Discuss Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth

So this drama is ending soon and as we can see when looking over the ratings, it didn't do too well and is recognized as being a commercial failure. Do you think the drama wasn't so good, and regardless of your personal opinion why do you think it was received poorly?

Slight spoilers possible:

It has an okay cast going for it with the likes of Go Ara, Park Hyungsik, Sung Dongil, and the Lee Kwangsoo brief appearance, not to mention Kim Taehyung's drama debut - he's from a rather popular band. I think the base idea of the drama, following hwarang amidst turmoil within the royal family, is good but the execution and finer details were fumbled in writing. The romances are awkward though I can't say much without running into spoilers. Go Ara's character, Ahro, is utterly charmless and grating. It was hard making it through her drunk scene in the first episode, forget making it through anything else. Her near-constant lemon faces and crying get old fast, there's no reason for the audience to grasp to and care about her yet she keeps appearing and is made a central character. The damsel in distress trope they kept returning to was pathetic writing.

What's odd about this drama is it feels more like a comedy than true historical but it doesn't mix the two well...

The drama is called "hwarang" but we don't see them much and there's so little action, the episodes just drag. The fairly wooden acting doesn't help anything either. One of my favorite scenes is when Hansung yells at his brother, Kim Taehyung did well here. In that moment you could feel a real charge of frustration. Too bad the rest of the drama wasn't up to par.

Oh, I thought the costume and hair styling wasn't very good. This goes along with the comedic feel issue. Something about it looks cheap and strange at times, especially their just-walked-out-of-a-salon hair. The first teaser image released of Kim Taehyung with the brown background where he's in black simple clothes with his hair messy and natural looking would've been a better look to follow and build upon rather than the ultra polished one they ended up going for.

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