Dreadfully slow and laboured. Over 17 hours of closeups of eyes nose lips perfect skin, flashing to guess what? Eyes nose mouth and perfect skin, from male to female, female to male. I cannot guess what percentage of camerawork focussed on closeup faces of the two lead characters, and earlier on the malevolent princess with the calculating hostile eyes (I'm sure I have seen her in an identical role earlier, also with hostile gleaming eyes). It took 14 hours for the first kiss, how did I endure so long?
Now it does have redeeming features, the sets and costumes and portrayal of cultural situation, a dominant theme of lowly court maids, of slaves and disdain for life by the privileged. Camerawork and production also of high quality, as was the acting, but surely it could have been done in at most 8 hours.
Music must have paid bonuses to the string section of the orchestra, violins aplenty, and cellos for the serious and ominous stuff.
Two episodes were missing English subtitles in the version I watched, by the way, 11 and 12 I think, but I waded through with some Portuguese, and it resumed with English in 13.
Some events remained unresolved, unexplained - the imprisonment of the maids for example, but there were others.
One particular scene made me particularly agitated and impatient, it just dragged on and on and on. The questioning of Hong and his pardoning for what was unquestionably a crime meriting severance of the head. Feeble.
Now it does have redeeming features, the sets and costumes and portrayal of cultural situation, a dominant theme of lowly court maids, of slaves and disdain for life by the privileged. Camerawork and production also of high quality, as was the acting, but surely it could have been done in at most 8 hours.
Music must have paid bonuses to the string section of the orchestra, violins aplenty, and cellos for the serious and ominous stuff.
Two episodes were missing English subtitles in the version I watched, by the way, 11 and 12 I think, but I waded through with some Portuguese, and it resumed with English in 13.
Some events remained unresolved, unexplained - the imprisonment of the maids for example, but there were others.
One particular scene made me particularly agitated and impatient, it just dragged on and on and on. The questioning of Hong and his pardoning for what was unquestionably a crime meriting severance of the head. Feeble.