Joseon chongjabi

I adore Joseon Era costume dramas, and this one was fantastic. Of course, I have my bias's because of the beautiful ( flower boy), talented Lee Joon Gi. He's got that swoon worthy, cocky smile where it makes him look so adorably cute in all his implementations ( his music isn't bad either). He does have many character changes throughout this series, which makes his performance extraordinary. Absolutely fabulous world building and narrative. Loved it!

JG reunion with nam sang mi, I really love their chemistry. The strong plot , the whole cast did an amazing job.

This drama started well, good acting and directing and soundtrack, but over the course of the 22 episodes it degraded till it felt like a student attempt at writing.

This was the last and by far the worst of Lee Joongi Dramas. After watching Flower of Evil I watched all I could find. I have done this with other stars I liked. I really hated the directing and the writing was at times nonsensical. The characterization of the female lead annoyed me so much I wished her dead. She is supposed to be a well educated intelligent person, and she keeps forgetting the man she loves is a traitor who would get executed if caught, and seems to act like she wants to make sure he does. Her and the sister both are made out to be total idiots for the sake of a few inexcusable extra emotional drama scenes that weren't necessary, there was more than enough drama. I also disliked her over the top acting at times, but I blame the directing, because I have seen her do so much better. There were several characters I would have liked to see more development on, because their motives were a bit murky, especially the Queen. Also the tension between Japan and Qing was one of the most interesting parts to me, I would have liked to have that introduced and discussed a bit earlier in place of some of the pointless and idiotic crying scenes that were created by having characters be inexcusably stupid.

The drama fell flat in so many ways. The whole idea of a sharpshooter tackling the Joseon era should've been thrilling but the way they pulled it off was dull. The characters were generally dislikable. Their emotions and connections felt about as deep as a puddle after a sprinkle. And that forced romance was cringe central. No spark, no real chemistry between these characters, making it hard to care about their lovey-dovey moments. They tossed action, romance, and politics into a blender without a recipe, which resulted in a messy unattractive artificial mix. It's hard to recommend this one...