Ode to Ji Ah

The drama has a promising start with an exorcist and a medium solving ghost mysteries following the familiar ghost-of-the week format. The title is inaccurate because the plot only focuses on the exorcism storylines with the realty business being an afterthought. No actual home selling is being shown in any of the episodes. What I liked about the drama is that every ghost story is not only about sending ghosts happily ever after into the afterlife. Both Ji Ah and In Beom experience ghost memories allowing them to resolve any unfinished business and provide closure to the surviving family, which adds depth to the story and characters.

The drama's weakest link is Ji Ah. When she is not brooding, she is crying. When she is not crying, she is mad. When she is not doing any of these, she is sleeping. She is completely underdeveloped as a character and keeps doing the same things in every episode, which significantly affects her relationships with everyone else. Her and Oh In Beom have many near death experiences and share ghost memories. He even helps to send her mom's ghost into the afterlife. There is so much potential to develop their relationship into a solid friendship, even with a possibility of romance. But, with Ji Ah's perpetually constipated attitude, they always feel like strangers.

Even the promising exorcism plot turns into an endless loop of Ji Ah drama. The story surrounding mom's death becomes a boring array of flashbacks showing the same thing over and over and over with Ji Ah's always losing her sh*t at the end. The egg ghost plotline is the most compelling, but it is completely underdeveloped and ends with a fart, while the writers insist on boring us with scenes of Ji Ah crying hysterically after suffering through another dead mom flashback.

I really enjoyed about 2/3 this drama, but the poor writing at the end and a lack of character development were disappointing.

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Mediocrity r us

The drama had enough to create an engaging story and interesting characters, but for me it fell short. The show felt a lot of like a modern workplace drama with characters playing dress up. The plot didn't delve deep enough exploring the difficulties Haeryung faced trying to fit into a man's world. And, the dethroned prince storyline only picked momentum towards the end.

The chemistry between Haeryung and Yi Rim was a bit bland. She was six years older than him and acted more like an older sister than a love interest. They often looked awkward together and weren't convincing as two young people in love. I was very apprehensive to watch this drama because of SSK's abysmal performance in Captivating the King. But, surprisingly, she did a pretty decent job.

The ending was very underwhelming. The drama had a very progressive message for women to pursue their dreams and not being shackled by society's expectations. However, neither Haeryung nor Yi Rim achieved any tremendous heights at the end. They lived together like a married couple, but they weren't married and nobody paid too much attention to that. This was especially strange considering the historical period they lived in. Yi Rim abandoned his princehood and became a nobody while Haeryung blissfully continued to bebop through life as a historian. At the end, they achieved nothing and their so-called "freedom" consisted of them blissfully living in an extramarital relationship. I didn't get anything out of this message except that being mediocre was ok.

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Icky and forgettable

This drama sucks you in with a promise of an engaging story and interesting characters. But, after a few episodes, the whole thing devolves into a cesspool of boring cliches, plot holes, and bland story arcs.

The story started off with Renjuan and Qiuchi having an incredible first encounter just to be separated and reunited again at school. They had some of the best chemistry I've seen in Chinese drama with cute interactions and beautifully written romance. The fun lasted for about 15 episodes until the story switched up to a series of very bland and skippable short arcs with very quick resolutions. It would've been fine if these stories somehow fit into the plot. But after one ended, none of the minor characters and plot ever resurfaced again.

One of the major issues with the drama was the main couple getting together too early and leaving no room for future romantic development. This became apparent when the writers force fed us every possible jealous lover trope to manufacture tension and destroy their own story. Brave Renjuan regressed into a spineless turd who couldn't be bothered to fight for her love. Instead of thinking of a clever way to avoid marriage between Qiuchi and Princess Yeying, she ended her relationship with Qiuchi in a screaming match. Ironically, a very timid Qinghe exchanged hair pins with Hang Ruxue, then both strolled off leaving the princess to pout on her own. Not only did the writers completely destroy Renjuan's character making her look weak, they also showed that she couldn't handle adversity or fight for what was important to her.

