Honest [kdrama] review of Legend of the Blue Sea

I had heard of these series numerous times for the past year, but I didn’t watch it cause tbh, it was the name, it just put me off for some reason. But one day while watching this random k-drama compilation, I saw a clip from the series, and all along I imagined it to focus mainly on the mystical parts of the characters, but what I saw, even though it was about 5 seconds looked very funny and light, so I decided to give it a try… did I regret it? Let’s find out.

Not gonna lie, I was very thrown off by the first scene because although I do love me a good historical drama, it just wasn’t what I was expecting at the moment, and I learnt that the first few episodes beginned with a little bit of insight of the characters in their past lives, and throughout the series, we see snippets of their former lives. I didn’t love the whole past lives thing, it just felt very cringe and unrealistic, why is it that only certain people got to remember their past lives? Are trying to tell me that from one visit to the psychiatrist, I get to see what happened to me in my past life? It was just too impossible. I could go on and on about my faults with the whole past-lives storyline but basically, I wish it was constructed better, if you’re going with that storyline, it has to make a little bit of sense. I mean don’t get me wrong, I didn’t totally hate it; it gave the drama a whole lot of depth.

Also the fact that Joon-jae worked with the cops, I know it had something to do with the past-life storyline, but in real life, the police would never work with a civilian, nevertheless a criminal, to catch a dangerous murderer.

But everything else I liked. Now onto the characters:

Sim Cheong: First of all, can we appreciate how beautiful Ji-hyun is? I couldn’t stop looking at her and going ‘wow’ in my mind, she’s probably one of the prettiest people I’ve ever seen. Maybe I’m being too much, but I mean, credit has to be given where credit is due. But of course she’s not just pretty, she killed her role, I can’t think of anyone who would play it better, I’m pretty sure she didn’t have any speaking lines throughout the first episode, but she still managed to communicate through her body language and eyes. I loved her character so much, and the fact that she had super strength. Her cluelessness of the world in general was very refreshing, and I couldn’t stop laughing when she tried robbing shim chung (a child), also the fact that one of her closest friends was a homeless woman said volumes (in a good way). While I didn’t love the fact that Joon jae could hear her thoughts, I liked that we always knew what she was thinking when she did certain things, and let’s not forget her impeccable fashion sense, for someone who lived in the sea for basically her whole life, she sure as hell knew how to dress, but then again, she could literally be wearing a trash bag and still look better than me. Anyways, I liked the fact that we didn’t have to wait for them to start liking each other, like she basically fell in love with him after like 3 days, and even after she wiped his memory, he still felt a connection to her; I guess that’s thanks to the whole past life story line.

Joon Jae: Lee min-ho was one of the reasons I chose to watch this, I’m currently watching him on the king, and while I waited for the weekend (new episodes), I decided to watch LOTBS, I mean I came for him and stayed for Ji-hyun lol. But I really liked his character, although he was a bit too protective, I know it was for good reason, but the scene where cheong, tae-oh, and nam-doo went to a club, and then he came over and pulled her out, while she was enjoying herself, I think it was completely uncalled for, and I especially disliked the fact that he always made her change clothes when he didn’t like what she was wearing, it didn’t sit right with me at all. I did like the fact that he was a con- artist…okay maybe that came out wrong, but I loved all the scenes where we could see him work, it was just very fun and interesting to watch. Overall, he was a good male lead, always had a plan when it was needed, smart, compassionate, and TALL. I felt his pain when his dad died, because he literally gave him an out, but his dad chose to stay with the person that was slowly killing him, and not only that, he also intentionally brought up the fact that his son is a con- man as a reason not to go with him, which to me is stupid, like he didn’t care about where he was or how he was doing for about 10 years, and even after all that, joon-jae decided to save him, no one deserves death, but I mean he reaped what he sowed.

I have like 4 characters to go through; I’m just going to do them all at the same time.

It really broke my heart when Nam-doo found out cheong was a mermaid and immediately tried to black mail her/ use her for money, it only just confirmed cheong’s fears, and who knows what would’ve happened if he got away. Not even going to lie, the director really got me when we were made to believe that Nam doo had gone rogue, my mouth literally dropped when I found out he was working undercover all along, the directors had been giving us these little nuggets of nam-doo doubting cheong, so apart from the fact that he knew Joon-jae since he was in high school, I didn’t have any doubts of him turning bad cause as he said, he loves money. Also, for some reason I found him to be a very captivating actor.

Joon-jae’s step-mom made me want to pull out my hair throughout the whole series, she was such a snake, and the fact that she could act like a nice person so well was even more infatuating, basically we all hated her, and she deserved what she got at the end. I had so much hope for her son, I thought he would be the one to save his father, but I get his jealousy of joon-jae was stronger than the love he had for his dad, it’s really a shame that he had such a wicked mother, and a murderer for a dad? That’s just cruel.

Yang, seemed really smart, but at the end he really was just a fool. He could’ve escaped from jail and ran off to some other country, but then he decided to kill even more people for a woman who would’ve probably ditched him. I was really hoping his memory would be gone forever, but the fact that he, and cheong got snippets back showed that cheong’s powers were deteorating, but that is why I was surprised with the fact that she was able to wipe the memories of everyone around her for 3 years, but then I guess her not being there helped

Tae-oh was the absolute cutest, most of the time, he was the one that made me laugh with his facial expressions, I’m really glad he found someone.

In the end, it’s not a bad show, I do not regret watching it, I fell in love with the characters, it had a cute ending, good storyline, and really good actors. I would give it a 7.5/10

Coming soon: The King : Eternal monarch

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