Hwarang (2016)

This drama will always be one my favorites, of course it has its flaws but it's worth it .

The story is the main reason I like it because it's interesting and keeps you wanting to watch more and unveil more of it. It's worth it on itself really.

Another reason is the romance, the leads' romance is a very sweet, heartwarming love story and you will feel it.

Lastly the osts, the osts in this drama are really memorable and you may even want listen to them outside of the drama by adding them to a playlist of yours.

Many people disliked Ah ro because she cried a lot or because she didn't return a certain character's feelings but I liked her, she was funny, cute and kind. She stood her ground saying it was wrong when someone wanted to impose himself on her and even kissed her without her consent. She also turned stronger as the series went on.

There were lots of bromance scenes you may like if that's your thing.

Park seo joon looks really good with long hair and if you liked him in other shows you may like him even more here, his character in this drama is really cool.

Now the things I disliked. There were some scenes such as: picture a scene where a certain number of people are sitting, brooding at the same time, and then it would show each of them and a flashback of what was bothering them one at a time, scenes like this felt unrealistic to me. There were also lots of repeated flashbacks in general.

Also there were other situations where the characters would say what they had said before in a different scene or a character would ignore another when that had happened before too.

Another thing that I found unnecessary was the love triangle, the story could have been much better had it not existed. The two guys could have been great friends the entirety of the show and more scenes of their friendship could have been added.

Lastly I disliked how the writer repeatedly put Ah ro in situations that caused trouble thus contributing to people disliking her, those scenes got annoying.

Despite those things, I overall 100% rec this drama, it's sure to be a good entertaining time to anyone.

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To be honest I don't know why I have decided to write a review on this drama. It was by no means my favourite, yet I felt compelled to write it.

Non Spoiler stuff...

Reasons I ended up watching this drama:
1. It's a historical K drama. I've recently been watching historical K dramas, (Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Tale of Nokdu, Rookie Historian)
2. Park Seo Joon - I watched him in 'What's wrong with Secretary Kim?' and heard good things about his general acting and wanted to see him in a different role.
3. Seo Ye Ji - I watched her in 'It's okay to not be okay' and she quickly rose to be one of my favourite actresses.
4. It's a good looking cast...

Reason you should watch:
1. Bromance and Friendships
2. Popular cast
3. It has good message of 'actions speak louder than words'

I gave Hwarang an 7.5 (more like a 7.3) , I probably would have given it something different, if I hadn't an idea of what a good historical drama should look like.

Spoilery (ish) stuff

Story
The story was the weakest part of the drama.

The pacing of the story at the end was rushed and wasn't completely satisfactory. The purpose of the Hwarang was to act as guards and to support King Jinheung. But in the end we barely got a glance of how the Hwarang would be put into play with the faceless King now on the throne. Nor did we see how Sam Maek Jong would do as King. Throughout the drama he talks of wanting to make a difference in Silla but that could have merely been words as we never got to see the better Silla.


Cast/ Acting
There is no denying that this drama has a star cast.

Most people that came to watch this show will have come for BTS V/ Taehyung (Hanseong) seeing as the comments are filled with him despite not being in the scene.

The best actors in the drama I would say were Park Hyung Shik (The King, Sam Maek-Jong, Second lead), Do Ji Han (Ban Ryu) and I guess, Park Seo Joon (Moo Myung , Male lead). Hyung Shik and Ji Han presented raw pain and emotions extremely well and Seo Joon demonstrated a good contrast between the awkwardness and innocence in terms of love compared to his anger and sadness.

Go Ara did alright. She wasn't the best actor in the drama, it may be due to my growing disinterest in her character that I didn't seem to click with her acting.

Romance/ Chemistry
The romance was a bigger aspect of the story than I thought it was going to be. Before going into the drama, I wasn't even aware that there would be a female lead. The romance was fine at the beginning because it built tension and brought the characters together, but after the reveal to Ah Ro that Moo Myung was not her brother I was put off by the romance. It might be that I am salty about the ending couple. But I am probably not the only one who thought that Ah Ro should have ended up with Sam Maek-Jong (Jidwi). In my personal opinion they had better romantic chemistry than the main couple. I felt that Ah Ro and Moo Myung would have been better with a sibling relationship.

The romance that was done perfectly was between Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon (Soo Ho's sister). The romance was sweet and opened doors into Ban Ryu's true character.

The bromance between the Hwarang was what gave the whole drama a boost in rating for me. I could tell that they all cared about each other. When Hanseong died, I started crying despite not having a huge attachment to the character, just because of all of their reactions.

Overall I would say that I'd rewatch this drama, but not all of it. I'd probably skim through the episodes or rewatch a specific episode for a scene that I enjoyed.

