenes look very forced. There was very little motivation behind their actions and everything looked thrown together just to move the story forward. Thyme's mother had a lot of screen time, but the writers didn't give her any personality. In the original, she was already very cold. Here, she was a female terminator in pursuit of some mythical "perfection" while treating her children as stepping stones to achieve that perfection. Some plot lines were not in chronological order, and I quit the show as soon as the fiance showed up. I hated that storyline anyway.

Gorya and Thyme spent most of their time yelling at each other and having no romantic chemistry. Watching them together quickly became a chore. The cheating kissing scene with Ren was turned into an awkward hugging scene which wasn't properly resolved. And, the acting altogether was quite terrible. I did like that Gorya's parents were tolerable and not as stupidly annoying as in the original.

Overall, this show was just another awkward attempt at resurrecting an old skeleton that should stay buried.

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Boring

I decided to give it a shot because I couldn't find the Korean version anywhere.

The story starts out pretty well. FL goes through a dramatic character development starting out as an immature young girl and becomes an empathetic, thoughtful, and spirited young lady. However, the drama has way too many characters to keep track of. I didn't care for most of the princes. They seemed more like place holders to make Ruoxi look good, rather than serving an actual purpose.

The romance was very long winded and took forever to develop. We didn't need 15 episodes of Ruoxi/8th prince because that wasn't going to work out anyways, followed by episodes upon episodes of Ruoxi and the 4th prince pining after each other without any movement on that story line. The last 15 episodes were unbelievably boring. There wasn't much political intrigue or romance either. People were just talking, reminiscing, and pining after each other. Even though the drama only has 35 episodes, it could've been wrapped up with a much better pacing a lot sooner.

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Meh

The show started out pretty good. I liked the different dynamics between FL and all three males staying at the inn. Each of the three men was different and brought something unique to the story. I also liked that the show did not fixate on angsty and long-winded love triangles. It was evident from the 1st episode with whom she will end up with and she had all the romantic scenes with him. However, even with all the tropey moments, their chemistry was still lacking and they spent most of the time just talking and hanging out. I wanted to see more.

Unfortunately, the story fizzled out pretty quickly. Each episode became a chore to watch. Nothing was really happening and the mystery was gone. I am less than half-way done and the show is already pretty boring with not enough story to keep me entertained.

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Toxic dumpster-fire of a love story that needs to be burnt with pure glass fire

STORY AND CHARACTERS
The show just wasn't that great. The story dragged on for 60 episodes with unnecessarily long story arcs that could've been cut down to one or two episodes. It took fifteen episodes to reveal who Jin Mi was. The girl had no character development. Her one talent was to inadvertently get the two most eligible bachelors to pine after her. This is such a stupid trope because it is completely undeserved.

One of the creepiest things was everyone going along with Jinmi getting engaged to Runyu. She was a child in a woman's body who didn't know the difference between friendship and romantic love. Everyone knew she was a moron but they still went along with her agreeing to the engagement, even though they should have known she had no idea what she was agreeing to. The fact that the flower realm raised her to be a blissful idiot was extremely shortsighted too. Jinmi was supposed to be protected from any future heartbreak, but she was given no tools to be able to protect herself from it. Everything and everyone was stupid.

The mortal arc unnecessarily dragged on for 10+ episodes. The whole point of it should have been to move the character development forward and to show that no matter how much Jin Mi and Xu Feng were separated, they would always find their way back to each other. Everything else was irrelevant. We didn't need to see the drama inside the mortal lives of immortals who were going back to being immortal in just a few episodes.

The chemistry between Jinmi and Xufeng was very stale. Watching them together was as exciting as watching the paint dry. Jinmi was pretty, but she wasn't particularly bright and there was nothing special about her. She didn't even know what gender she was at the beginning. Their kisses resembled toddlers pecking each other on the lips. Everything was dry and passionless.

After the mortal arc, the only thing left to look forward to was the emperor and empress getting their comeuppance. But the cringe didn't end there. The biggest problem with the writing was that good characters did very awful things, nobody held them accountable, and the story never addressed their bad behavior. We were supposed to just ignore it and continue cheering for team Jinmi/Xufeng. A perfect example was Xufeng getting into Jinmi's pants. I didn't fault them for falling in love. But I found it reprehensible that Xufeng did not wait for Jinmi to break her engagement with Runyu before sleeping with her. She was still a moron. But he reached a whole new level of awfulness for treating his brother that way. By doing this, Xufeng showed that he was just as immoral, callous, selfish, and entitled as his crappy parents.

On the other hand, the writers went out of their way to demonize Runyu and to portray him as a villain. All of the characters who sided with Runyu and complained about how awful the heaven was suddenly decided to abandon him after he deposed the emperor. The writers never explained why. Characters just randomly decided that they wanted to go a different way. This made them look very cowardly and cynical. Meanwhile, everyone kept cheering for Xufeng, who was written as the golden boy who could do no wrong.. He also seemed to forget that he was a prince with responsibilities. Chasing after Jinmi was all he cared about.

