User reviews

All participants in this drama, both actors and directors, understood that in making such a decision, there is a huge risk of injury and death of the animal. Apologies are easy to say, it is impossible to restore life to a living being. Drama cancellation and litigation is the perfect solution for all of them. Cruel, but deserved.

For such a company, using computer graphics is not a problem at all, but it is clear that someone is especially greedy and continues to exploit animals for their stupid purposes. The question is, how many such projects were there before this drama and how many animals were harmed on their set for the sake of a few "spectacular" minutes? An animal died, footage of animal abuse was included in the episode, and the film crew just apologized .. do you think this is normal??

I don't think this show deserves to see the light of day. It wasn't worth the animal abuse that they condoned for a short shot in the show. Not only did they tie a real horse up and force it to land on its head, but the horse unfortunately died shortly after. If you're considering watching this show... don't. No show is worth the torture and death of an animal, especially not this one. There are many dramas that follow this unoriginal plot like this one that don't partake in cruelty like this.

I hope this show gets cancelled, and they people behind this suffer the consequences.

Don't support animal abuse in films or any other form of entertainment. The poor horse involved in this film endured horrific treatment which led to the unnecessary death of this innocent animal. They actually wired the horses legs together to make it fall and killed it. This is just beyond belief. Why was this allowed to happen? This is not entertainment.

The tv series itself is great. It's like a Korean Game of Thrones - many characters and parties fighting for the throne, each has bad side and good side. Complex characters, great writing and storyline. It's like the dark truth of history, not a fairytale-like story like many other historical kdramas. This is definitely the best Korean tv show I have seen!

All the complaints and bad ratings are because of the animal abuse scandal. One horse died during filming, sadly. While this is very unfortunate and I hope the responsible ones were fired and the necessary actions were taken to avoid such abuse in the future, I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the series itself. There were probably a few production workers who work with the horses, they made this terrible mistake. But there are hundreds of others, innocent people, who work on this production! The great actors, the script writers, the costume designers, the set designers, the cameramen, etc! Don't degrade their work too just because a few others made that terrible mistake! It's as if you canceled the great movie The Pianist because of the director Polanski's scandals. You can't cancel or degrade a whole production, which is the great work of hunderds of good people, because of the scandal of a few people.

Watch behind the scenes. See how few of the set guys hold the rope and kill the horse in the set. Imagine, you have one job, its easy, to help the production, and you have brain as well. You know that what you are doing will kill the horse, and you are killing a horse with your own hands. I wonder the psychology of the authority who decided this. No movie set should have the courage to kill an animal.

The series was great. Every episode of the series was wonderful and exciting and the actor of the main character "Joo Sang Wook" was great in it. His acting was very cool and impressive and I liked him very much. His facial expression and acting in different scenes made me think that he is a versatile actor. He's a really talented actor. Definitely, he's been in the industry for so long, but he's still able to deliver amazing performances.

And about the story of the series, because it was completely based on Korean history and historical facts, it was very attractive and exciting to me.

It was such a touching series Thanks to all the creators of this series.

All actors and crew know animals are killed to make this show. Just look at the poor video of them killing a horse for just one scene. Purposefully tripping it. It died a week later, but looks extremely injured so therefore it must have suffered for a long while. This show needs to be banned and and all participants jailed or fined. Disgusting.

The show overall is tasteless. It's not only tasteless but they killed a horse while filming. Absolutely terrible. Whoever came up with the idea to tie the horse should get fired and should go to jail for animal cruelty. Disgusting.

I totally agree with rkpmthk's observation. I really wanted to see this and I started watching it at a Korean friend's place - couldn't continue. Animal cruelty is the most abhorrent thing to me and this just turned my stomach; then again, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.

It might have a decent story line but I will never know because I will never watch something that chose violence, abuse and neglegence of an animals welfare for a mere scene. I am an avid fan of Korean production but this is just far too much...

Hi Angelique, and whoever supports this show and the ones behind it, if you consider killing a horse on PURPOSE is a mistake, then you're no less as sick and disgusting as the perpetrators who commited this vile and awful act.

Kami had his legs tied up with wire, several people pulled on those wires as soon as he started running with the sole purpose of tripping him, Kami ended up falling (as they wanted) and breaking his neck, nobody there cared about him as he lay there in what I would imagine was excruciating pain, he died a week later due to his injuries, they killed him for entertainment, he was only around 5 years old, he still had 20-25 years ahead of him, but they killed him on purpose for what? A couple minutes in a TV show?

Btw this was not the first time KBS had done this, this is just the one that they were caught red handed in doing, so no, this was not an accident, a MURDER was commited, and your cold heartedness in supporting the murderers really shows what kind of evil you are.

The prior review by angelique says everything I think about this complex intelligent work of genius. I have seen probably 40 Kdramas of which most have been excellent. With gorgeous boys (thank you!) and gals. And clever tricks.

This isn't that. It's deeply serious with no easy answers about who is good or bad. It's a very complicated story that will demand your attention. Don't miss it.

Firstly, the low ratings are due to the death of a horse on set. Focusing only on the show, it is one of my all-time favourite non-romance historical k-drama. The show is paced wonderfully, not too slow and not too fast. It also makes the various titles and ceremonies involved easy to understand and remember. Unlike most other historical k-dramas, the acting is not too over-the-top that it feels unreal. The actors do a very good job of making the scenes real, engrossing and believable. All events depicted in the series are also almost completely accurate (the places, people and decisions shown are accurate, while the dialogues are obviously fictional). As a bonus, the series also shows the buildings depicted in the series which have survived to this day in the end-credits.