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Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo korean drama review
Completed
Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo
8 people found this review helpful
by manicmuse
Nov 18, 2016
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
If you came from the future and told me how I would rate this drama I would have never believed you. I was obsessed in the beginning. I thought this story about getting sucked into the past was intriguing. I actually liked the female lead, and loved the dynamic between all the Princes. Once the 4th Prince came into the picture I was convinced that this would be one of the most exciting sageuks I've seen so far... now that I finally finished I am not so impressed. First, I have very mixed feeling about the lead. I actually liked her in the beginning, but slowly she started to annoy me, and then her character stopped making sense at all. IU was great when if came to flirting with and challenging all the Princes, but once the role became more serious, her acting seemed more and more lacking. Then add to that the fact that the character's actions made no sense, and I could no longer stand her, or her visions. She was a very frustrating character to try to root for. To me, the real stars are two of the Princes, Prince Hottie (#8) Kang Ha Neul, and Prince Bad@ss (#4) Lee Joon Gi. They are the ones who kept me watching. They were definitely the most complicated of all the characters, and they both had great chemistry with IU in the beginning. Unfortunately, as the story progressed they both went from being complicated characters I could empathize with, to characters that were very hard to defend or like. I know in some ways that this is a tragedy, but leaving me with only characters I don't like left to root for makes it hard to want to keep watching. There were also some good villain characters, which I can appreciate. One of the worst mom's in the history of dramas, the worst sister, the worst father, and of course the worst brother (or two, or three...), but once almost everyone left seemed to be evil, the villains were a lot less fun to hate. I just started to dislike everyone instead. That brings me to the story. There were so many characters, and some really great dramatic stories to follow, with a great supporting cast to make it all work. The problem is that after building up each story, where it eventually all lead to was very disappointing. The way characters suddenly completely switched personalities made no sense. The main romances started to feel forced and fake. The tragedy aspect of the story started to get extreme, almost like they threw every terrible thing they could think of in... with even the cute romantic scenes starting to seem rapey. Still I was more frustrated than sad, and also totally confused. The conclusion, and why she was there in the first place seemed thrown together, and I felt cheated. Many of the supporting characters had better plots, and stronger performances, than the lead. It almost seems like a waste of a great ensemble cast. One good thing was that the soundtrack was good, with a few songs being worthy of my KDrama OST playlist. Would I watch this again? Probably not, but part of me still remembers what I loved in the beginning, which may be worth revisiting. However, 20 episodes did feel way too long once the story started to fall apart. If I could go back in time I would probably tell myself to watch it again, but with lower expectations, and maybe skipping through most of the last few episodes. Overall, this is a hard one to recommend unless you are a true sageuk fan, or a fangirl for any of the Princes. Part of me is curious to see what the Chinese version is like, but I doubt I will ever watch it. This was my first time watching 2 on air sageuks, and If I had to choose the best one with "moon" in the title, this one wouldn't be it.
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