The villains were reduced to scorned lover caricatures devoid of any complexity. Wen Renshu started out as a jealous schemer only to regress to a complete idiot who acted against her self-interest because of her deranged obsession with Fu Yuanzhi. Instead of rubbing her two brain cells together, she went out of her way to help Yuanzhi get rid of Qiuchi without realizing that she was helping the object of her affection dispose of his love rival. Yuanzhi went from being clever and calculating to a complete psycho trying to burn his classmates alive. The quality of storytelling felt laughably arbitrary like nobody on the writing team communicated or even understood their own plot.

And then there were plot holes everywhere. Evil step mother promised to be a force to be reckoned when she threatened to destroy Renjuan's future and marry her off to some loser. That storyline was quickly abandoned and the stuttering loser just fell off the plot. Renjuan's martial arts training evaporated in favor of the damsel-in-distress trope where she forgot how to fight and now needed to be constantly rescued.

Even the best thing about the drama - the love story between Renjuan and Qiuchi - eventually became boring and repetitive. The plot felt like the writers ran out of ideas at episode 15 and decided to wing it moving forward. I was so excited when I started watching it, and now I want all the hours I wasted back.

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Mixed feelings

I have mixed feelings about this drama. On one hand, the political intrigue was very interesting and the action scenes were fun. The chemistry between the couples was very good leading to nicely put together love stories. On the other hand, some characters had very bad motivations leading to very questionable choices.

Prince An was an awful villain. He concocted an entire revenge plot to kill multiple people because of a years old incident where a child accidently knocked over a candle. He had no substance, bats*t crazy motivations, and extreme shortsightedness. His love for Fu Rong seemed very superficial. All he did was plot, manipulate, and lie to her.

ML and FL were cute together and had good chemistry, but FL made some very awful choices. Her relationship with ML had very little trust. Whether it was the murder of her teacher, divorce, or Ruyi pavilion, she never gave ML the benefit of the doubt or allowed herself time to verify the information given to her. Instead, she gave in to rumors and manipulations and jumped to conclusions. For someone who made a big deal about trust, she never trusted the person she supposedly loved. Moreover, the fact that FL stabbed ML on their wedding night should've been the end of their relationship because that was a huge breach of trust. But, that was not the case here.

Even though the second couple also had great chemistry, they became boring because their relationship stopped at flirting and did not move further until almost the end of the show. They were obviously in love, but neither of them made any steps to move forward for a very long time. I ended up skipping most of their scenes after episode 20.

One of my biggest gripes with the drama was young women running around with men they were not married to. This was supposed to be a huge taboo where reputations were ruined. Not the case here. Nobody ever addressed the fact that ML and FL spent the night alone in a cave, that the second couple spent the night alone in a cabin, that Fu Rong was often alone together with Prince An, and so on. This nonsense led to more ridiculous behavior by Fu Rong. She constantly snuck out for one reason or another and was found by ML usually in the company of his love rival Prince An. For someone who was supposed to be intelligent, Fu Rong didn't have enough sense to realize that Prince An had feelings for her and that it wasn't the best idea for a married woman to fraternize with a man who had feelings for her and who wasn't her husband. At that point, it was hard to see what Prince Su, or even Prince An, saw in her. She was reckless and childish, and had no common sense.

A lot of plotlines were a tropey mess. It's pretty obvious that the writers wanted to give ML and FL scenes were ML heroically rescued FL, but it was done in such a clumsy manner. He would go away on a mission then randomly appear out of nowhere and catch her from falling. The plotline where she was buried alive was a cringe fest. Zhang Yan was a very minor character who completely disappeared from the plot after they returned each other's birth cards. Yet, the writers just randomly threw him back into the story to create romantic drama without actually thinking it through.

Some of the martial arts scenes were a bit silly. ML could jump on top of a tower as tall as a skyscraper to admire the moon with FL. But while running away from assassins, he couldn't jump over a river or over a gate.

The story started out well but it turned into a cliche mess of misunderstandings, mistrust, jealous side chicks, and awful behavior. Even after the trust issues were resolved, I couldn't get over the fact that FL tried to kill ML on their wedding night based on sketchy information. There are plenty of historical dramas with good character development and interesting plots. This drama is not it.

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Great romantic chemistry

This is a romance drama with some gothic fantasy elements. The production and acting was great and the story was very entertaining.

