riri89
This review may contain spoilers
First of all, I love sageuk dramas, whether it is Joseon/Goryeo era. I enjoy a good sageuk that portrays all the political drama of those times, the gorgeous outfits and love stories. When it comes to the Princess' Man, I feel like the plot was weak, very much so, and it failed to engage me.
First I will go through the main characters. Moon Chae Won does a good job for me in the first stretch of the story, but afterwards her character loses all purpose (she is just a love interest) and all charm. There is one point in the story when Seungyu asks her "where has the girl that used a man's back to get on a horse gone?" and I couldn't agree more. Of course some would say her character went through so many ordeals that she had to change from her more innocent and playful self, but change into something else than a clingy block of wood pls.
Seungyu played by Park Shihoo is complete eye candy, which helps until some point. When he stubbornly tries to keep torturing emotionally a girl that had taken an arrow for him and told him she knew where his sister-in-law and niece were, he lost me. There can be a push and pull, it is necessary for a series running for 24 episodes, but his character seemed to lack reasoning and a backbone.
Shinmyeon, the man that was supposed to act as the third member of this love triangle, was doing fine at the beginning, and I saw some potential in how the relationship with Seryung could develop and make everyone even root for him. Actually, his initial betrayal could have been justified better (like him being forced and coerced by his father more strongly, or the threat of his father being killed if he didn't obey), but like many other characters in this story he lacked any depth. He soon became just annoying and I couldn't wait for him to get off screen. His dialogues were monotonous and repetitive. A potential bromance with Seungyu that could bring tears to anyone's eyes also failed miserably.
The remaining characters were (to my opinion) very uninteresting. The original princess and her husband (who doesn't stop plotting treason and gets surprised when they want to kill him for it), Seryung's family (her siblings are terribly underused in the story), the bunch from the Gisaeng house (they never grew in me), the servants around the main cast (specially Seryung's) were used as tools for the story but had no personality or intimate relationships with their masters, and ultimately Seryung's father (who also didn't display properly the duality of his greed for the throne vs his loving side for his family).
The story focused heavily on the political plots which lacked lots of imagination. Every dodgy and badly planned coup to remove Seryung's dad from the throne was easily squashed and was very basic. For a series centering so much around this, I would expect better twists, but there were barely any. I found myself not caring which side would win.
The action scenes were badly shot and choreographed. A very important part of sageuk dramas is the martial arts, and who doesn't enjoy handsome leads going head to head with swords? In this drama, the scenes felt long and meaningless, they could have just written "action scene" and kept the screen black for 5 minutes and it would have had the same effect for me.
One of the things that bothered me the most of this drama was the selection of the scenes that made it into the episodes. Why did we have to spend a long time seeing Shimyeon burying his underling after he sacrificed his life to safe him (when we barely saw him and could not care for him) but for characters like Jeong Jong we just got to see a short clip of his pregnant wife crying? Why were all executions left out? And I would appreciate less flashbacks and less repetitive conversations and having 16 episodes instead of 24.
Lastly, the love story. I did feel it at first, but then it degenerated quickly into something too unpleasant to come back from. Like I said earlier, characters can have misunderstandings, but eventually love does make them want to believe in each other. It wasn't this way here. Seryung basically had to become clingy and lose all her pride, act cute with his niece, safe his life, and be a complete masochist to win him back. Still, the love story was the best thing in the drama and they should have focused more on that and have less basic political plots and coups.
First I will go through the main characters. Moon Chae Won does a good job for me in the first stretch of the story, but afterwards her character loses all purpose (she is just a love interest) and all charm. There is one point in the story when Seungyu asks her "where has the girl that used a man's back to get on a horse gone?" and I couldn't agree more. Of course some would say her character went through so many ordeals that she had to change from her more innocent and playful self, but change into something else than a clingy block of wood pls.
Seungyu played by Park Shihoo is complete eye candy, which helps until some point. When he stubbornly tries to keep torturing emotionally a girl that had taken an arrow for him and told him she knew where his sister-in-law and niece were, he lost me. There can be a push and pull, it is necessary for a series running for 24 episodes, but his character seemed to lack reasoning and a backbone.
Shinmyeon, the man that was supposed to act as the third member of this love triangle, was doing fine at the beginning, and I saw some potential in how the relationship with Seryung could develop and make everyone even root for him. Actually, his initial betrayal could have been justified better (like him being forced and coerced by his father more strongly, or the threat of his father being killed if he didn't obey), but like many other characters in this story he lacked any depth. He soon became just annoying and I couldn't wait for him to get off screen. His dialogues were monotonous and repetitive. A potential bromance with Seungyu that could bring tears to anyone's eyes also failed miserably.
The remaining characters were (to my opinion) very uninteresting. The original princess and her husband (who doesn't stop plotting treason and gets surprised when they want to kill him for it), Seryung's family (her siblings are terribly underused in the story), the bunch from the Gisaeng house (they never grew in me), the servants around the main cast (specially Seryung's) were used as tools for the story but had no personality or intimate relationships with their masters, and ultimately Seryung's father (who also didn't display properly the duality of his greed for the throne vs his loving side for his family).
The story focused heavily on the political plots which lacked lots of imagination. Every dodgy and badly planned coup to remove Seryung's dad from the throne was easily squashed and was very basic. For a series centering so much around this, I would expect better twists, but there were barely any. I found myself not caring which side would win.
The action scenes were badly shot and choreographed. A very important part of sageuk dramas is the martial arts, and who doesn't enjoy handsome leads going head to head with swords? In this drama, the scenes felt long and meaningless, they could have just written "action scene" and kept the screen black for 5 minutes and it would have had the same effect for me.
One of the things that bothered me the most of this drama was the selection of the scenes that made it into the episodes. Why did we have to spend a long time seeing Shimyeon burying his underling after he sacrificed his life to safe him (when we barely saw him and could not care for him) but for characters like Jeong Jong we just got to see a short clip of his pregnant wife crying? Why were all executions left out? And I would appreciate less flashbacks and less repetitive conversations and having 16 episodes instead of 24.
Lastly, the love story. I did feel it at first, but then it degenerated quickly into something too unpleasant to come back from. Like I said earlier, characters can have misunderstandings, but eventually love does make them want to believe in each other. It wasn't this way here. Seryung basically had to become clingy and lose all her pride, act cute with his niece, safe his life, and be a complete masochist to win him back. Still, the love story was the best thing in the drama and they should have focused more on that and have less basic political plots and coups.
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