Daegun

The spoiler/teaser introduction and that first episode in general left a bad taste in my mouth. There was no need to show moments from 10 episodes later this early, if their intent was to try to hook the viewers by showing spoilers then they failed. And don't even get me started on that loathsome love triangle that seemed to stain the entire drama. The pacing was all over the place-slow moments that dragged on forever and irrelevant sidetracking. The whole sibling rivalry angle was given a generic development. The not so good brother tried to justify himself but the writer didn't put an ounce of effort into that. On another note, Yoon Shi Yoon looked weird with his baby beard.

A nobles daughter Sung Ja-hyun played by Jin Se-yeon meets Prince Lee Hwi (Yoon Shi-yoon) and unaware of his title they become close. Like many Korean historical dramas we have the romantic artistic prince who goes through hardship due to his ruthlessly ambitious brother who is also in love with Ja-hyun. Good quality acting but at 20 episodes it is too long and because there is not much going on in the script it would have been much better with fewer episodes. Or they could have given more time to character development and adding more background to the story then the simple thread we are given.

Good drama to watch must watch I watched it and complete it.

I give this show 8.5 stars (rounded up to 9). While there are plenty of good period K-Dramas out there, this is the first one I've seen which focused so sharply on the misery and precariousness of life suffered by those in the royal family (as well as the general helplessness of life in the caste system). You truly feel the agony /suffocation of an existence forced to revolve around protecting the king, throne and/or preventing any appearance of treason, constantly having to sacrifice one's personal needs and dreams for the "greater good." It's also rare for a film in this genre to take such a psychological approach to its storytelling, or to see a villain who is so vicious and despicable, yet so tragic at the same time. Joo Sang Wook isn't my favorite actor, but he was perfect for this role, and he acted it masterfully.

All in all, despite being (mostly) a love story, don't be fooled: This show is 75% tragedy. However, if you can endure the torment, the great acting and (mostly) happy ending makes it worth watching (and yes, justice does eventually prevail).

ROMANCE RATING: * * * 8/10

YSY and JSY had very good chemistry together and shared 4+ kiss scenes, all of which (IMO) were deep, passionate and emotional (YSY especially comitted himself well). As a "pure love" type film, there was no real sexual tension to speak of, but there was so much else going on, you don't have much time to notice or care.

Recommended!

Grand Prince had it's ups and downs, I think overall it was a decent show that was a bit too long and suffered from a stylistic over dramatic flair that brought the show down to a mediocre melodrama.

The plot was interesting and well written, however the first episode was a bit weird and over dramatic. Despite that odd first episode, the beginning of the show was strong, but then it began to unravel towards the midway mark and felt strung out towards the end. There were plot points that I thought should have been further explored, such as Eun Song's time with the Jurchen's. The characters were believable although they often felt a bit flat, with sadly very little character development (with the exception of the FL who was the only character that grew). The soundtrack was nice but overused. Some scenes were so over-acted it felt like I was watching a soap opera, which was unfortunate because all of the actors were great and could have done the scenes in a more tightly controlled manner.

The romantic plot line was very sweet, the loyalty and love between the leads was really wonderful to watch. The evil prince Lee Kang was incredible and easily the best character with the best acting. The younger version of him was so perfectly cast as well.

Overall I think this is worth a watch if you enjoy historical shows and melodramas. It's not bad, but not great either. It is unfortunately filmed like a much older show despite it being filmed in 2018. I would give it a chance though.