Post by ajk on Sept 11, 2016 16:41:02 GMT -5
This one was like two completely different episodes.
The first half couldn't have been more boring. I wondered if they wrote it during a holiday week and there wasn't enough time to write proper material. Lots of Eternal Triangle, some flashbacks eating up minutes, plenty of staring into space. The one good part of it was Yeom Moon articulating his feelings to Jung-hwa and apparently finally accepting the situation with her. That was a breath of fresh air. The rest of it, yecch...and it was full of silliness too:
--Another blunder by GB. Won't tell the Tang government about Madam Jami colluding with the enemy because it could make all of the Shillan merchants look bad? WRONG. Wait til the Tang government finds out you knew about it and didn't report it. Duh!
--"You're holding my lifeline in your hands and you'd waste that opportunity for Jung-hwa? (Laughs)" Blunder number two--he can destroy Madam Jami but withholds the information in exchange for a personal wish. Shame on him! (He does get credit for not just impulsively rushing back to Yi Sa-do's camp to try to save her. In the past that's the kind of thing he would have done.)
--First we're told it's too difficult to go and get Jung-hwa. Then her brother just trots over to the camp on horseback, no problem.
--Thousands of soldiers were guarding that government armory and YM's little group managed to get in there and destroy it? Come on, we're gonna need more than a sentence or two about that. Something so seemingly far-fetched needs explanation.
But then we got to the second half, and it was MUCH better. In fact it was by far the best material of the series. The war story got interesting, especially with the controversy over drafting the Shillan security people. The moral quesiton about Sul defying the order, and then the security people returning out of deep loyalty to him--all of that was good material. Not great, but certainly okay. And then the battle scene in that weird desert landscape, the battle we saw as a foreshadowing in the first episode. Not the best battle scene ever but the setting sure made it interesting.
And not only that, but guess what: archers! Well it's about darned time! Sheesh where have the archers been hiding all this while.
The only real flaw in the second half was that business about the enemy commander wandering around the war zone like a sitting duck. That was stupid--of course he's gonna be easy pickins for the enemy.
Have to repeat myself, YM never should have led his men into that ravine. That's ambush heaven and he deserved what he got. Of course Yi Sa-do gave him all that authority despite the fact that YM had no military experience--so really that one's on Yi, isn't it.
p.s. Frankly I was surprised they didn't just tie Jung-hwa up and take her back to Yangzhou against her will.
p.p.s. "We should just bite our tongues and die right here!" Joong-dal, for once I agree with you.