Psychopatic Male Cinderella

To sum up:
Not as good as the promo materials, but might be the best xianxia out there.
The trailer doesn't really do justice as it barely shows the beautiful cinematography.
Fast paced.
It's the best xianxia in terms of cinematography, visual effects, and acting.

Tantai Jin was not a typical xianxia's demon lord. In the early stage, he's more of a psycho in a xianxia setting. It's not easy to bring this character to life as he had no precedence in c-drama world. This is not a straightforward "love melt the demon lord's heart" trope as ML had a problem to function like normal human. It's a difficult character and cannot be compared with other xianxia ML.

In fact the closest character to Tantai Jin is not in c-drama land, but Hannibal from the tv series. Not saying Luo Yunxi's acting is Mads Mikkelsen level, but there are many similarity in the way the show managed to make the audience nervous on whether or not the main character was sincere or just faking it. This is the most terrifying thing about these characters and this c-drama managed to present this element to certain extent.

In Hannibal interview, Mikkelsen said Hannibal was Lucifer in human suit. Luo Yunxi actually pulled similar things in the early stage of the drama. There's something uncanny about Tantai Jin that you know he was not really human. Luo Yunxi was acting a character that was acting as human and there bound to be some flaws in the act. This flaws need to be brought on screen and this is not easy since they are not natural to the human actor. This demands a lot of restrains and layered performance.

An example of this is eps. 8. You wondered whether Tantai Jin was sad or not. His eyes showed a hint of sadness, but the expression was not really sad. Luo Yunxi must have put a lot of restrain during this scene. Other times, it was the opposite. The expression didn't reach the eyes.

The acting was pretty subtle. That's why when Tantai Jin showed his manic sides such as eps. 4, it's really memorable.

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I decided to write a review because 8.2 is not high enough for this drama. I just think that many people don't seem to get it. This is not the kind of drama that would give you a satisfying conclusion, but rather a brutal depiction of reality. Some people might say that the show has no clear vision about what it was trying to convey. It might seem like that because the whole point of the show is about the meaning or actually meaninglessness of life. I was really surprised by the direction this drama takes, especially with Song Tae Ha's character development.

Try to take a look at history. When you live in an extremely corrupt society, the idea of changing the world usually ended up like what happened in this drama. The so called revolutionists are mostly like either Song Tae Ha, who was pretty much clueless about what to do, or who fell to the temptation of power.

In my opinion, Lee Dae Gil and Song Tae Ha represent the saddest members of the privilege middle class. They are two sides of the same coin. One was idealist when it comes to life meaning, but secretly feared that his life was actually meaningless. The other was a nihilist, but secretly still desired for life meaning. The reason why they hated each other was because of envy one another. It wasn't just because they shared the same love interest. Tae Ha envied Dae Gil for being able to accept the meaninglessness of life. To Tae Ha, Dae Gil was his worst nightmare. The one who exposed his biggest fear that all his struggle was meaningless, that he should just run away and live a peaceful simple life. A conversation with Dae Gil might lead to existential angst, which is why he hated this guy. On the other hand, Dae Gil envied Tae Ha that he could still see a meaning in his life, but he was mad at Tae Ha for not being able to abandon his quest for a meaningful life in exchange for a happy life with his family. Because Tae Ha had everything Dae Gil wished to have, but he kept choosing the other option.

At the beginning, Song Tae Ha appeared as a Gary Stu perfect gentleman, but he turned out to be the real embodiment of the uber-privilege upper middle class. While Dae Gil, too, represent the middle class. Their story are sad and fascinating, but their struggle was actually nothing compared to the slaves. Changing the world had to be about them, but the story of the group of revolutionary slaves are a mere subplot compares to the story of Dae Gil and Tae Ha. Tae Ha and the gang just kept talking about changing the world while nothing they had done actually changed anything. It was only right that these slaves who actually barely had any relation to the 2 leads to bring down the bad guy.

