Night Watchman's Journal (2014)

I enjoy fantasy and historical dramas. Nightwatchman's Journal is not a masterpiece nor is it trash. Let me begin with the bad points. The drama was repetitive, but the repetition was necessary for the growth of the team.
The plot of the drama is simple. Good versus evil. Good wins.
Drama made several attempts to show the imperfections of the world such as mental illness, political greed, misusing tax money, misdirected love, and doubt. The drama ended answering a few of the imperfections.
Acting
The good points are the performance by the Kim Heung Soo and Ko Sung Hee. King Heung Soo played King Rin. His performance was exceptional. He stole every scene he was in. Now So Kung Hee played Do Ha. She was so convincing that over 90% of the viewers completely forgot she was illiterate and from the mountains.
I would rewatched this drama simply because I enjoy fantasy dramas.

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This was kind of hard for me to rate. For all the interesting and exciting parts there were just as many boring and lame parts. The story is good, but the execution is lacking. It is total fantasy with a little politics and romance thrown in. Part of the issue may be that the production spent so much money on special effects that there was none left for the set. Anyway, on to the acting.

I found myself routing for the "bad" guy. I couldn't help it. Kim Sung Oh was the best actor in the entire drama. He has more charisma in his pinky than all of the other actors combined. His portrayal of Sadam is excellent. I'm a fan of Jung Il Woo and he does fine as Rin. There was just something missing. I think it is because there was a lack of chemistry between him and the other actors. I don't know who Kim Sung Oh is, but she is a sucky actress. It is part story line and partly her acting as Do Ha. I could have cared less about what happened to her by the end. She should be ashamed that Yunho (who is a mediocre actor at best) had more chemistry with the prince than she did with either of them. The rest of the actors are fine. Oh but the crazy girl, Soo Ryeon, played by See Ye Ji also was just horrible. Do these actresses really think the same expression is good for every emotion? They just widen their eyes a little and they think that is enough. Blah. I only gave the acting a higher score because of Kim Sung Oh.

The music is annoying at times. For crying out loud...if they are going to sing English words then they should make sense.

I will never rewatch this.

I don't recommend this drama. It isn't horrible, but it isn't the greatest either. Watch at your own risk.

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I was utterly disappointed by The Night Watchman. This drama received a decent amount of hype before it started airing, and I was drawn to watch it upon seeing still shots. As a person who kept up with weekly releases, I must say that a huge portion of the drama dragged. What makes me dislike this drama is that they threw a bunch of conflicting motives to try and increase plot tension, but I felt that it only deepened the hole they dug themselves due to pacing. In my opinion, if the drama were shortened to 16 or maybe 18 episodes, I would be a little more at ease with the story and its pacing, but that isn't the case. The concept of the story has been done before, but it isn't a bad concept. What makes it a downer is the sub-par execution. With that being said, in the spots where momentum kicks up a notch, this drama does a great job of holding attention (especially in the finale week), but these momentum spikes/increases didn't happen enough.

In terms of acting and cast, I knew no one coming into the drama, but I managed to connect myself with the cast. Casting, in my opinion, was good, but acting consistency severely hurt this crew. Each cast member had long strides of weak performances, from not believable expressions to lack of enthusiasm, but then they had nice spurts of above average acting. This acting/cast portion of rating is sort of a mixed bag of emotions for me, but it definitely isn't as bad as I've seen a lot of people saying it is (nor is it as great as others have said, either).

Music throughout the drama was standard. I heard tracks replayed often and that goes for the BGM as well. While the OST was standard and not much stood out to me, the BGM was very fitting, just overly used, so it lost its sparkle as the drama progressed.

As for re-watch value, I know for a fact that I won't be The Night Watchman. After a while, I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it because I already invested a lot of time into its weekly releases, so I figured I would finish all 24 episodes.

Overall, my stance toward this drama is neutral. I don't regret finishing it since the finale week was that great, but at the same time, the journey to reach this awesome ending was somewhat hellish. I completely understand why watchers dropped this drama by the mass, but I feel if you as a viewer have a stronger tolerance for slow-paced dramas, you might be pleasantly surprised by what The Night Watchman can give you.

