Lovers of the Red Sky (2021)

Negli ultimi 5 episodi la trama è una minestra lunga che finisce per annoiare.

Durante la dinastia Joseon (1392-1910), una giovane donna di nome Hong Chun Gi (Kim Yoo Jung) fa la pittrice, una vera rarità nella Corea Joseon, dove i valori confuciani impongono che tali attività siano inappropriate per una donna.
È nata cieca, ma in qualche modo è riuscita a riacquistare il senso della vista ed ora è stata accettata alla più prestigiosa università d'arte del paese.
Un giorno incontra Ha Ram (Ahn Hyo Seop), un astrologo il cui destino è l'opposto del suo: sebbene sia nato vedente, ha perso la vista in un incidente d'infanzia. Ciononostante, è anche in possesso di un talento sorprendente: nonostante il fatto che sia cieco, può leggere il futuro seguendo il movimento del cielo la notte.
I personaggi principali di sono bravi e il cast indovinato. Anche lo spunto, una fiaba fantastica con la lotta tra il bene e il male, è Ok. La storia d'amore, con happy end finale, dopo un po' risulta insulsa e noiosetta.
Mi spiace perché l'attrice principale è veramente carismatica, ma alla fine tutta la serie dice pochino.

Leer más

Enjoyable but haphazard plot

Enjoyable and gripping; love the cast and acting, the idea, OST and pace.
All the usual sageuk plotting, scheming, jealousy, nasty characters and intrigue, peppered with humour, warmth and romance.
Cheon-ki was pretty capable and bubbly with a can-do attitude. Loved the supporting characters at the art school.
Ha Ram was quite melancholic and gentle, but with a darker side too ~ so well portrayed by Ahn Hyo-seop. His personal servant, Man Soo, was a favourite character (even though a small part), so well played by Kim Hyun-Mok ~ I just loved him 😁
Icing on the cake, is the dark fantasy element, which is a genre I really like and some interesting deities.
The leads worked well together and both are favourites of mine. AHS's voice is something else too, with a unique depth to it.
The reason I couldn't give 10/10, was because of a few holes in the plot.
Fantasy is one thing, but I got irritated by how easily a supposedly blind character could navigate stuff from walking freely to asking for written documents.
Also by how stupid Cheon-ki could be at times, in relation to getting when a character was possessed or themselves (black smoke and clawed hands should be a give away, surely?!)
Some of the scenes between her and her father I found a bit too melodramatic and the number of times she shrieked "abeoji, abeoji" made me want to scream!
I also found it hard to follow why Mawang only appeared at certain times when 2 characters touched and not others.
Finally, the reviewed second version of ep.1, put right after ep.1, totally ruined the flow of the programme for me (I watched on Viki). It duplicated so much of the drama and if I'd realised, I would have left viewing it until after I'd finished. It just did not fit there and would not have ruined the drama watching it later. Bizarre really.
Glad I watched it though.

Leer más

Yangmyeong was the real MVP and y'all did him dirty

So, another drama that was really difficult to rate for me. I don't think it's as bad as most top reviews make it out to be, but it's also not nearly as good as it could have been.

The beginning was promising and it wasn't really a difficult drama to finish, but the quality definitely drops in the second half of this drama. The main couple becomes particularly annoying, which is sad cause I really liked them initially, but in the end I only finished the drama to know how everything would unfold.

Honestly it really enraged me how Cheon Gi kept making up excuses for Ha Ram, like I know it's not his fault but the dude is still a menace to everyone around him and he tried to kill her multiple times whe he was posessed by Ma Wang. He should totally be imprisoned but somehow Cheon Gi acted like Yangmyeong was some sort of monster when he tried to do that. It's like when any minimal thing happened to Ha Ram and he was separated from Cheon Gi she suddenly could not produce one rational thought anymore and just started crying pathetically. Her only redeeming quality by the end is that she was still determined to finish the King's portrait, even if it was just to save her boyfriend.

One of the main gripes I had with most of the characters (main couple and the other painters from the academy) is that they were against Cheon Gi painting the King's portrait because something bad MIGHT happen to her but none of them really took into consideration that if the demon was not sealed in the painting it would cause havoc everywhere it went and nobody would be able to stop it. Like, they're supposed to be the good guys, but they can't even think about all the innocents that would die and how the country would've been thrown into chaos if the portrait was not finished. This is about the greater good people, seriously, that was so irritating.

The ML was a very difficult character to root for as well. From the beginning he was more of a sinister character, since he just cared about his revenge (even executing it against innocents like hello, Yangmyeong was a child when that happened) and not really caring about the consequences of his acts. Even then I was at least intrigued cause I thought it was a different approach to a male protagonist, but later he becomes even more insufferable as he seems to only care about the female lead and makes stupid decisions because of it.