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17/01/2023

This is more or less about a faceless King in hiding and a peasant that wants vengeance for the death of his best friend.

All inside the kingdom of Silla that has no place for the poor.

Both, it seems, want the same thing as in a unified Silla with fair treatment and no rank system or anyone starving or resorting to theft. However, the Queen and one other have other plans and the King in hiding turns out to be the peasant's target of revenge.

Under the Queen, Hwarang is formed in order to train elite fighters from high class families of Silla to support the Royal family, only among those training are the peasant and the King so their story and all involved unfolds from there...

The peasant is not just an ordinary peasant and his real story comes to light eventually as well.

I actually enjoyed this drama and watched it in two days.

In some places I read that there were a lot of plot holes and unanswered questions, but I liked it for what it was which was light, likeable and well paced with a decent cast.

The bromance in this was quite good to watch and the humour was funny throughout most of it. Not all, but most.

The female lead's character, A- Ro, was a bit irritating after some time with all the crying and emotional outbursts, but all the males whether mains or support were solid.

Park Hyung-sik was a good fit for the King as was Park Seo Joon as the peasant, Moo Myung.

I will say that some of the fight scenes in this were not as good as some of the ones I have seen in Chinese Dramas - no where as good!!! Like the angles were not caught right, the speed was wrong and they weren't captured in a way that it was a wow factor for me. They weren't as spectacular like the ones, for example, in The Long Ballad or Ever Night S1 and S2.

Overall, this is a fairly decent drama and is something I'd watch again once a year no problem.

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The beauty and peril of being a young and privileged man.

Hwarang is a blast of youth. It is inspired by a real-life event. However, limited knowledge about history won’t affect your experience watching this drama . Even if it happened more than a thousand year ago, the theme is relevant to the current situation. It is about being part of the privileged group, about the desire to make a change to a corrupted and unjust society, about power struggle among those who have been in power for too long. Don’t worry, this is not a heavy k-drama. This is a light drama, basically to showcase all these beautiful young men living together and a battle of high level testosterone on a daily basis.

The story is not the strongest point of Hwarang. The production got a low score for me. But I don’t watch Sageuk so I don’t have any comparison. It looks like being filmed on a tight and low budget production. I didn’t check. Except for the beautiful dresses, the visuals are pretty lame.

Still, I will watch this drama over and over again. Just like eating junk food, it’s not good but it’s delicious. I am craving for more.

This drama has a long cast of talented actors/ actresses, I suspect the cost of production went to the casts. The casts save this drama. An example, I see how Kim Chan Wan as Park Yeong Shil put his signature in the character he plays so that the antagonist has more depth. So do other actors/ actresses. They bring their own interpretation to their character. At least, this is the case for the more experienced casts.

Wooga squad came out of this drama. It’s an indicator on how good the chemistry and relationship among the young casts is. Park Seo Joon together with Park Hyung Shik and Go Ah Ra, they make a good team. The rest of the young cast are similarly okay but, for me, Seo Joon stands out compared to others. Taehyung is my bias so I won’t comment much on his acting. It’s too similar to how Taehyung is being portrayed in real life on the many bangtan reality shows. I enjoy it but I am not sure if he is acting or he is simply being himself. There were moments when he was good, but it's like hit and miss. I don’t know if the character is made to accommodate him or he was given that character because it is similar to his. I suspect he could show better acting if he was given a different character, one that is not too close to his public personality and push him to go beyond his comfort zone.

Oh and, I know this is from a past time in a patriarchal culture but I read somewhere that Hwarang was created to counter the strong women squad. The women protagonist and antagonist are strong but I really wish there were more women in it.

I like some of their music, its catchy. But again, I have my own bias towards a certain bands. Ehm, what can I say? :)

This is a good drama if you need something light, want to be entertained. Hwarang has a bit of action, a splash of mellowness and a chuckle every now and then. Forget logic and be forgiving about holes in its story.

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I can’t understand how people don’t like this series! Believe it or not, I actually watched this series completely all in one day! Even the following day I again rewatched it! I’m not even kidding. And now I’m again rewatching it and it hasn’t even been 2 weeks. I wish I would’ve discovered it in 2016 to leave positive reviews about it! It’s honestly probably my favorite series from worldwide. Seojoon was just a blessing throughout the whole episode. I freaking loved the cast, music, and literally everything and everything. I at first just came across it randomly and chuckled to myself on how I’ll never watch this. And now my best decision in life was watching this series. GREAT JOB!!! FREAKING LOVED IT.

