A truly great largescale romantic history drama. Never cheesy, always intelligent, never lazy, it takes nothing for granted and never spends useless screen time. It will cause a storm in yr heart regularly every few episodes. Binge warning: you may end up with major sleep deprivation because you cannot stop watching. 21 eps at over 1hr ea.

Favorite things: The total coolness of a narrative frame where a rejected manuscript from the state history annals is reinvestigated (by the series!) and deemed too unusual to be true. Implied is that the narrator is a pansori singer, Rang Eum, who loves NM, played by a lovely 23yr-old actor.

Lots of battle but no big set pieces (hate them).

The vulnerability of women when social structures break, their disposability in war and their invisibility afterwards.

Confucian and other ethical questions: what do the just do in an unjust situation, how do people like us survive in the chaos of history?

Sigh...the house by the stream with a fence of forsythia branches is my favourite set -- wait for it!

Namkoong Min's face and attitudes(s) are the magnetic north of a tonal structure which knits together the larger political frame and the emphasis on the individual life. He is completely brilliant playing a jaded melancholy outsider who falls very very very hard for the young, spirited daughter of a comfortable provincial family. Ahn Eun Jin matches NM's subtlety with a steady powerful presence; changes in the young Gil Chae happen so slowly and always so late that they sneak up on you. She gets equal closeup camera time , deservedly. The essence of the central relationship, very Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, will drive you just as crazy as that couple did in the dark ages, and for over half the drama!!! about 15 hrs -- N.B. GWtW was only 2.5 hrs.