The Secret Romantic Guesthouse

What a fantastic show! I loved the story and all the main characters. I'll mention the male leads first. All our three scholars were handsome, acted well and I loved their banter in the initial episodes. The gradual development of camaraderie and brotherhood between them was heartwarming too. The FL was very pretty with a lovely smile, and her presence added so much substance to the story. The actor who played the elder sister of FL was very lovely, and I was overjoyed to see her end up with Kim Si Yeol. The story was predictable, most Joseon Era dramas revolve around the fight for the throne, and this was no different, but we saw how the next generation was wise enough not to repeat the mistakes of the previous one, and worked together for a better state overall. The character of Kang San was my overall favourite, not only because it was very well played by Ryeoun, but because we see the character make sacrifices for the greater good, and that he thought about everyone's welfare before his own, a true king in person, who is not power hungry and is willing to give it up without hesitation. The series had a beautiful happy ending, which made it a total value for time drama. I would highly recommend watching it.

This drama had the potential to be an 8 out of 10, however, the super slow storytelling along with some bad acting and unneccessary dialogs had me went from an initial 7 to now a 5 out of 10. The story started off promising and quickly turned into this super slow draining story of just too many love lines, loving looks and repeated useless lines, as if the acting part has to be explained by the scripted dialogs. The acting and timing of appearances also appeared too scripted and at times the story don't make much sense (i.e. When all could escape but one choose to stay to be captured/killed for nothing). I started fast forwarding scenes from epi 10.