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Te actors amaze me. i love it so much

I originally started watching this series because of Kim Taehyung and soon realised it was amazing for so many other reasons. i liked the story line the first time but found it a little confusing but it all made sense once i thought over it. i did continue to re watch the series and i loved it as much as i did the first time. For me it had the perfect balances of plot, love life and actually covering a historical thing. i watched this drama in 2020 and i only wish that i had watched it sooner. I felt like i really connected with these characters through the series and i only wish that there was more to this story

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HWARANG HAD POTENTIAL (SPOILERS)

Okay lets just say, this story had so much potential but honestly so many problems with the writing, first of all, THE MAIN COUPLE🥰 they just flopped so hard, um i dont understand WHY?! ALSO THE FEMALE LEAD IS SO ANNOYING AND CRIES OVER ANYTHING LIKE ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY, THE FACT SHE LIKED SEONU THINKING HE WAS HER BROTHER MADE ME CRINGE,UMMMM? Whats more embarrassing is, the side couple was 19827337289983773 times better💀 I would have so preferred it if ban ryu and the female leads best friend were the mains, their story is so much better than whatever this was... AND THE FL AND SML HAD MORE CHEMISTRY AND GOOD SCENES TOGETHER LIKE GIRL BFFR WHAT IS THIS😹anyways, han seongs death was extremely unnecessary and the characters literally moved on from his death faster than i!? The only thing that made me continue this is, the second couple,that twink , ban ryu and their cute friendship scenes,and the homoerocy i needed more seonuxhanseong scenes , hanseong is so cute but had little screentime too, anyway, dont watch this, its a waste of time

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KDrama: 5/10
The only reason I wanted to watch this was for the hot male cast (MAINLY TAEHYUNG, MY LOVE), but I gave up around episode 4. I decided to come back now and try to watch it all. Overall I find myself enjoying the drama because of the comedy, nothing more and yes, I dropped in episode 11, because I didn't have any interest in continuing watching it.
I'm going to try and explain myself:
-Story: 5/10
It's more of a modern historical drama. And more of a love triangle, than action or history. For me it was like...a parody. There are scenes which were pretty stupid...The main couple had no chemistry and I even found myself bored at their scenes.
-Cast: 7/10
I loved the supporting roles more than the leads. I'm not a fan of Go Ah Ra, there are roles that I like her in, but there are others that I don't like, for example: I didn't like her in "Black" and here and I liked her in "You're all surrender" and "Miss Hammurabiss". That's why I came back. So in conclusion, this role doesn’t fit in Go Ah Ra, definitely, historical dramas are not for her and let's not talk about her useless and crying character, like, do I need to see 10 min of her walking while crying in a front of the camera?? Jesus... I prefer seeing Park Seo Joon in modern roles too. The supporting roles were the best! Minho is a good actor and this role helped him, since it was "light", V's role was his personality so he did good.
-Music: 10/10
For me, the music, was the strong bridge of drama.
Overall I didn't like Hwarang, I just gave it a 5 because, of the support lead, music and funny moments.

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I hate this drama! Don't watch it, you will develope anger issues.

Let's be frank, we all watched it for Taehyung. Sadly he has no happy ending which kinda broke my heart. But that's not the reason I dislike this drama so much.
First of all, the male lead was super annoying. He always stole the show of the king and made himself so important. I liked the king so much more, he deserved so much better ...
Secondly, the female lead... Do we even have to talk about her? Her character was so fcking shallow, i don't get why the male lead and the king both liked her. She cried almost every episode and had absolutly no character development.
Last but not least, the love story??? Of "brother" and "sister"? WTF? So weird and absolutly not enjoyable to watch.

All the supporting characters were great, just the male and female lead and their love story were absolutly not it.
Therefore I don't recommend this show AT ALL.

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Do not come into this drama thinking that everyone you like will be happy all the time. There are seriously depressing parts of this drama, warning for all those who watch this people do die.....

Hwarang for the most part is a light hearted fun bromance filled drama. If you want a drama with tons of eye candy this is definitely a good choice. But, understand that you may not end up caring at all about the main romance.

My favorite romance was not even the main romance, so that was depressing for me. Now, unlike others who got second lead syndrome I didn't it's just that the main romance did not have the same appeal as the secondary romance couple.

The casting was awesome and the actors they picked seemed to really fit with those characters. Also, since most the main actors are kpop idols it was hard to disconnect them from their characters as kpop idols. But, the drama rolled with that, and that is why I definitely love this drama. The music was awesome, as well, as it should be since it has so many singers in the show. The plot for the romance was the only thing that really lacked but for the most part that could be ignored. The plot for the rest of the story though ignoring the romance was interesting and intriguing. I loved this drama and would definitely watch it again!

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