"Do you know that my painful love is you?" These lyrics echo throughout the drama, as the amazing singer Ali sings the main song "In My Dream". It's a song about unavoidable fate, tragic love and dreams. "Empire of Gold" is definitely not a drama for everyone. I'm sure half the viewers were bored to death while the other half was helplessly glued to the screen dying to know what happens next. This is a drama about greed. The path is Hell but the winner gets Heaven. But to get there you need to fight, sacrifice everything you love, shake hands with enemies... and sell your soul. The synopsis is extremely misleading. There's very little romance in this drama and even though there is something like a tragic love story, it doesn't involve the two characters you'd expect from the synopsis. The strongest point in this drama is definitely the writing. The characters are complex, the dialogue is intelligent, the whole story is extremely well written. The cast boasts some very good actors but the quality of their performances seemed to fluctuate... in some scenes they were insanely good while in others they were a bit lacking. Sometimes I felt that Lee Yo Won wasn't fully able to convey the complexity of her own character Choi Seo Yoon. In some scenes the dialogue seemed to hint at something but her face didn't express anything. On the other hand, Go Soo seemed to express TOO MUCH sometimes. This is a drama that relies heavily on its actors' performances. The action and tension isn't created with big car chase or explosion scenes, but instead with tight dialogue and hidden intentions. It's a merry-go-round of backstabbing. The last half drags a bit, since some characters fall from the chessboard. The sets become repetitive: Office A, Office B, Office C, living room. But still we watch, too curious to see the outcome. Then we get that ending... which received a mixed reaction. I think it was a suiting ending. He fought in a wold of Hell because he believed that it became Heaven for the winner. But there can be no Heaven for those who sold their soul. Even though this drama is definitely not the type I enjoy watching, I was hopelessly addicted to it. And it did leave an impression long after I finished it.