kdrama: The Blade and the Petal eps 3-6
AKA, 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.
Various bits:
-Did that actor (a kpop dude, I think?) really have to film scenes where he was hiding in a giant flowerpot?
-While it was minor in the grand scheme of things, I really likesd the bit where Moo young was hiding out of sight, nervously waiting for Choong to pass by so she could "coincidentally" be there at the same time, as that's not something sageuk heroines really do. (I feel that when I have seen it before in a sageuk, it's been a "cute" secondary female character, or the heroine lying in wait to pounce With A Mission, and not for the more common reason of hoping the guy you like will spot you and be overwhelmed with the desire to talk to you.)
-I admit, I'm starting to tune out a bit in the scenes with Choong and his father. While I completely get where Choong is coming from there, I keep thinking "literally the only thing the man has ever done for you is not tell the king your execution didn't take."
-I give so many props to the show doe moo Young and Choong to be the only people in a sageuk to ever attempt a jailbreak and be smart enough to not say a single word.
-Was there a reason Moo Young was driving that clunky carriage to Choong's execution, as opposed to the much more expedient method of just riding a horse, aside from the factt hat it gave her the opportunity to engage in the sageuk version of angsty dangerous kdrama driving? (I realize that a woman of her position most likely wouldn't have typically known how to ride, but they've gone out of their way to show that most of the normal rules don't apply to her.)
-While I knew there was no way Choong would actually die, I did wonder what it would be like if they were actually brazen enough to kill off their male lead this early on after building up the starcrossed doom romance, and have the whole thing be vengeful princess.
-Speaking of which, I'm really ready to get to the vengeful princess part. We're almost 1/3 of the way through (I think I read that it actually is going to only be 20 episodes) and it seems like the show keeps going "and now Yeon Gae So Mun's plots will come into fruition and this party will really get started...wait, nope, not this time."
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.
Various bits:
-Did that actor (a kpop dude, I think?) really have to film scenes where he was hiding in a giant flowerpot?
-While it was minor in the grand scheme of things, I really likesd the bit where Moo young was hiding out of sight, nervously waiting for Choong to pass by so she could "coincidentally" be there at the same time, as that's not something sageuk heroines really do. (I feel that when I have seen it before in a sageuk, it's been a "cute" secondary female character, or the heroine lying in wait to pounce With A Mission, and not for the more common reason of hoping the guy you like will spot you and be overwhelmed with the desire to talk to you.)
-I admit, I'm starting to tune out a bit in the scenes with Choong and his father. While I completely get where Choong is coming from there, I keep thinking "literally the only thing the man has ever done for you is not tell the king your execution didn't take."
-I give so many props to the show doe moo Young and Choong to be the only people in a sageuk to ever attempt a jailbreak and be smart enough to not say a single word.
-Was there a reason Moo Young was driving that clunky carriage to Choong's execution, as opposed to the much more expedient method of just riding a horse, aside from the factt hat it gave her the opportunity to engage in the sageuk version of angsty dangerous kdrama driving? (I realize that a woman of her position most likely wouldn't have typically known how to ride, but they've gone out of their way to show that most of the normal rules don't apply to her.)
-While I knew there was no way Choong would actually die, I did wonder what it would be like if they were actually brazen enough to kill off their male lead this early on after building up the starcrossed doom romance, and have the whole thing be vengeful princess.
-Speaking of which, I'm really ready to get to the vengeful princess part. We're almost 1/3 of the way through (I think I read that it actually is going to only be 20 episodes) and it seems like the show keeps going "and now Yeon Gae So Mun's plots will come into fruition and this party will really get started...wait, nope, not this time."