Cruel Palace - War of Flowers (2013)

I kind of am in a love/hate relationship with this show. I like how this is a show in which the main female lead can be considered "evil". You know why she's doing the things she does, you pity her for it, but also grow to hate her for it and keep saying "Haven't you had enough girl?". Which brings me to my second point. I love the acting, Lee Duk Hwa plays an excellent role as King Injo. He is portrayed very human, he has emotions too. He knows (in my opinion) very well what every one around him is thinking and planning, but he also wants to have someone around him and someone to love him, which makes him, to me, a very complicated and human character. Also Kim hyun Joo plays her role very very good. You pity her for being in her position and fully understand her reasons, but also hate her for her actions. There really is more to all the characters than meets the eye, if you're willing to look deeper and try to understand why they are doing this. If you're planning on watching this show, make sure to put yourself in to their shoes and try to understand their reasoning. Than this show is worth it.
One big problem I stepped on was the repetitiveness and slow progress of the story.

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This is probably my favorite drama ever. The story and its pace are unbelievably perfect. The acting is so well done that it got me cheering for many characters such as King Injo, the Crown Prince and Princess, the queen and Yam Jun...

Yam Jun is what I like most about this drama, because she is in a very thin line between hero and villain since she's the main character and she's playing the role of a villain but I caught myself cheering for her, wanting her to succed in her plans so badly.  She isn't your regular kdrama hero... She's the exact opposite of it. In any other drama she would be considered a villain, but if you're like me you will be cheering for her for the most part.

The role played by Lee Duk Hwa was extraordinary. It was a beautiful thing when he was around children. King Injo has many beautiful relationships with other characters like Crown Prince So Hyun and his other children and grandchildren. Also, in his world he had a very very beautiful relationship with Yam Jun, despite all her manipulation and schemings. I think, for the most part, taking his perspective, it was a beautiful love.

There is a set of characters I love so much in this drama and that is the Crown Prince and Crown Princess. They have an amazing relationship despite being very different from each other. They make a very good team to go through hardships together in China. He becomes stronger with her and for him and her children she can get through it all. She's the strongest female I've ever seen in a kdrama so far. So Hyun is a gentle and thoughtful son to King Injo. He suffers so much in his life, trying to be the best son he can be to his father. The Crown Princess is the fearless female warrior always seaking to thrive and So Hyun is all heart. This couple seriously gave me the feels. I felt like they are, together with Injo, the only heros to cheer for.

The plot is all about scheming and ambition for the throne. It is a very political drama. Don't expect to see love and romance. Most characters would be considered 'evil' by most people I think... But I don't think exactly like that though. I think most of the characters feel very convincing... Not exactly bad or good... They feel almost human, I guess. It is indeed a very 'cruel' story for all characters so the plot is VERY dramatic (although I can say I never cried once but laughed quite a few times because this drama can be absurd sometimes and most of those times it is because of Yam Jun's way of thinking and scheming. She's just too much I guess lol). I've found the story unpredictable for the most part so I didn't get bored once. The storytelling still feels very fresh in the kdramaland imo. It is definitely not something you can easily find in another drama.

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The title of the series absolutely matches the series itself “cruel palace.” I would say that this series like many other historical dramas that surround the palace life such as emperors and all of his concubines is about the same. The only significant difference that I saw in this is that the logic of our female lead was off. What I mean by that is her hate really didn’t make sense. Usually with the dramas like this there was some serious things that happened to the character and you know why and somewhat understand why they became evil but with this one it seem that they took a small incident and made her vengeful. In truth I couldn’t power through all of the episodes. I watched what I feel was a significant amount and then I skip to the end. Bottom line or female lead wasn’t the craziest of a concubine that I’ve seen but she was definitely one that did some of the strangest things I’ve seen. I assume that the ending was fitting for most especially if you didn’t like the female lead.

If you’re looking for historical romance I would not suggest this one but if you’re into historical dramas and I do mean dramas lot plotting, murdering and scheming you may like this one. No fairy tale ending, no redemption (I.e bad guy turns good) nope.

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The circus

It's a villainess drama which we don't get to see a lot of. Knowing Kdrama, they generally give the same immature treatment for 99% of all villains ever. Even when we have a villain lead like this drama, they don't break the rule to have a better portrayal of a good villain character. Instead we get a silly dumbed down version of a baddie. You may as well add squeaky sound effects and air it on Sunday morning cartoons. To boil it down, you'll be watching 50-episodes of this king and concubine being clowns until they reach their demise because the drama ran out of episodes. I was hoping for a smart cunning play but we got a reckless uncalculated short-sighted arrogant one. Also, the drama had this habit of re-using the same evil tricks over and over instead of coming with something creative. Setting up the same traps is a case in point. On the bright side, Kim Hyun Joo was keeping the drama afloat.

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