So basically that's why I kept watching mainly for one chracter: Yangmyeong. He seemed to be the only one with some common sense and who put the wellbeing of the nation and the people first, fighting to complete the Sealing Ceremony and basically saving everyone's lives by doing so. I even think his character was underused towards the end, but he was still one of the best. Damn, how I wish he was the first lead. So I don't think I even have to comment on the epilogue, my boy deserved so much more.

The last character I want to talk about is Sam Sim. She was such an useless old hag lmao. Honestly I couldn't tell if she was trying to help or to be a nuisance. Everything could've been much batter if she intervened when everybody needed her. Like why did she have to wait until Ma Wang got his eyes back to try to stop him during the Sealing Ceremoy????

Although the story was interesting and gripping, it still was full of plot facilitations, holes and they simply kept creating more rules that mostly made no sense or contradicted things stablished previously. It's like the writers just straight up forgot certain characters existed, too.

The CGI was kinda bad but that was to be expected. The OST was good and the acting was pretty good as well, except that the male lead couldn't really act blind. The romance could've been much better if they werent' so annoying and if it was developed properly. I understand they were like soulmates, but I really think the show lacked scenes of them bonding or getting to know each other better.

Overall I did have fun and managed to finish this drama pretty quickly, but honestly I don't know if it's worth a recommendation as it's pretty forgettable and has quite some issues. Some might think my rating is a bit high for this show, but I just don't feel passionately about it to rate it lower to be frank.

Leer más

Beautiful Cast, Stretched Story

Was excited to watch this because of the lead actors and the plot summary looked interesting. The build up at the start was interesting and I expected the story to unravel more. However, the story seemed to have been stretched so much that the conflicts with the demon and the "evil" characters were repetitive and the back stories became confusing. There were a lot of unanswered questions: Who is Mae Hyang? Who will win in the battle between the 2 princes? Why was that left hanging and why did they choose that to be the ending (a set up for Season 2, perhaps)? What's with the three hooligans who still haven't stopped looking for Hong Chun Ki? Most importantly, I honestly didn't feel that much chemistry between the two lead characters because their interactions as a couple were very limited and, sometimes, awkward.

Leer más

Blind red eyes

A blind girl who regains her sight and a boy who has lost it. They meet again after twenty years.
She became a painter and he became the king's supervising astrologer, also known as the "red-eyed monster".
The young prince and the astronomer fall in love with her, but her heart belongs completely to her old friend.
As a divine painter she should restore the portrait of last king to trap the evil spirit that has taken possession of the young man's body . This proves more difficult than expected.
Great OST.

NB how can a blind boy give a vote in a painting competition?

Leer más

Un peccato davvero

Davvero un peccato, visto il cast di tutto rispetto e una recitazione che come al solito non delude.
Purtroppo la serie si arena sulla sceneggiatura, esageratamente ed inutilmente contorta per la parte di fantasia, con una serie di personaggi ed eventi di cui viene spiegato poco o nulla allo spettatore, mentre per la parte dei personaggi reali resta superficiale, con dialoghi poco interessanti e dinamiche scontate.
I tanti spunti interessanti (il rapporto di fratellanza tra i pretendenti al trono, il rapporto tra i protagonisti bambini, tra la protagonista e i membri dell'accademia, la doppia identità del protagonista e il rapporto con i suoi assistenti, la preparazione della vendetta, l'amore non corrisposto, e così via) non vengono elaborati ed il risultato è addirittura banale. Un'idea con potenzialità, resa malissimo. Inoltre, le prime due puntate sono un riassunto delle successive...perché?

Sarebbe bastato che lo sceneggiatore avesse speso la metà delle energie utilizzate per creare il ridondante ingarbuglio di personaggi ed eventi "magici" (o "mitologici" che dir si voglia) per definire i personaggi reali, invece di appiattirli su banali cliché, e per sviluppare l'idea, originale, della cecità alternata. Sarebbe stata una serie intricante. Invece è deludente, con ripetizioni di situazioni e dinamiche fino allo sfinimento, intramezzate da narrazioni scontate e inutili che la rendono persino noiosa.

La straordinaria capacità, tutta coreana, di concepire una storia con più filoni intrecciati, con più personaggi principali e una platea di figure ben definite, tra cui i "cattivi" che sempre hanno uno spessore particolare, e con colpi di scena sorprendenti e talvolta capaci di invertire completamente la lettura dell'intera storia, in questa serie si intravede solamente, come potenzialità disattesa, mentre il risultato è un vero e proprio minestrone, con di tutto e di più, raffazzonato, come se la sceneggiatura fosse stata scritta di fretta e non maturata o scritta da più mani.
Nonostante sia generalmente molto generosa nelle mie valutazioni, amando particolarmente le produzioni coreane, questa volta metto una stella, dedicata alla recitazione, che con un cast simile non poteva comunque che essere di buon livello, ma ritengo che la serie in sé valga meno di una.

