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kdrama: The Blade and the Petal eps 3-6
Jul. 20th, 2013 10:36 pmAKA, Sword and Flower and Sword and Petal. The Blade and the Petal is the version of th title I'm seeing used the most, though, so I guess I'll use it.
This is apparently a ratings flop and I'm told it's been pretty poorly received by fandom in general, but the people I actually follow who've commented on it like it, and I don't really feel compelled to seek out the negative reviews. I do wonder, though, if the ratings might be partly because of the timeslot? Since I can't watch kdramas live and rarely even the same day they air, I'm not good at keeping up with the timeslots and the numbers they pull in, but I do know that Mandate of Heaven is the show it replaced, and that apparently didn't do well with ratings either. (I have seen and greatly enjoyed the first few episodes of Mandate of Heaven, and like Gu Family Book, I should post on it.)
Ah well, at least with kdramas, you don't have to worry about either shows getting renewed seasons and seasons after they lose what you initially liked about them, or getting cancelled on a first season cliffhanger. With the rare exception, at worse it gets extended or shortened a few episodes and while the scramble to to work with the new episode count may affect the overall quality, it's better than the western alternative.
So, as much as I love that someone apparently went "I want to write about the fall of Goguryeo and the conflict between Yeon Gae So Mun and King Yeongnyu and it's fallout, but that could use some women so we'll give King Yeongnyu a daughter and heve the whole thing through her POV," I don't at all love that we have exactly 1 major female character and 2 minor female characters, 1 of whom is exclusivel on flashback duty, and everyone else is a dude. I mean, seriously, it wouldn't be that hard to give Moo Young a female confidant, or have a couple palace ladies who are involved in all the politicking and scheming? The difference between this series and most other sageuks that I've watched in that regard is pretty stark.
Despite that, though, I am enjoying the series a lot, and a lot of that does have to do with the fact that it's framed as Moo Young's version of events, and many of the things that I'm told others have problems with are, IMO, being depicted through Moo Young's memories and interpretations of events, and that's why we have scenes of dreamy gaga-ness mixed with scenes of stark reality, scenes of surreal tension, and others that are almost in the abstract.
( spoilers )
This is apparently a ratings flop and I'm told it's been pretty poorly received by fandom in general, but the people I actually follow who've commented on it like it, and I don't really feel compelled to seek out the negative reviews. I do wonder, though, if the ratings might be partly because of the timeslot? Since I can't watch kdramas live and rarely even the same day they air, I'm not good at keeping up with the timeslots and the numbers they pull in, but I do know that Mandate of Heaven is the show it replaced, and that apparently didn't do well with ratings either. (I have seen and greatly enjoyed the first few episodes of Mandate of Heaven, and like Gu Family Book, I should post on it.)
Ah well, at least with kdramas, you don't have to worry about either shows getting renewed seasons and seasons after they lose what you initially liked about them, or getting cancelled on a first season cliffhanger. With the rare exception, at worse it gets extended or shortened a few episodes and while the scramble to to work with the new episode count may affect the overall quality, it's better than the western alternative.
So, as much as I love that someone apparently went "I want to write about the fall of Goguryeo and the conflict between Yeon Gae So Mun and King Yeongnyu and it's fallout, but that could use some women so we'll give King Yeongnyu a daughter and heve the whole thing through her POV," I don't at all love that we have exactly 1 major female character and 2 minor female characters, 1 of whom is exclusivel on flashback duty, and everyone else is a dude. I mean, seriously, it wouldn't be that hard to give Moo Young a female confidant, or have a couple palace ladies who are involved in all the politicking and scheming? The difference between this series and most other sageuks that I've watched in that regard is pretty stark.
Despite that, though, I am enjoying the series a lot, and a lot of that does have to do with the fact that it's framed as Moo Young's version of events, and many of the things that I'm told others have problems with are, IMO, being depicted through Moo Young's memories and interpretations of events, and that's why we have scenes of dreamy gaga-ness mixed with scenes of stark reality, scenes of surreal tension, and others that are almost in the abstract.
( spoilers )