I had high expectations for this show that crashed faster than a house greeting a tornado . The terrible CGI, poorly chosen music that yanked me right out of the scene, distracting camera work, and massive plot holes just chipped away at the foundation of the show. But what ruined it for me by end of episode 1 was two things: 1) They made me be believe Myung Hee was the main character and 2) They cast an actress as the secondary lead that was twice as likable as the female lead. That comparison ruined everything, and I could not like Yang Sun (Honestly, the casting director did Yoo Bi dirty here, like they did in Strong Girl Namsoon. Y'all know what I'm talking about.) She didn't change my opinion of her from beginning to end. The wide-eyed boyishness, foolishness, and then martyr-complex was cringe. Not that Mung Hee was excellently written but she, and later Hye Rung, was better than Yang Sun. I have no idea what Sung Yeol and the crown prince saw in Yang Sun. Literally any other 2 character pairings had more chemistry than our leads. I also wanted to ignore the entire romance between them, mainly because it felt like betrayal on Sung Yeol's part. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for the "one true love" in kdramas. Each person only gets to love 1 person dammit.

When we were introduced to Hye Rung, I finally got interested again. The relationship between her and Gwi was my favorite part. It was cute...he'd hear her footsteps coming and gently smile and vamp-whoosh to her side. *sigh*. Spoiler: Theirs was a tragic ending, but it moved me far more than our lead's HE because I was not invested in them even after 20 episodes. Gwi saved the show, and turned out to be my favorite character. He was delightful. Major kudos to Soo Hyuk.

To top it all off, Joon Gi's performance was disappointing. If this is your first drama with him, then it probably won't affect you , since he still delivers. But it's noticeably lacking compared to Lawless Lawyer, Scarlet Heart Ryeo, and Flowers of Evil. Joon Gi, a phenomenal actor, fell victim to overacting and campiness.

The show didn't achieve any of what it was going for: I sympathized with the villain and was devastated when he died, felt nothing when ML temporarily died, actively hoped the leads would not get together, and couldn't care what tragedies they were going through.

This had the potential to be really terrific but fell flat on its face in execution. What I really hope for next is Gwi's story, hopefully bringing back Soo Hyuk, and Hye Rung.