Not so great of a king...

How to fill 86 episodes story? Shove a ridiculous amount of side stories while giving little to no attention to the story of the king! The king often felt like a side characters until he gets his moments every once in a while. These side stories were abysmal to follow through, they don't really contribute much to the drama and the characters involved in them usually disappear after that. Also, somehow they all had the same ending/conclusion, what even is the point?! This is the worst tale of a king I've seen, even when the king gets his moments it doesn't do a good job showing what made him a great king. Being soft and goodhearted isn't enough to convince us. It's mentioned in the synopsis that he invented Hangul, although that was the only interesting subplot but it didn't happen until the last few episodes. In contrast, the beginning of the drama with the king's childhood was the weakest and the worst part of the drama. The drama is extremely rough for what it had to offer.

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Blew it up!

The more I watch war themed dramas the more I'm convinced that this genre is best fit in a movie format instead of a drama. It's still a decent drama but consistency is rarer than winning the lottery especially with how they decided to end it. That time-skip ending was objectively and undeniably bad! What's even worse was how they tried to justify the time skip. Even if the writer was suborn and wanted to force a time skip ending, there were definitely many other ways to better layout the necessary elements to execute it in a meaningful and impactful way instead of creating a mockery.

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An attempt...

There was an attempt to create something but we got this. There was absolutely no need to have the first 5 episodes about her childhood then followed by another 6 episodes adulthood update. Her journey to become a merchant doesn't start until episode 12, almost halfway through!! Once again, the advertised theme doesn't get the intended focus it deserves, instead it gets bloated by redundant elements that take away rather than adding to the drama, case in point the love triangle. Why not delve deeper into the world of traders/merchants and explore all the intricacies surrounding it, it would make a much more stimulating experience. Anyway, the male cast performance wasn't good.

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The great king...

The drama features the type of king that would befriend the cruelest of enemies and forgive the greatest of sins. The embodiment of a true anime protagonist! I have way too many problems with the narrative to begin counting, even when disregarding the historical accuracy aspect. Loyalty has no real weight, decades of loyalty would parish and turns into a betrayal over a small lie. The drama does a poor job bridging its narrative and filling the gaps between historical facts and a drama production storytelling. Speaking of production, I would classify it almost unwatchable from a production value standpoint. Extreme overreaction and intense movement with every move from every single male character. Borderline comical circus behavior and it's a poor portrayal of the times of wars from back then. The make up situation was rough too and you can see that from the first 10 minutes. I caught some warped mustaches not lined up with the lips and some of them weren't even sticking properly with visible tape around it. The cinematography consisted of approximately 70% of extreme face close up shots, if you aren't far enough from the screen it will cause nausea. In my opinion, the drama had its climax and highest moments around the middle parts while the rest were a boring follow up with the last 20 episodes being the worst of storytelling. The only impressive aspect of the drama was the male lead's ability to maintain a deep aggressive vocal register with every word he muttered. His throat must be destroyed! Speaking of which, he might be a great king who concurred everyone left and right but he constantly failed to protect his people.

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Was gonna be a flop....

A very strong contender for the worst medical drama. The equivalent of filming two patients' beds and calling it a "hospital". From the very beginning they did such a poor job in setting building that it's constantly sticking out in your face. To give a few examples: The hospital is completely dependent on a single skillful witch doctor that otherwise everyone would be dead without his witchcraft which eliminated any hierarchy in the hospital. The hospital had no rules, anyone can come and go as they please, anyone can get a patient into the operation room and perform a surgery and no one faces consequences to anything they do because writing such scenes would take more effort. The hospital management is non-existent, there's only one guy in charge (the bad guy Tae In Ho) with no one around him or beside him managing the hospital. Even worse, the actor is known for his side roles as a subordinate character so giving him a position in charge while lacking any intimidation and gravity to his character has ruined the role and killed the little tension the drama had. There are more examples to this lackluster hospital setting but these were the most obvious.

However, if you managed to over glance the entire setting and just hyper focus on the main 2 leads then the drama is alright. The 2 main leads first encounter and the first episode had an abhorrent and despicable dynamic to watch on screen but, to my surprise, it got a lot better later on and turned out to be fun which was the only reason that saved the drama and made it watchable.

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Police?!

It had a good concept and it started off actually decent but it derailed unbelievably hard and quick after episode 2. As If there was a switch flipped. It almost seemed as if the writer lost interest and handed over the wheel to an intern. The drama got seriously dumbed down to the nth degree and the cheese meter got turned to 11. The performance of the younger cast was weak, and the older cast seemed to take the easy way out, delivering lackluster performances for their relatively insignificant and undemanding roles. Cha Tae Hyun is usually good but somehow he's unable to show an expression other than him pouting all the time. The plot surrounding the villain was poorly developed and ended up being lame, as expected. The whole romance in the drama was nothing but childish. The portrayal of the police life was dull and uninteresting. The drama is a strong contender for the worst love triangle out there as well. The last episode was solely dedicated to pair everyone with someone forcefully because reasons?!

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The male lead reminds me of the male lead from Ugly Alert (2013), both competing in being the ultimate pacifist and masochist. Despite being introduced to a big cast with multiple stories and couples, the drama hard lock its focus on the main couples. However, the story ended early and the last 20-25 episodes were all dedicated to the side cast, going through them one by one in rotation. These episodes became the most bothersome since the drama didn't bother investing in the other couples early. They were always brushed off and now asking the viewers to care about them? Nonetheless, there were worse things to consider such as poor antagonists, weak conflicts and underwhelming climax. You can't compare it to Ugly Alert, that one is just infinitely better.

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It's a pretty light daily drama with multiple couples and low tension. Because of the low tension, there wasn't much happening, the progress was very slow in general, and it almost turned into a slice of life. There were plenty of small annoyances but there was one in particular that stood out the most and that's Bit Na's father. Her father, as we were introduced to him, a very virtuous man who doesn't stand wrong doings, yet, despite Bit Na being the "naughty" girl in the drama, we barely saw him on screen for his daughter and he almost never interfered in his daughter's affairs until it was too late to matter. Big missing opportunity to work on the father-daughter dynamic. Speaking of Bit Na, the actress Park Ha Na did a fantastic job in portraying her character, especially with that attitude. I would say she was the highlight of the drama.

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It had a decent start but...

Despite how messed up the trio Shin Ho was involved in, it would have been tolerable if the drama didn't favor them exclusively. The worst part about this drama is that it started good with a handful of diverse stories and lively cast but it quickly shifted towards Shin Ho's triangle while neglecting everyone's else, even the two leads in the poster became irrelevant later on.

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