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I began this drama because I kept hearing so much about it and it showed up as a good show to watch on many lists. In the end though I was completely disappointed. My favorite thing about the whole show was the instrumental music and a few songs. The pace of the story was so slow, that it took forever for things to happen and in two episodes you could see some characters have the same arguments over and over, it was repetitive. Plus the mystery was way too easy, I mean my curiosity was just taken and before I even reached the ending I already lost interest cause I knew how it would probably end.

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Really liked this. I like magic, supernatural and special effects although the political background story is unoriginal. In the middle it seemed to have too much "slapstick" comedy interfering with the plot but became more interesting when they allowed the story to develop. Yes there were many plot holes and as usual with these sageuk stories dragged out the ending over three episodes and it is giving nothing away to say everything ended all sweetness and light except for the big villain, however you have to go with the flow I think and just enjoy it as escapist drama if you like this kind of drama. I thought the chemistry of the characters was good and I was especially impressed U-Know acted well and looked good. One I enjoyed and looked forward to watching every evening but would not re-watch after knowing the story.

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It probably deserved a higher rating than an 8.5. The story was really good, the acting was not bad. I really enjoyed that we only spend one episode on the background information. The writers didn't drag the history of the characters into 4 or 5 episodes thankfully. This drama was different in the sense that the pace wasn't rushed. The pace was slow but not so slow that it became boring. It was never repetitive or dull. As I'm writing this review I'm questioning why I didn't rate it higher but sometimes it's just a feeling. I do have to say this was one of the better endings I have seen for a historical drama. The ending definitely deserves a 10. It left me feeling satisfied. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a really well written drama that takes its' time to create an excellent story.

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Non mi ha convinta

Non sono mai stata una fan dei drama soprannaturali, per cui ci ho messo un po' a decidere se vedere questo oppure no. Ma mi era piaciuto l'attore protagonista in altre serie, e quindi mi sono lanciata nell'impresa.

A parte qualche esagerazione, l'elemento fantasy ė accettabile, per cui ho visto tutte le puntate senza lamentarmi.

In realtà non é così male, ma ė davvero un continuo "faccio", "salvo il mondo", "Sadam ti sconfiggo", "mi vendico"...e poi? Di continuo siamo da capo: lei si fa prendere ogni volta come una pera, la tipa in fissa con Rin ė praticamente inutile, sanno che Sadam ė in giro ma non prendono provvedimenti...cioè parecchio buttato lì più volte il tutto.

Mi pare che ci fossero le potenzialità per un drama migliore.
É anche vero però che alla fine due lacrimoni mi sono venuti, quando il re ha capito che Rang era la mamma. Quindi penso che almeno lui trasmettesse qualcosa.

Ho apprezzato Moo Seok, ok, magari più l'attore che il personaggio, mentre mi aspettavo di più da Sang Heon. Sadam, pazzo totale. Bravo l"attore direi. Di Do Ha ho già detto, proprio ameba.

Mi ė piaciuta la musica. Forse quella più rock non c'entrava molto a volte ma ė il mio genere preferito, quindi ok lo stesso.

Finale un po' così così, ma ho visto di peggio in questo senso.

Non penso che sarà tra i miei rewatch, ma 7 lo dò.

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Watching men

The drama attempted to explore the supernatural realm through the eyes of night watchmen which were a small tiny portion of a drama titled after them. The drama actually had a reasonable start but a few episodes later it got lost and scattered with no clear direction. It got increasingly messy the longer it went as it was struggling to fill its 24 episodes. There were some strange out of place pieces of dialogues that can be labeled as incoherent nonsense. In addition, a lot of inconsistencies with the characters, poor motives and sudden changes contrary to their established and developed character. The OST was awful, it was like listening to a bad cover band in a dive bar. There were moments that caught my attention but they fizzled out quicker than a damp firecracker.

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