Caiwei was a young woman with a troubled past . She was a serious character who lived quietly as a coroner and inadvertently found herself mixed up in murder mystery. After the face swap, this characterization was completely gone. It's not that Ju Jing Yi (JJY) is a bad actress. She is typecast to play a specific character. So, herein lies the problem with characterization by JJY where she portrayed a variation of Fu Rong and Yunxi, instead of a solemn girl introduced by Zheng He Hui Zi. Curiously enough, her characterization of the original Shangguan Zhi was on point. The showrunners should've done a better job at coaching her about the role because she obviously can act outside her usual stereotype.

The romance was nicely written. Pen Yue's original obsession with Caiwei was a bit off-putting. But as he rediscovered the "new" and "improved" Shangguan Zhi (SZ), he slowly started falling in love with her. The writers did a good job showing the personality change, that SZ was no longer a mean-spirited woman, but a very nice person. I loved Pen Yue's and SZ's interactions and situations they were thrown in where Pen Yue gradually started seeing the differences between the old SZ and the new SZ drawing similarities between the new SZ and Caiwei. I also liked that Pen Yue went through internal struggle feeling guilt over the fact that he started developing feelings for SZ while still mourning his dead wife. Not to mention, the chemistry between the actors was amazing. This is one of the fewer romance dramas where adults act like actual adults, instead of awkward teenagers.

I did not love the ending. Some good characters were wasted just to draw an emotional reaction from the audience. And, instead of tying up all the loose ends, it ended on a giant cliff hanger not revealing who the actual mastermind was. Will this lead to a sequel or are we just supposed to wonder? Who knows.

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Do not snack while watching

Sifeng was easily the best character in the show. He was loving, patient, loyal, and had convictions. The writers did a good job developing his relationship with Xuanji. Although, she was frustrating at times due to her cluelessness, it wasn't completely without merit. She was missing her six senses, so it was natural for her to not understand love. But, she understood friendship and bonds that brought people together. And, due to her bond with Sifeng and his help to get her senses back, she gradually fell in love with him.

Normally, a slew of misunderstandings would be frustrating. But, here, they were necessary to show character development and Xuanji's struggle to reunite with Sifeng and to get him to forgive her. I liked that the writers did not just make Sifeng take her back as soon as she showed up. She had to work for it and she never gave up. This showed that her love was as strong as his, which I liked.

Now, the worst part of the show was the constant blood spitting. We really need to go away with that. It's disgusting and completely unnecessary. Characters don't need to spit blood in every fight or with every physical injury. It looks forced and ridiculous. Watching the show completely destroyed my snack time.

I also did not care for most of the secondary characters. Linglong was spoiled and annoying. The sixth brother was boring. Wu Tong falling in love with Linglong was completely nonsensical and poorly written. If the writers went down the redemption route and wrote Wu Tong as less of a psycho, their relationship could've been interesting. None of the sects had any redeeming qualities. They were narrowminded, pompous, and thought very highly of themselves while committing atrocities. The demons were a lot more relatable and sympathetic.

Because I absolutely hated Hao Chen/Bailing for his continuous meddling and self-righteousness, I wanted to see him die a horrible death. But his defeat was rather underwhelming. He just realized that he was wrong and was demoted. I thought it was anticlimactic. I wanted to see him defeated in battle like the villain that he was.

Overall, I could watch this show again because I absolutely loved the love story.

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Good enough

The show was well paced with a very well developed plot centered around political intrigue. All the male characters were interesting, and, thankfully there weren't any convoluted plotlines and cliche tropes. My favorite relationships were between Ha Seon and the Chief Royal Secretary, Eunuch Jo, Guard Jang, and the villains. However, the show should've gone without the romance.

This was probably the first drama where I couldn't care less about the romance. It felt like an afterthought. Nothing against the actors. Everyone did a great job portraying their characters. Big props to Yeo Jin Goo being so young but already so talented. He did a fantastic job playing two completely different characters. But, the romance bored me out of my mind. Yeo Jin Goo next to Lee Se Young looked like a younger brother rather than a romantic partner. Their relationship was completely uninteresting and the chemistry was bland.

The ending was odd having an unnecessary death then returning back to life. The writing choice didn't contribute anything to the story but rather pointlessly dragged the plot for a few extra episodes killing off some very cool side characters and focusing on the boring romance story between Ha Seon and So Woon. The bromance between Ha Seon and the chief royal secretary was way more interesting.