The more corrupt the society, the more you would find people like Dae Gil and Tae Ha. I had several friends who are just like Dae Gil. They told me exactly what Dae Gil had told Tae Ha about his silly idea of changing the world in the exact same manner that Dae Gil did. But even the slave, Eop Bok, chose what could be considered a stupid decision for the sake of giving meaning to his life and the life of his compatriots, never mind someone like Song Tae Ha who was told he was destined for great things. Perhaps running away to live w/ Jakgwi's group or abroad was really the best decision, but for Tae Ha, it was a humiliation, the last resort. Unfortunately, the way he said it I really really think he couldn't stand to live in Joseon any longer. He indeed said he despised the corrupt court too much.

The acting was great. Unfortunately, imo, Oh Ji Ho was simply overshadowed by Jang Hyuk. There are times when I think he had to be more intense. This made Dae Gil way more fascinating compared to Tae Ha, which, imo, not true. Tae Ha was actually an equally fascinating character if we don't include the Jang Hyuk factor into the equation. I actually can relate with Tae Ha better than Dae Gil.

Another complaint of mine is the show spend too much time with the side characters such as the jumos and the perverted painter. Those parts are boring which is why I don't give the story a perfect score.

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Scammed by the step-mother

If you promote it as 1-1 adaptation written by the mother herself, don't blame me for scolding this drama because I feel scammed.

If it's bad from the beginning, I won't bother writing a review. Unfortunately, I've only realized it late (after eps 17). I severely regretted bringing all my family to watch this drama together because I thought it was loyal to the book. Now, I can't make them stop mid-way, so I need to scold this drama for wasting my time.

I'm actually fairly tolerant to plot change as long as the essence is maintained. In this drama..., they tried to maintain the plot as much as possible to the point they dragged this drama to 70 eps while deliberately destroying the essence of the novel.

Let me tell you the most fascinating aspects of the novel:

1. You are a daughter of an upper-class family, who accidentally fell in love with a poor ex-convict with tons of debt. At the same time, a rich guy declared his love to you and treated you like a queen. Let's be realistic, okay? Most girls would understandably choose the rich guy.

2. The concept of soulmate from an endangered species. "Only you and I left from our species. If not you, who should I be with". Bad news, the male was severely ill. He knew that if he took the female as his mate, she might not survive losing her mate.

For whatever reason, the production team decided to destroy these points entirely by changing the first choice love interest (Do you understand how much scolding this drama asked by doing this???!!! The book-burning post got 2000 likes on weibo), which makes me absolutely speechless. What was supposed to be Bu Bu Jing Xin 2.0 has been turned into a generic reversed harem, overcoming obstacles to be with the loved one and shit...

The amazing thing is they're very good at throwing scraps at the original fans, so that a good portion of the book fans have remained sated. However, I have seen the script leak that has been proven legit so far. Season 2 is a complete disaster. Looking at the development, I believe the leak is very much legit. I simply won't let myself be fed by a false hope that the thing I know would happen won't happen.

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Let me tell you why this drama is a masterpiece

This is one the few C-dramas that left a strong impression on me. The other one is Nirvana in Fire.

Certain drama next door reminds me why this one is a masterpiece.

Let me tell you what would happen if this drama is filmed in 2023 by capitalist company:
- The princes would be 35 at most.
- The princes wouldn't have any wife.
- The girl only gave her feelings for 1 man. Likely 8th, and stick with him till the end.

Basically, ruin everything that made this story so good because they don't have balls, because they want to use this to promote actors, because they are afraid to be criticized by moral police. Just like Tong Hua's self-produced drama...

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One of the most underrated drama in mydramalist. Overall, I mostly disagree with mydramalist user rating.

If you like a serious thought provoking drama, this one is for you. But if you just want some entertainment to waste your time, don't bother with this one. I have to say this PD and screenwriter's works can be rather boring to some people and they require the viewers to pay attention to every line of dialog in order to appreciate them. This can be challenging for viewers whose first language are not English or Korean, because the subtitle can be a bit strange.

