Shineui

Why did it have to end? I want more. For a series with 24 episodes, it flowed right on by and I wasn't bored for a minute. Something kept happening, something kept surprising me, and I kept wanting to know what would happen next. Even though Min-ho Lee is ten years younger than Hee-seon Kim, they were very good together and the age difference was not noticeable at all. The relationship between the king and queen was magical as well, they made me melt. But basically I loved all the characters, including the villains. And the icing on the cake was the wonderful soundtrack... 5 stars. (13/08/2014)

This is really bad. I didn't see that coming. I didn't go into it with any expectations, even though everyone is touting it so highly, so I shouldn't be disappointed, but I am. 24 episodes of nothing. The beginning of the episodes were just a few minutes of recaps of what we'd already seen. The scenery was really bad, the effects were bad too (and I don't understand why they had to have supernatural powers in there in the first place, it had no purpose or explanation or anything). The actors didn't show much, because there was nothing to show. The script is really, really bad. The director didn't really pull it off either. It keeps jumping back and forth, changing things up so they can keep repeating the same things over and over again. I don't understand why it has 24 episodes. I don't understand how Lee Min-Ho can play a military strategist who would have been at least in his thirties at the time. There are a lot of things I don't get about this series, like all the pointless and empty dialogue. Even my elementary school sister could have come up with better plots and "twists" for this. Judging by the ratings it had, it's pretty clear that even the Koreans could see the shtick in it. Very boring, uninteresting, and if I hadn't skipped some of the scenes, I might have had to commit seppuku. I may be a serial masochist, but this was really over the top at times. There are only three things I can appreciate about it: the nice relationship between the king and queen (I've read about them, and the general, in real life, so that was pretty cool); the scene where Eun Soo tells the queen she's sorry, she can't examine her because she didn't specialize in gynecology (if you know your history, that's probably the most successful scene); and lastly the music that always played when something spectacular was happening, like when the general was walking and his subordinates trailed after him. Unfortunately, I rate the OST overall as rather average. A very, very weak 2 stars. Love is great, but not in Ko-ryū. (27/03/2014)