Overall, I enjoyed the plot about duty and loyalty. But the story could've gone without a bland romance between two people who had no chemistry on screen.

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It's ok for a low budget flick

A low budget show is low budget with only 10 very short episodes. It's a shame that this wasn't a full length drama because there was enough plot to write a nicely developed story and characters.

The acting was decent. Na In Woo is still a bit inconsistent. His acting is good in some dramas but stiff in others. Here, he was good.

The plot was mostly straight forward, except for some side stories that went nowhere because of the short length. The writers tried to stick a lot of material into a very short drama without giving any of the new characters and storylines any development. It felt rushed and awkward.

Rewatch value? None. It's a good show to kill time for a few hours and forget about afterwards.

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Overrated

Interesting premise, definitely something new. I really enjoyed the first half with fun cases and all the whales. After episode 12, it was time to wrap up.

The romance needed work. Firstly, it's already difficult to write romance between an autistic and healthy person. Secondly, the romance between FL and ML was rather shallow. He started liking her after he saw her in a wedding dress. It was hard to root for them because there were more red flags in that relationship than the positives. Yes, he at first listened to her talk about whales, but it became apparent that he was getting tired of it. The recurring theme of her having no social cues and consistently disregarding his feelings was not looking good for them. Perhaps, breaking up or just having a platonic relationship would've been better for the plot. Young Woo showed no signs that she could adapt to his emotional needs and he was increasingly hurt and frustrated by her disregard of his feelings. They broke up, then they got back together and that was it. The writers showed no growth in their relationship or her fundamental understanding of how to treat her partner. That would've been an interesting plot idea to teach an autistic person how to navigate relationships.

And what was Joon Ho's position with the law firm anyway? He wasn't a lawyer. A paralegal? A secretary? An errand boy? While Young Woo was running around with other lawyers solving cases, he was mostly in the background getting far less screen time than everyone else. The romance felt like an afterthought.

The acting was really good. Park Eun Bin did a very good job portraying an autistic person. Kang Tae Oh is also talented and very very hot. I want to see more of him in major roles.

Overall, the legal procedural was mostly fun, although it became kind of boring after episode 12. The romance was pretty underwhelming.

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Left me dazed and confused

I didn't watch the 2019 Taiwanese version, so the review is based on my take on the Korean version alone.

The drama started out pretty strong. Jeon Yeo Been did a great job portraying two completely different personalities between Jun hee and Min ju. One was outgoing and popular, the other was a miserable introvert. The show also did a good job showing the chemistry between Jun-hee and the two boys and Si Heon's growing love for her. The high school timeline was the most interesting with the most chemistry between the three main characters. The adult timeline was kind of bland with Jun hee and Si Heon/Yeon jun having a much less dynamic relationship. This was the second drama I watched with Ahn Hyo Seop and he did a lot better here than in Lovers of the Red Sky.

While the show had a great start, the writers decided to make the plot more complicated than it should've been. By episode 9, I started losing track of who was who because the timelines kept switching and characters kept flip flopping between bodies. I wasn't sure what the connection between the timelines was either. I assume they were parallel universes with two versions of the same person living in both of them, I guess? But, then how did Si Heon and Yeon Jun meet at the airport if they were from different universes? The show also didn't quite explain the connection between them and how Yeon Jun even ended up falling for Jun hee. Maybe I missed it because I was trying to keep track of all the characters and timeline hopping.

Some plotlines got too extreme and others were kind of forgotten. In-kyu disappeared for several episodes, making his character kind of irrelevant, then appeared again towards the end trying to save Min-ju. The murder/suicide plotline was radically extreme. It would've been better if Min-ju just died in a car accident, instead of by some random obsessive classmate turned serial killer who traveled back in time in a body of his brother to train himself to be a serial killer. This is not to mention that the outcomes kept changing as the story progressed from all the timeline hopping, making it even more confusing.

I didn't quite get the significance of Rowoon's cameo as Tae Ha. Did it mean that Yeon jun was gay and was just starting to confess his feelings for his friend before the accident, and that Jun hee really fell in love with Si Heon and not Yeon jun? The writers spent no effort trying to flesh this nuisance out. And, did Tae Ha die in the accident?