Leer más

Too cliched and trash storyline

If I can give this a 0 rating I will. What a waste of good actors... The storyline is trash..
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Leer más

Promising start -artistic and beautiful, yet the romance gets annoying after

The first few episodes were so great, they introduce a fresh, new, and an amazing fantasy storyline. From the cast itself, I knew that the acting will be marvelous and they show cleverness in acting as I expected but sometimes Ahn Hyo Seop forgets that he’s supposed to act as a blind man. I already watched a lot of Korean historical drama and most of them bored me at some point, the same goes with this drama but I’m grateful to witness a historical inserting magical powers and believes that make the story more colorful.

The best part of the show is how they highlighted the traditional skill of drawing and painting. The gathering or competition among many painters was my favorite episode of all time. The way they executed the variety of brushing techniques, the sound of papers and brush, the big factor of being able to draw an art that has different kind of impression, and the quality effects of each drawings was really a masterpiece. I have so much fun watching the episode so much plus the three best friends call sign is so hilarious and cute (troublemaker, nuisance, and frown).

The early episodes were light and comedic but then it gets serious and dramatic. It was during EP12 when I started to hate the romance from the story. Obviously, they failed to emphasize the love story in a more pleasant way. Perhaps it became another cliché story that let either one of the lovers affects the people around them just because of their undying love on each other. The girl does risky things even thou she or her beloved people can be killed any minute. Then the boy sudden change of heart is odd, I hate it when he’s loyal subordinate man sacrifices his life just to save the father of his girlfriend. Where is the years of planning for vengeance? The same goes with the girl, the antagonist was right when he called that the reason why her father was killed was simply because of her desperate love for his boyfriend.

On the other hand, I love how the second and third prince rivalry story were given an open ended story. The second prince shows explicit facial expression on acting as an antagonist, it was good. The third prince was one of my early favorite because of his cuteness and innocent character. Every royal family in a drama always have to fight for the throne all the time. The demon and all other mythical creatures explicit in the show is something I am really happy about.

Another part of the show that I love the most is the music (OSTs, background songs). Byun Baekhyun proves that he is one of the most incredible singer in the industry. Hearing his song is a beautiful perfection fit for the concept and cinematography of the show. All of the music are cool, especially the background song plays when the characters are painting during the competition, a soothing and elegance vibes.

Overall, it was really good but only the romance during the last few episodes affected my enjoyment of watching. The ending is okay as well as the epilogue. The cast are the reason I started to watch the show but I fell in love with the story which was a great experience for me as a viewer.

Leer más

It's good

I initially started this drama because it's An Hyeseop fr. It's good it has a straightforward approach with the plot instead of flashbacks. Im not sure if I appreciated that because I like to wonder "oh what could be the cause of that" "how did he end up like that " but they just put it right at the beginning.
What I dont like with the story (episode 1 to like the mid of ep 16) is that one of the main characters is always at a disadvantage, but ig it's okay.
The whole demon thing and the 2nd Prince felt underdeveloped and rushed. They should've spent more time on them. Because honestly there wasn't the full effect there like "okay they're there, they are obviously not going to win or achieve anything" i love when the villains give me anxiety tbh It's much better because the ending is more satisfying 💯.
I also felt that the main characters' chemistry was kinda lacking in some ways dont know how to explain that. The only thing that they got going for them is their history
Overall, it's a good drama, not the best I have watched but far from the worst.

Leer más

Enjoyable if you have the right attitude

It's a mistake to take a supernatural saeguk too seriously. Parts of this were so hyper that it was quite funny. I kept wondering what the Ha Ram script looked like as he turned into various manifestations of the demon - what are the stage directions like? The changes certainly kept the makeup people busy. And how many times did Painter Hong say abeoji in this drama? Good grief. I'm very fussy about CG, and all the CG effects were well done.
This is possibly the most over the top historical I've ever seen, to the point that it became absurd. But it still provided pretty good entertainment. The cast did a great job, the writing wasn't annoying, it was a little over-long but not horribly, and even the music did not offend. It was fun to watch, and you could spend your time in a worse way - like watching Squid Game.

Leer más

so much potential

Great cinematography, great actors, really handsome ML, powerful beginning. After the first two episodes I was totally in love with this drama. I love fantasy and I love romance, it was perfect for me. But man they throw it away... Half of the show is good but the other half is so bad that in the end i don't recommend anyone to lose time with this. The problem is that each episode is half good and half bad: after each major scene there is endless time where the characters involved in that scene explain to all the other characters what just happened, what does it means, what they have to do next. Then they do that and the routine begin again.
Half of each episodes is dragged from the beginning to the end of the show.
Another big problem is that the rules of magic in this world are a bit confused. It is not really clear when Ma Wang manifest, how strong are his power compared to the others and how powerful are the magical items. The magical spirits are cool but in some ways not so convincing, in particular the white guy and the green guy.
Last but not least the plot in the end is a bit weak and you can really feel it because of all the useless scenes.
I'm so disappointed, the premises were really cool.

Leer más