kdrama: Warrior Baek Dong Soo eps 18-29 (end)

I hit one of my "Do not want subtitles! Too much work!" phases about 6 months ago and only really worked my way up to movies with subtitles in January. (The last time I hit a "Do not want subtitles! Too much work!" phase it lasted about twice as long. I was in the middle of shows then, too.) Thankfully, the break didn't make this show lose any steam for me.

I know a lot of people had issues with WBDS, especially regarding the pairings (I had the same preferences as most among the 4 main characters, but also grew rather attached to what the show went with) but I never had that problem, and this is definitely going to be on on my list of favorites if I ever do one again. I do think the extension was, in the long run, something of a mistake. Not because what they came up with was bad (though some things rather fell apart in the last episode) but because the writers were obviously basically done and finishing up with wrapping up most of the subplots and it was obvious they were scrambling to think things going. (Extensions can be good things, but give your writers advance notice!)

Thankfully, the fight scenes and characters and conversations were always the best parts, with the fact that the plot was also good more of a nice bonus. Speaking of fight scenes, I would not have believed Ji Chang Wook had a couple of the later scenes in him early in the series. Particularly "let me lure a dozen assassins who are after me into and alley and throw down my sword so I can see if I can handle a dozen armed men while unarmed myself JUST TO SEE IF I CAN DO IT" (Dong Soo, every time we thought you were finished growing up, you went and did things like that...) and "let me protect the king by fighting a hundred assassins in the courtyard, all alone, in the rain."  (Dong Soo, I know you spent 3 years on a mountain with a dude who was considered Best. Warrior. Ever even before he spent 16 years living in China with warrior monks and doing things like initentionally dangling off a cliff doing one-armed pullups, and so can probably catch arrows with his toes, but you have limits.)  This thing is seriously a traditional sageuk fused with wuxia, resulting in a "mostly good parts only" shounen manga.

( spoilers )

In other news...uhm...are sageuks being replaced by cute time travel stories this season or something?  I know there are some longer traditional sageuks running on the weekends (Naturally, the only one that interests me is the one that isn't getting subbed, as far as I can tell.) but it seems there's usually at least one or two sageuks-regular or fusion-as weekly dramas too, but there aren't any right now that I can see, and the only upcoming one I've found is Arang and the Magistrate, which appears to be a fusion horror sageuk (which I am naturally all over).