The ending was very sweet and left a lot of questions unanswered. The only couple that made sense was Min ju and In kyu because there was no confusion about who was who. With ML and FL, I am not sure whether Jun hee ended up with Si Heon or Yeon jun. They acted like the same person. I think she met Si Heon at the end because Yeon jun was the one who got into the car accident, became a cripple, and got stabbed to death. Not to mention, he might have been gay.

Overall, the show left me with a lot of unanswered questions and some confusion about Jun hee/Si Heon/Yeon jun romance. On one hand, I liked their love story. It was very touching and bittersweet. On the other, all the timeline and body hopping made me completely lost about who was who.

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Fanservice disguised as historical drama

This drama should really be taken for what it is - fan service. All the effort was spent on casting idol actors to attract a certain fanbase of adolescent girls and nothing else. There is no coherent plot, just pretty boys running around with fancy hair and lip gloss looking like they belong in an 80s glam rock band.

Romance was a tropey mess. Dude momentarily gains consciousness just to kiss a girl after hearing her confession, then loses consciousness again. Puhlease. The characters were kind of shallow and didn't really have much development. Even if the focus was on fanservice, the writers could've done something with the plot. Instead, we had convoluted storylines that didn't make sense. The queen wouldn't give up the throne to her son and kept hiding his identity to supposedly protect him, instead of putting him on the throne and helping him secure it. Not to mention, there was this lame conspiracy plotline and the queen's self-serving motivations for the sake of pretending there was a plot. The Hwarang were supposed to be the king's guard, but they spent most of their time bickering and doing song and dance. Only towards the end, somebody started doing something interesting. And don't even get me started on the incest plot where the queen wanted to marry her son the king to her daughter the princess because of some "sacred bone" tradition. I understand this is a fake historical drama, but seriously. And, OMFG, Sam Maek Jong's CONSTANT whining about how weak he was as the king during the entirety of the show - while he was in hiding, after he became Hwarang, after he officially became king, every freaken time he was faced with adversity he bitched and moaned about being incompetent.

The OST was pretty underwhelming. The same song with a female singer was playing in most episodes during romantic/angsty scenes as if it was on a loop. Production and acting were ok. I thought Park Seo Joon and Park Hyung Sik did a good job. Seo Yea Ji had the easiest acting gig as the princess, she looked constipated with the same expression in every scene. Ah Ro was forgettable and weak. She never stood up for herself and allowed everyone to make decisions for her and did whatever she was told. Her bland chemistry with Sun Woo did not justify any of their romantic angst.

All the side characters with their stories and romance would've been interesting if the writers took the drama a little more seriously and wrote an actual plot and character development. I ended up skipping most scenes from episode 13 onward because there was no interest in anything other than the three main characters. I don't think I missed much.

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Not completely horrible but not great either

Even good actors and an interesting plot idea couldn't save the drama. It had all the right tools but no oomph.

Han Ri Ta and Do Ha were the most boring two characters. I get that Do Ha was supposed to be a sad person who just wanted to die, but in the very least the writers could've given him a personality and more facial expressions. Han Ri Ta wasn't any better. They were one depressed person falling in love with another depressed person resulting in slow and longwinded conversations about what sad lives they had, which got old very fast.

The most mindbogglingly stupid thing in the whole story was Han Ri Ta's reasons for killing Do Ha. She created a bad situation by killing his father forcing both of them to become fugitives. But, instead of having faith in him to deal with it and moving forward together, she just decided to kill him to end it all because she didn't want to deal with it anymore. Were we supposed to believe this was love? They were portrayed as star crossed lovers, but her motivations were shallow and self-serving .

The villain was one of the most terribly written villains I've seen in a long time. Firstly, the evil dad wanted to kill Do Ha for "disobeying" him, why? Because he brought a girl home and fell in love with her. That's it. Furthermore, the evil dad's ghost spend 1500 years chasing after Han Ri Ta's reincarnations just to kill them as revenge for killing him because he was a terrible father. This was basically a giant recurring temper tantrum, being evil for evil's sake, not for anything substantial or meaningful.