The show talks about a lot of social and political issue such as capitalism vs socialism, conservative vs liberal. Everyone wanted to build a great country, but they subscribed to different ideologies that eliminated one another. There is no right or wrong, but to say there is no superior way is simply untrue in my opinion.

While it doesn't look expensive, there are some really beautiful shots. I also find the ending beautiful if not satisfying.

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Spent too much effort into developing amazing villains but neglected to make the protagonists heroic

Seriously, show!!! A rich man feeding a starving orphan with leftovers doesn't make him heroic. It only makes the orphan looks more pitiful! You need to understand the difference between being nice and being noble/heroic. It's 45 episodes, but the male lead hasn't established himself as being worthy of my admiration. He had everything handed to him on a silver platter and the show never demanded anything from him to prove he was the hero. Meanwhile, everyone was entitled that the antagonist acted like a freaking Buddha... When you have an antagonist who was actually a nice guy, you need the protagonist to be more than just nice to prove he was better than the antagonist. The protagonist needs to do something the antagonist could not to prove he was the better man. It's not being done here. Instead, the show asked the antagonist something the male protagonist himself was incapable of doing. They even showed how nice the male protagonist was to the antagonist, to make you feel bad for the antagonist instead of to make the protagonist heroic. Why TF are you treating your male lead as a plot device to make the audience feel sorry for the antagonist?!!!

It's not bad... Just infuriating that I wouldn't torture myself to rewatch!

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Taiga turned Makjang

It's actually one of the more exciting Taiga. Too bad the second half turned into a makjang and the reason I like Taiga is exactly that they aren't makjang! I feel that they took some notes from Korean drama, which is why it was addicting, but they also included the makjang part! Older taigas tend to not have real bad guy which is the opposite of makjang and I like it that way. It’s not as addicting, but more nuance in handling good and evil.

The thing that made it very offensive is that this drama was the blatant historical falsification. Kanbei in this drama is literally Ishida Mitsunari (the main villain) during the Korean war! The drama portrayed Mitsunari as a warmonger while Kanbei tried to stop the war. In the drama, Kanbei conspired with Konishi Yukinaga to fake diplomatic letter to stop the war. Historically, that's literally Mitsunari's role! The reason why Yukinaga sided with Mitsunari during Sekigahara was that both of them were the main opposition to the war. So much they technically self-sabotaged to the point they made enough enemies to kill them.

The portrayal of Konishi Yukinaga was another missed opportunity to explore Japanese Christian history and the Imjin War. Historically speaking, he was the one who introduced Kanbei to Christianity, not Takayama Ukon, although Ukon was the one who convinced Kanbei to be baptized. What I found to be interesting was their relationship with Hideyoshi's missionary ban. While Ukon decided to abandon everything to keep his faith, Yukinaga went in the opposite direction and became even more eager to prove his loyalty to Hideyoshi to the point he was awarded larger fief than Kanbei. This was truly an injustice because Yukinaga used to be Kanbei's protege. However, Yukinaga himself was wary of the arrangement because it signaled that Hideyoshi intended to send him to Korea. If you noticed the arrangement of the Japanese army vanguards during the Imjin war, more than half of them were Christians, led by Yukinaga and Nagamasa. There was the feeling that Hideyoshi was treating them as disposable troops, which was why Yukinaga was not happy with the war.

Speaking of Japanese Christians, it's actually quite funny. If you remember, O-ne had a christian maid called Magdalena who warned her about Mitsunari. The drama neglected to tell the audience that this Magdalena was Konishi Yukinaga's mother and her son literally conspired with Mitsunari. lol.

I think it would be interesting to explore how Japanese christians tried to survive as religious minorities, But the writer was like, "Nope! Let's falsified history and have a makjang for the second half!" I think it was truly lazy writing...

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