Yi San

Yi San is a highly addictive historical epic that everyone should try watching.

It is based on the real-life highly regarded king of Joseon (Korea) but with the addition of a bunch of fictional character and plots to make it more entertaining.

It starts when Yi San is a child trying to save his farther (crown prince Sado) from being killed by his grandfather and goes all the way through his life until the end. That's 77 hour long episodes which are nearly all exciting.

It has thrilling action scenes, heart-warming love interests and compelling characters who you will miss when you are done watching it. I never cry and basically have no feelings at all about anything but Yi San's love story almost brought a tear to my eye (although that may have been my contact lenses).

I would recommend this show to anyone who can read. Even my wife got into it and she particularly hates historical epics with subtitles, normally. She even asked me to put on that "good Korean thing" on one occasion. High praise indeed!

If you liked shows like Warrior Baek Dong Soo, Jumong, Kingdom of Wind and Iljimae, then you will love this. It has a lot of the same characters as in Warrior Baek Dong Soo btw. If you didn't like those shows, time for a trip to the doctor to see what's wrong.

When I hear people talking about how good shows like "Game of Thrones" are, I always think, they only like it because they have never seen any of the Korean historical drama. They are soooooo much better.

I would have given YI San a 10 out of 10 except I found the ending to be unsatisfying but history is history I guess. Still, making 76 great episodes out of 77 is not bad!

Didn't like the introduction of them while kids everything about it felt disingenuous. Pacing issues were too obvious to ignore. The plot moves extremely slow +10 episodes for every single event with little to no side plots to keep you occupied. The problems didn't end there, the drama suffered from the extreme low tension in its writing. Most of the events that were suppose to create tension were caused by health problems. Speaking of which, they pulled the health problems card way too many times on too many characters. Regardless of the historical accuracy but that was poor storytelling for how it was implemented. Which leads me to my next point, regular boring side characters would usually get a 12 course meal for their affairs while super important characters would be cut off short and not get the same treatment. The important characters were robbed off of their climax too. Anyway, the drama had technical issues, the same scene can have different color grading between different angles. The drama had some nice moments with the leads but that's were most of its appeal ends.

I can't seem to find the play button here to watch

a film about a wise leader. impressive for its graceful manner to present history. as a fairy tale, off course, but only at the first sigh. because, like many Koreean dramas, it is a lesson. about politic. and about poor people. about survive. and about family. and, sure, about love. it is not inspired to describe it. because it could be , for the large public, only another "ad usum delphini" page of Koreean history. and it is a good verdict. but not enough. because it is portrait of a form of solitude who reminds many similar pages from universal history. because it is a powerful story - the first and the last episodes are useful arguments. because it has the gift to present, in delicate manner, precise things from near every day reality in the right light. because it is the story of a hero. simple, convincing, seductive.