Goryeo-Khitan War is an long epic and very heavy and political historical drama, and a certain type of period drama that I thought would never come back into the scene in the current kdrama landscape that we now have, where the fluffy romances with only a few political plots here and there seem to have gradually taken over the period drama scene and each drama seems to get fewer episodes to tell us its story.

I feel like this show was successful in making this enormous and complicated story epic and successfully cramming in lots of history within these 32 episodes without making it too dense. It was rather thrilling thing to watch from start to finish. There seems been put quite a bit of detail within the narrative, although there are, of course, some deviations from history - and especially in the second half, or so I have read.

The focus of the narrative is largely on the war strategy of Goryeo and other things that came with the waging a war, the toll it took on the people and soldiers who fought bravely on the frontlines, the pressure it put on society or the elites who found ways to take advantage of the turbulent times that followed. And the story certainly captures the tension and depressing mood that came with it all – you're able to immerse yourself in the action and put yourself in positions in a way that you can feel every sword slash, every conspiracy, every deceit with the characters. But also every victory.

The first half of the drama focused very much on the action and the story holds no punches and gives you time to adjust before descending into chaos. And the story doesn't really take a break until about halfway through. There is constantly something happening, every little thing within the story affects something else, and each episode reaches a cliffhanger of sorts that makes it so you can't stop watching.

The second half of the story focuses a lot on exploring the aftermath of the war and the story shifts the pace of the narrative ever so slightly, although the story never really stops to a halt, but more so gives itself some time to catch a breath. It certainly gives us plenty of time with the characters and gets to know them all over again after the war and everything they've been through. But it becomes a bit of a repetition and there is a lot of 'men sitting at a table or standing together in a room and talking and arguing about things' sort of things happening. But the political intrigue was strong enough and the characters likeable that you just went along with it.

And although I think it's a very engaging narrative in many ways because the story successfully makes us feel for, and root for the main players of the story and their idealistic views – and the characters are all very interesting and flawed in their own ways. I did appreciate the angle to the story, that it would be difficult to get the country back on its feet after so much conflict, because I feel like that part is not often shown in shows like this, in such detail.

It can be said, however, that the plot seems to rule over the characters at times and not the other way around, but especially in the first part, in which case there's also an awful lot of plot and things like that happening and they want to make sure that the historical narrative is delivered properly.

I did enjoy the female characters here, even though they are few and their roles in the narrative was maybe a bit too the side, yet they were complex, and all served the story in some way. They may be in secondary roles and it's a super male-centric story, but they still felt genuine and real for this time the story takes place in.

This drama is gripping and epic in scope. It’s a thrilling history lesson about perseverance, loyalty and love of one’s homeland, the complexities of wars, and all that with some old school kdrama charm, which in a way makes the story a little fresh. It's not for everyone, but as a fan of the heavier kind historical kdramas, I really enjoyed the journey of political intrigue that Goryeo-Khitan War took me on. And I also just enjoyed getting a period drama from Korea that doesn’t happen during the Joseon era, because we don't get to see those every day.