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Kdrama: Scarlet Heart Ryeo, eps 1-4
Sep. 5th, 2016 11:20 pmI watched all episodes of Scarlet Heart Ryeo (aka Moon Lovers, the latest time travel sageuk, that have aired today. Some notes:
1. I have not seen the original Chinese series. It's on my list of shows to eventually watch, if mostly for Liu Shi Shi, but I never got around to it. I do know, however, that the original is very much Ruo Xi/Hae Soo's story, but this is currently skewed far more towards the 4th prince. And while I like him and his plot, I'm very grumpy about that.
2. So, we pretty much have two shows going on here. Wang So, the king, the evil queen, the evil prince and the crown prince are in this really Serious Business dark and twisty and dramatic and kinda messed up political sageuk where everyone is doomed and no one can be happy. Everyone else is starring in the Goryeo version of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, except were trading scholars for princes, and crossdressing for time travel and fake amnesia. Evil Prince fits in neatly with the SKKS side of things, too, as he's the Actually Evil version that one dude. You know which one. Ha Ji Won's baby brother who never blinks. Lee Joon Ki being Lee Joon Ki, Wang So sometimes slips easily into the SKKS side of things too. (Wang Wook doesn't know which show he's in. That's fine with me since I don't particularly care for him so far. Just keep floundering, dude, and stop eyeballing your wife's cousin/pseudo-daughter so much, even if i can al eady see where that's going.) But there really are two distinct shows with very different feels going on here at times, but I think the combination works better than either would separately.
3. Lee Joon Ki is heading up his 5th sageuk (6th if we count movies) and his fourth in as many years, only 1 of which wasnt a fantsy sageuk. The difference in experience between him and most of the cast is even more obvious than the fact that he's around a decade older than most of the actors who are playing his relative contemporaries. Absolutely no one is doing a bad job so far, but he's operating at a level most of them can't keep up with for long. I'm not sure we even have many sageuk regulars among the court characters? The only one I've spotted so far is Jo Min Ki as the king.
3b. I don't see why people are complaining so much about Iu's acting. This is the first thing I've seen her in and while she isn't doing an amazing job, I don't see any problems with her performance so far. You don't have to give an award winning performance for it to be a good performance. I do wonder, though, if they'd cast a more experienced actress and someone other than Lee Joon Ki, if we would still have the focus skewed towards Wang So instead of Hae Soo.
4. Most of the princes are kinda...indistinguishable balls of cheerful fluff.
5. I have no idea how they're going to convincingly have Hae Soo fall for Wang So at this point, given the stuff he's done. I've bought into pairings with even more baggage before, though. I mean, I get why he's falling for her, but the other side will be hard to buy at this point.
6. Wang So is 100% a Clamp character. I'm not talking average levels of Clamp angsty backstories. I'm talking Goryeo era Fai here, but with less magic and more bloodsoaked carnage.
6b. I'm pretty sure there's someone whose actual job is just to think of scenarios that result in Lee Joon Ki being attractively bloody.
7. I love Three Kingdoms era sageuks so much more than Joseon era sageuks. More interesting politics, better fashion, and a wider variety of roles for women without having to find a way to justify the female lead being in certain positions.
1. I have not seen the original Chinese series. It's on my list of shows to eventually watch, if mostly for Liu Shi Shi, but I never got around to it. I do know, however, that the original is very much Ruo Xi/Hae Soo's story, but this is currently skewed far more towards the 4th prince. And while I like him and his plot, I'm very grumpy about that.
2. So, we pretty much have two shows going on here. Wang So, the king, the evil queen, the evil prince and the crown prince are in this really Serious Business dark and twisty and dramatic and kinda messed up political sageuk where everyone is doomed and no one can be happy. Everyone else is starring in the Goryeo version of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, except were trading scholars for princes, and crossdressing for time travel and fake amnesia. Evil Prince fits in neatly with the SKKS side of things, too, as he's the Actually Evil version that one dude. You know which one. Ha Ji Won's baby brother who never blinks. Lee Joon Ki being Lee Joon Ki, Wang So sometimes slips easily into the SKKS side of things too. (Wang Wook doesn't know which show he's in. That's fine with me since I don't particularly care for him so far. Just keep floundering, dude, and stop eyeballing your wife's cousin/pseudo-daughter so much, even if i can al eady see where that's going.) But there really are two distinct shows with very different feels going on here at times, but I think the combination works better than either would separately.
3. Lee Joon Ki is heading up his 5th sageuk (6th if we count movies) and his fourth in as many years, only 1 of which wasnt a fantsy sageuk. The difference in experience between him and most of the cast is even more obvious than the fact that he's around a decade older than most of the actors who are playing his relative contemporaries. Absolutely no one is doing a bad job so far, but he's operating at a level most of them can't keep up with for long. I'm not sure we even have many sageuk regulars among the court characters? The only one I've spotted so far is Jo Min Ki as the king.
3b. I don't see why people are complaining so much about Iu's acting. This is the first thing I've seen her in and while she isn't doing an amazing job, I don't see any problems with her performance so far. You don't have to give an award winning performance for it to be a good performance. I do wonder, though, if they'd cast a more experienced actress and someone other than Lee Joon Ki, if we would still have the focus skewed towards Wang So instead of Hae Soo.
4. Most of the princes are kinda...indistinguishable balls of cheerful fluff.
5. I have no idea how they're going to convincingly have Hae Soo fall for Wang So at this point, given the stuff he's done. I've bought into pairings with even more baggage before, though. I mean, I get why he's falling for her, but the other side will be hard to buy at this point.
6. Wang So is 100% a Clamp character. I'm not talking average levels of Clamp angsty backstories. I'm talking Goryeo era Fai here, but with less magic and more bloodsoaked carnage.
6b. I'm pretty sure there's someone whose actual job is just to think of scenarios that result in Lee Joon Ki being attractively bloody.
7. I love Three Kingdoms era sageuks so much more than Joseon era sageuks. More interesting politics, better fashion, and a wider variety of roles for women without having to find a way to justify the female lead being in certain positions.