In episode 45, Jinmi finally realized that she was in love with Xufeng. But, really, who cares at this point? I was honestly fed up with their bs. They did Runyu dirty repeatedly and nobody held either of them accountable. Instead, everyone judged Runyu and held him to some arbitrary moral standard when he did nothing wrong. Jinmi ended up marrying him for no good reason, even though she was told she didn't have to. Runyu still kept holding on to her even after she ran off to find Xufeng. "But what about our marriage?" Seriously? I sympathized with Runyu a lot but him still trying to hold on to her knowing she was fully committed to his brother was an idiotic plot development. He should've let her go as soon as he found out she slept with Xufeng.

The drama has a terrible message. Deposing callous and self-serving tyrants is bad. But, acting without honor and a sense of duty is ok. Also, blind favoritism, betraying family members, abandoning friends, and breaking promises is acceptable and even encouraged. By episode 47, I was done. I knew that Jinmi and Xufeng were going to end up together, but I couldn't fathom why. His family killed her family and she stabbed him in the back for thinking he killed her father. They crossed the point of no return so many times. Their relationship was based on betraying those closest to them, abandoning their duties, and having no faith in each other. What kind of values are these and why were we supposed to root for them?

ACTING
The acting by the two main leads was mediocre. Xufeng always had a blank look when he was pouring his heart out to Jinmi. If he was telling her what he ate for breakfast that morning, we wouldn't know the difference. His expression conveyed no emotion of love, despair, confusion, or heartbreak. It was an awful performance, just like most of his acting throughout the drama. Yang Zi's portrayal of Jinmi wasn't good either. She had no personality.

Luo Yunxi delivered a solid and sympathetic performance as Runyu. He is very good at playing tragic characters. I thought his performance in this drama was better than in Till the End of the Moon. And Kathy Chow was fire as the Queen B---ch. RIP

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Mediocre

I started watching this drama because it received such high praise and I don't understand why.

FL was incredibly boring and one dimensional. She had no spark or personality and only had one pained expression in every scene. The males were intense, angsty, and spent a lot of time pressuring FL and yelling at her.

What I found annoying was the constant rotation of men around FL. In many scenes, after Lee Hwon left, Yang Myung immediately appeared out of nowhere to beg FL to love him, and it was happening in the most random locations. The writers did not put a lot of thought into creating a believable organic story. They just wrote random scenes forcing FL and the two competing love interests to interact with each other. And, Yang Myung was one of the most pointless characters in the story. He had a lot of scenes being chased by some people without any explanation why. He was just there to create an artificial love triangle and nothing else.

The romance also did not feel believable. I could understand why Lee Hwon was in love with her, because they were engaged at some point, had meaningful scenes, and spent time together. With Yang Myung, it was completely arbitrary. He barely knew her, did not spent much time with her, but kept pining after her for eight years.

Overall, if you like angsty men yelling at women and forcing them to do things, this may be it for you. For be it was a hard pass.

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Fanservice disguised as historical drama

This drama should really be taken for what it is - fan service. All the effort was spent into casting idol actors to attract a certain fanbase of adolescent girls and nothing else. There is no coherent plot, just pretty boys running around with fancy hair and lip gloss looking like they belong in an 80s glam rock band.

Romance was a tropey mess. Dude momentarily gains consciousness just to kiss the girl after hearing her confession, then loses consciousness again. Puhlease. The characters were kind of shallow and didn't really have much development. Even if the focus was on fanservice, the writers could've done something with the plot. Instead, we had convoluted storylines that didn't make sense. The queen wouldn't give up the throne to her son and kept hiding his identity to supposedly protect him, instead of putting him on the throne and helping him secure it. Not to mention, there was this lame conspiracy plotline and the queen's self-serving motivations for the sake of pretending there was a plot. The Hwarang were supposed to be the king's guard, but they spent most of their time bickering and doing song and dance. Only towards the end, somebody started doing something interesting. And don't even get me started on the incest plot where the queen wanted to marry her son the king to her daughter the princess because of some "sacred bone" tradition. I understand this is a fake historical drama, but seriously. And, OMFG, Sam Maek Jong's CONSTANT whining about how weak he was as the king during the entirety of the show - while he was in hiding, after he became Hwarang, after he officially became king, every freaken time he was faced with adversity he bitched and moaned about being incompetent.

The OST was pretty underwhelming. The same song with a female singer was playing in most episodes during romantic/angsty scenes as if it was on a loop. Production and acting were ok. I thought Park Seo Joon and Park Hyung Sik did a good job. Seo Yea Ji had the easiest acting gig as the princess, she looked constipated with the same expression in every scene. Ah Ro was forgettable and weak. She never stood up for herself and allowed everyone to make decisions for her and did whatever she was told. Her bland chemistry with Sun Woo did not justify any of their romantic angst.

All the side characters with their stories and romance would've been interesting if the writers took the drama a little more seriously and wrote an actual plot and character development. I ended up skipping most scenes from episode 13 onward because there was no interest in anything other than the three main characters. I don't think I missed much.

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