Some plotlines randomly disappeared. Firstly, making FL a firefighter and ML a celebrity was never going to work. There was no situation where they could consistently be together to move the story forward. As a result, nobody ever worked because they needed to spend time together for the story's sake. She was a firefighter for a total of two episodes and he quit being a celebrity altogether except occasional fangirls chasing him when it was convenient, although he was supposed to shoot a super special historical drama at the beginning of the show, which went nowhere.

The finale wasn't well thought out either. There was no point bringing Jun Oh back, unless he and Young Hwa were going to end up together. The giant plot hole why Jun Oh and Do Ha looked identical was never explained. The writers left it as pure coincidence, which was some very lazy writing, especially because Do Ha and Young Hwa future reincarnated selves looked the same. This was a waste of a great story idea, because Jun Oh looking like Do Ha could've been a plot device to give Young Hwa a happy-ish ending too. But Young Hwa did not get her happy ending, neither did Do Ha. Yes, their souls were reincarnated at the end, but they were reincarnated as different people who probably did not remember their past lives. Young Hwa was unique because she was the closest version of Han Ri Ta and because there was still Do Ha's unfinished business. After the curse was lifted, there was no more unfinished business. Do Ha's soul left and Young Hwa continued on with her life without her true love. I thought this ending was rather tragic.

Overall, the drama started out with an epic bang and fell completely flat with shallow characters and villains acting like cartoon bad guys. There were moments where it tugged at my heart strings, but the badly written plot and characters' stupid decisions made the drama a chore to watch. This was definitely not Kim Young Dae's best work.

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This drama......

This drama will leave you laughing, infuriate you, and totally KO you emotionally.

It started very strong. ML and FL met when they were both young, had quirky and funny interactions and a quick romantic development. Unfortunately, the romance plot, while having a fun beginning, started going in circles to the point of frustration. San chased after Deok Im (DI) begging for her to love him when he was the crown prince and he continued pursuing her and begging her to love him after he became the king.

At some point, I wanted to see DI get a promotion, an upgrade, to move up in life which would've also given a chance for San/DI to develop further aside from just being a king and his maid. But, she did the same things for the entirety of the show and had awkward interactions with San about their relationship, which made the pace and story development a bit stale. Her consistently rejecting him, because she wanted to lead her own life, would've made sense if DI actually had plans to leave and move on after he found a concubine, but she kept coming back to be his maid, which went against the entire premise of her wanting to lead her own life. This plotline needed to either wrap up a lot sooner or the writers should've written more story to avoid the round-about "love me!!!" by San. And, frankly, them always having the same conversation became really boring.

The other plot lines with San living in the shadow of his "traitor" father and having a love/hate relationship with his abusive tyrant grandfather was very well written and made San an extremely sympathetic character. The transition between him being a crown prince and a king was also very well done showing him transforming from a scared little prince to a decisive king who wasn't afraid to get rid of anyone who opposed him, including family members.

I was going to write about the treatment of women, but it would be redundant considering that this is a period peace. It doesn't matter which period and which country. It always sucked for women everywhere until 100 years ago. Enough said.

The ending broke me until it didn't. After DI accepted San and became his concubine, the story quickly switched gears and showed that their love wasn't happy at all. For the majority of show, San was broken-hearted from being continuously rejected by DI, and DI wasn't very happy being San's concubine because she was forced to wait for him, was at the mercy or his schedule, and had to share him with other women. The scene of DI telling San on her deathbed that she didn't want to meet him in the next life really drove the tragedy home and showed the awful predicament women back then. Even a woman who was well loved and lived in privilege had nothing of her own and was just another thing a man owned.

Just as I thought that my depression couldn't get any worse, it turned out that the ending was San's dream. Waking up in cold sweat and realizing that DI was alive was a second chance of sorts for San to appreciate what was truly important to him. I wasn't particularly thrilled with that twist because it messed up the chronology and made the story more complicated than it should've have been. And, it felt emotionally draining after having to witness DI's death and San's loneliness and longing for years to come after he lost the one woman he ever loved. Nevertheless, this was a beautiful love story.

