All righty, drama fans, Master’s Sun was a good call! And absolutely perfect for the Halloween season. I binged and lost sleep over this drama! That doesn’t happen very often, so this is the mark of a good series, in my opinion. Well done. You guys can totally be trusted to choose some excellent tv-watching for me.

PLOT

The plot for this series was pretty spectacular. Great over-arching mysteries, great mini-stories in the episodes, and excellent character interaction. There are only two places I feel like it fell down — the B Romance involving the second lead, and the story of exactly what happened while Gong Sil was in a coma. I wasn’t expecting the first one, and the second one came in with a bang and left on a weak whimper. So disappointing. But the mystery of the series and the mysteries of the individual ghosts were compelling and made up for the few lacking spots.

CHARACTERS

This was my first time watching our leads, So Ji Sub and Gong Hyo Jin. I thought that Gong Hyo Jin balanced between Gong Sil’s natural sunniness and her fear of ghosts pretty well — I never got annoyed at her for being scared. This is definitely due to the fact that she grew and learned how to cope with the ghosts.

So Ji Sub’s character growth as Joo Joong Won was spectacular, and easily marked in the series after he underwent some regression (being vague to avoid spoilers). At first he reminded me of Hyun Bin’s Joo Won from Secret Garden — similar name, similar character traits — but he grew so much through his acquaintance with Gong Sil, far more than Joo Won did, in my opinion.

Our secondary characters were pretty great too. Seo In Guk as Kang Woo was everything I could ever want in a second lead — handsome, protective, funny, and just a little bit vulnerable. Probably my favorite part of the series is every single time he shut down our not-quite-evil-princess Tae Yi Ryeong. Made me laugh SO MUCH! She wasn’t bad either, which was a breath of fresh air.

My absolute favorite character was Choi Jung Woo as Secretary Kim. I’d seen him before as an evil, manipulative politician in City Hunter, and I thought then that his face was too kind for such a role. Watching him play Secretary Kim was a delight, and I loved the dry deftness he used to maneuver President Joo into doing what was right instead of only what would profit the bottom line.

ROMANCE

I’m still trying to decide if I enjoyed the romance. It was a candy girl plot, and yet they bagged on the candy girl plot within the story. I did enjoy that the Hong Sisters moved the romance in a couple of unexpected directions and made Gong Sil a character who was absolutely capable of standing on her own once she’d gained the courage to do so. What I did NOT enjoy was that every time they kissed, they just sat there, lips pressed together, like they were just waiting for the director to yell cut. I’m all about the willing suspension of disbelief, but I have to have something to work with!! Anyway, I did like that President Woo and Gong Sil complemented each other in so many ways, and made each other better people when they were together. Kissing aside, that made it a solid romance.

SATISFYING CLOSURE

Hmmmm. Well, the mysteries were wrapped up well. There were the few weaknesses at the end that I mentioned at the beginning, but the journey was still worth it. I would have loved it if they had circled around back to the flower wife from the first episode, but I can’t have everything. Overall, I would definitely recommend it to other people. However, I don’t think this’ll go on my rewatch list. Maybe. We’ll have to see how I feel next Halloween!

Thanks again, drama fans! Keep your eyes on our Facebook page for our next poll.

Until then, I remain

Karie the Maknae

Dramas with a Side of Kimchi