This review is a hard one to write. I wanted this series to be good so bad! But I felt like it missed the mark for me in many areas. I know some others have watched it and think it is brilliant...but I'm sorry, It will only get a 7 for me because of it's one saving grace: the acting.

Let's start with that. The acting was by far the best thing about the series. Everyone portrayed their different roles beautifully, especially the ML...and I might have a preference for him. I love me some Junho...and it isn't even because of his singing career. I thought he did such a great job in Just Between Lovers... That was my introduction to him and he took my breath away there so I had to find out more about him and I also saw in in Wok of Love. What I love about him is that he totally embodies his characters and you see a different person in each drama he stars in. This is huge for me...though I appreciate it might not be the same for others. Whatever feeling he was portraying, I was right there along with him, being upset, sad, angry...I felt it. Kudos to all of the actors on this series.

Now...let's get into the not-so-good things that I disliked about the series. The storyline....what was that? I think the biggest disappointment for me was the pacing, the mood, as well as some of the major story elements. For example, the general mood, in the beginning, was a good balance between serious and light-hearted, with some hilarious moments between. Halfway through it was just serious...and sad..and depressing. I do not like that the tone of the series changed so dramatically.

The other thing was the pacing...some things moved SO SLOW and others were rushed. For example, all of the encounters in the library felt like such a slow burn and then all of a sudden, they love each other? Did I miss something? When did that happen? Also, why does she never admit that she loves him...to anyone...even herself?

The first couple of scenes with the tiger killing people was kinda ridiculous...I'm not gonna lie. Like, what was that? It made the show seem like it was pretending to be serious but it really wasn't.

Overall it felt like the writers changed halfway and it because a whole different beast. Also, I feel like they missed showing a few pivotal stuff to progress the storyline. Why did we never see the queen? What? When did the king marry again? We kept hearing about characters that we never saw once!

I'm feeling very let down about this. I can't watch it again and I wouldn't recommend it. I've seen that it's based on a particular story...not interested, more could have been done to make this something great.