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Really good

Season 1 (episodes 1-27) had slow start. It took a whopping six episodes for Shaoshang and Ling Buyi to finally meet face to face. Before that, nothing was happening aside from Shaoshang showing absolute disdain towards everything and acting like a spoiled brat. She was supposed to be a neglected and abused teenager who was left as a baby with her relatives while her parents served in a war. The writers didn't do a really good job flushing her out her character at the beginning. She stumbled between being portrayed as a neglected teen to acting very whiny and entitled. In every scene she would go out of her way to act out and complain about everything, instead of trying to reconnect with her parents. Fortunately, the writers didn't let her fester into an unlikable shrew and her character development picked up nicely. It turned out she loved to learn about how things worked. She was very sympathetic to other people problems. And she was a great problem solver.

Her mother's actions were very confusing. For someone who was a seasoned general, mom showed extreme shortsightedness when it came to parenting. She knew very well about her daughter's accomplishments, but instead of looking at the big picture and appreciating the fact that Shaoshang did not grow up to be shallow and spoiled, mom always fixated on her daughter's smaller problems - a lack of education and etiquette. Mom's inconsistency showed even more during Shaoshang's engagement. She did not want the marriage with Lou Yao because he was unintelligent, weak, and wasn't able to protect Shaoshang. Mom also picked up on the fact that Ling Buyi liked her daughter. However, when Ling Buyi proposed, mom immediately put her daughter down to be some awful and unintelligent simpleton who was unworthy of anything. It was no wonder Shaoshang wanted to get away from that house. The icing on the cake was mom's favoritism towards the cousin, instead of trying to reconnect with her daughter.

I really wanted to see the mom and daughter's relationship grow where Shaoshang realized that her mom wanted to prepare her for the adult life and teach her how to navigate society. In return, mom would realize that Shaoshang was a very special and beautiful person and finally got over her fixation on Shaoshang's upbringing. There were some very good moments where I thought mom and daughter would finally grow close - the one where mom slapped one of the ladies at Lou Yao's house. But then there was the scene with Lin Buyi's proposal where mom was a total let down.

The way the Cheng family was portrayed as a "military" family was odd. General Cheng was a general, just like Ling Buyi. But General Cheng didn't seem to have any kind of influence or power at all. At 21, Ling Buyi had an awful lot of power and influence, and even an army to command. General Cheng was nowhere on that level even thought he spent his entire life fighting and was at least twice as old as Ling Buyi. The only person who seemed to have any kind of military discipline in the Cheng family was mom. The two brothers, who were with the parents when they were away, acted like spoiled and pampered aristocrats, instead of military children. They also looked like they never handled a weapon in their lives.

Some storylines needed serious cropping, like the very long engagement to Lou Yao that wasn't going to work out anyway. Shaoshang and Ling Buyi playing catch up with each other could've been sped up a little bit too. I wanted to see more of them hang off the roof together instead of watching Lou Yao bringing her snacks.

There were also some very great scenes showing the build-up of Shaoshang and Ling Buyi relationship. The scene where she pulled an arrow out of his chest was hot and very intimate.

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Not as good as part 1

While I absolutely loved part 1, part 2 felt disjointed. ML and FL had a lot more interactions but before they did, but the story had way too many useless characters and frustrating plotlines.

There were a lot of scenes where ML and FL almost met but missed each other by a hair. At first, it was ok, but later became very frustrating because the writers overdid it. Some characters and storylines were pointless. What was the deal with the Chinese princess and her unrequited love for Jang Hyun? It didn't move the plot forward, but created unnecessary conflict that was more frustrating than meaningful. The princess got no character development and her arc ended in a very underwhelming way. She was cruel and selfish, and I expected Jang Hyun to deal with her in a smart way. But he told her he was leaving and she accepted it, the end. Gil Chae getting abducted to Qing also felt off. It was a tool for her to meet Jan Hyun, but the plotline felt like a forced cop out, rather than a natural story progression.

It also felt like the writers changed their mind with the direction of the story. They made a big deal about women being abused in one household because of a jealous wife. But Gil Chae spent very little time there, then left, and that was it. The arc with Gil Chae marrying the sergeant was also completely pointless. It was another tool to keep ML and FL apart for a bit longer without serving any other purpose.

The entire part 2 felt like a forced attempt to continue with the story post war, except there was not as much conflict and action. A lot of story arcs felt uninspired and forced. I wish the war plotline wouldn't have ended in part 1. This was when the story was at its best.

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