User reviews

This series is good and has very Historical and scientific accuracy. The acting is very good specially song ill gook and lee ji hoon that make series very beautiful and cool. The core of story is very good but the series focused too much in margin story. So some times series became boring and out of line and hard to understand the plot. So in compare of emperor of the sea and jumong this series is very weak but I recommend it specially for scince lovers.

What a fascinating look at the life of a man born a slave but gifted with a mind that saw the sky as a playground for ideas. The epic story was quite accurate in its depiction of Yeong Sil in the time of King Sejong, the greatest King in Korean history. Together, they created masterpieces like time clocks, water clocks...so complicated in nature that only Yeong Sil could understand. Predicting sun and moon eclipses was quite political in those days that astrologers and mathematicians alike could get killed if they got it wrong. Song Il Gook was marvelous in the lead role. It was a striking difference from his dashing roles (Jumong) wherein he fought with swords and martial arts. Here, he was clumsy and proved that he was a scientist, and not a trained fighter. He was frequently punished as a slave and got hurt in many ways. But, Yeong Sil plodded on to old age. His history says no one knew where he was born nor when he died. The writers started and ended the series very well, I must say.

All other actors were amazing in their roles. There were not too many over-emotional scenes, as a matter of fact, we saw jealousy as the main evil. JYS concentrated on the science aspect and the how-to's of the great inventions of Yeong Sil. King Sejong also invented the Hangul at the same time and I'm glad the writers found a place for it. There was hardly any romance as with most of Il Gook's series. The addition of current events showing us the modern Korea and the museums that houses JYS's inventions was fabulously done! It made for a true history lesson. For the Kdrama fans interested in live action, romance and adventures...this is not for you. It had many slow moments of astronomy lessons and could've been cut to 16 episodes. But a very good watch overall!

A boring start, it certainly took some time to get going. Even then, it wasn't a smooth sailing after that. Whenever the drama managed to pick up a good momentum, they shove in a massive intervention with their palace politics. Disrupting the flow and the main attraction of the drama. Like pulling the sheets away on a cold winter night. Which is why this was its biggest problem, being wrapped around politics instead of giving it its independence. This was easier for the writers so they don't have to go into too much details and technicalities, instead auto generate some mindless palace drama to fill the gaps. I found the ending to be quite distasteful to this man's journey.