Penultimate Episode of K-Bu Bu Jing Xin Hits 9% Ratings and More Frustrating Narrative Angst

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• My heart breaks for Wang So. And this drama could never possibly reached this level of success (excluding in SK) without LEE JUN KI. He is the heart and soul of K-BBJX.
  Last night episode will forever cemented my eternal hate towards Haesoo. Congrats writer-nim for creating a dumb-wit damsel that will be inducted in the Hall of Shame of K-drama heroines.
  All I want to see now is for her to die for good. IF they are going to give me a reincarnation of Wang So to give a happy ending to our OTP, I am going to throw my TV out of the window.
  Haesoo should have died in episode 1. She has been nothing but bringing misery to everyone from Day 1 and been doing so much damages because of her foolishness. Her stupidity is the ultimate crime punishable by death and I want nothing more but justice to Wang So and Gwangjong.
  And what's with the acting? Is she supposed to look all so happy instead of "trying to be happy" when she is leaving the palace? And dear God, please open your eyes instead of that painful lifting of heavy eyelids just to emote sadness. No hate but an earnest criticism.

  • Agree with everything you said Del. She is the most frustrating character in the show and I feel cheated for having related to her from the beginning. Sigh!

  • I think her lack of experience has made it hard for her to know how to act this role towards the end. She is struck on how to draw Hae Soo and make her shine. The writing is a problem bit the actress is too inexperience to carry this character...

  • omg ikr i was just screaming into the screen like pleaseeee so ily don't cry, hae soos thoughts are just so confusing and not relatable like

• The ending of C-BBJX was so touching...Rouxi's goodbye hug to 8th prince knowing she will never see him again....and then we have K-BBJX with Hae soo just wide eyed staring at 8th like she didn't care......this last episode of K-BBJX is sich a let down from the heroine side. Lee Jun Ki as always delivered on his intense acting. The way K-Rouxi was written is so underwhelming compared to c-Rouxi. Not sure if it is the editing or that they couldn't translate some of the heart wrenching scenes as touching in the K-drama version or the director or the acting...other than LJK...this version really has nothing going for it sadly...there was no child for 13th with the princess that Rouxi adored in the c version...hate to compare but but but I just can't think of how well C-BBJX was executed on the T.V. screen this version..is such a let down.

• What a Rollercoaster I have not watched episodes 17,18 or 19 and no planning to watch ep. 20th not after watching the previews which looks like drama will end just like the Chinese version, to much melodrama for my taste no one will have some kind of happy ending. I do not like melo dramas but I think if we have seen a more organic relationship between So and Soo and no so much time skip, we the viewers would had been more invested in the story. Beside that what is the point to show that Hae Soo is a girl from the future, when this has really no effect to the plot, nor does she behave as someone from the 20th century. The only reason I watch until a week ago is do to LJG his portray of the 4th prince has been amazing, what a great actor, wish he can find a better script next time, and people will like his project not only internationally but domestically.

  • By this time in the original, I was a blubbering mess.

    I barely paid enough attention to this one to know what was going on.

    • almost everyone was a blubbering mess, but to an extent, willfully so for C-BBJX...K-BBJX is just ...in itself, a blubbering mess. so sad, because it had so much potential.

    • I think with a stronger female lead we would have had something to love. IU acts like a fish: open mouth, spit out lines, repeat.

    • IU can be good but she is not a strong enough actress to elevate such terrible writing and worse direction.

      She was very good in Producers though, she can obviously deliver if the writing gives her something to work with. Better luck next time.

• Well, with one episode to go I think it's safe to say this show has snatched the crown of Worst Sageuk of All Time from METS. Amazing achievement.

• This isn't my "I told you so" moment. I knew IU couldn't pull it off. She has no depth, she looked dumb and confused most of the time.

  Can you see her in the museum scene? In that moment where you feel her deep need and pain and relief at seeing him again in modern day.

  The story got confused. It's like "but the original has this so we must too" but it would make no narrative sense.

  I also liked that there were no true evils in the original, this one has me wanting claw YHs eyes out.

  • Her O.O face pisses me off before I thought people were exaggerating but after watching it she really uses that expression a lot.

• I thought the rating for Ep19 is 9%, and 10.1% is for Ep18.

• hay .it's 9% rating not 10.1%i thought koala crazy fun of ML ..

• What a letdown this k version has become. It did a really bad job convincing us of their epic love story. The main draw of the chinese version was their love, set again political fights of the princes. But I don't feel anything here. Is it the writing, editing, bad acting of IU? Could more episodes had helped in flashing out the characters, and their love? Probably all of the above.

  In the chinese version, we witnessed the sweet love between Ruoxi and 8th prince, the progress and downfall of the love between Ruoixi-4th prince, 4th prince's inevitable descent into cruelty. Yet thought it all, we were able to emphathize why it came down to this and why Ruoxi had to leave him. But I get nothing here. I only feel the pain of Wang So.

  LJK has a fantastic role here, I blame the production team and wrong casting of IU.

  • In the beginning IU was fine. She was innocent, and a child.

    In the end, she had lived through love, betrayal, death, and the need for survival. That means the acting needed minor accents of depth in every action, (as is the meaning behind the title).IU missed the memo and kept to doe eyed confusion.

    The editing was horrible and lack of a coherent plot didn't help much either. But I do think if we had a better female lead, they could have at least held the love story together.

    • IU certainly did not offset many of the shortcomings this show had. I suspect LJK did. Her growth trajectory or downfall in palace life was not well played out, given many of her scenes in the past few episodes seem relatively shorter.

      To showcase BBJX in all its depth -- well let me argue for at least half of it -- with fewer episodes against a different backdrop meant that what script (and dialogue) could not do direction and editing had to make up for, in spades. I've seen really masterful characters (*ahem* editing/direction) in movies that had no more than 3 scenes for the entire movie! Yet their presence and character were felt and left an impression. Too bad. I don't think IU is a bad actress; she's actually scary good at times, but I suspect she didn't think through how to characterize her downfall. It's as if she's the same person throughout, with bad stuff happening to her but not really to the core/depth of her. It's hard to root for/invest in someone when you cannot feel/understand their despair.

    • IU was really good in episode 18, I could feel Hae Soo's heartbreak at having to turn down Wang So's marriage proposal for his Thrones sake and her anger at him for killing Chae Ryung (even if I think it was stupid and don't understand why the hell she wants to insist that lying bitch was sincere to the end). But this episode, I neither get the character and can't quite get the actress. Never has a heroine been written to be so unsympathetic.

    • I defended IU before and I think she was great in episode 18 (the proposal scene especially) but she really can't bring out any sympathy for HS here.

  • LJK is the one holding down 99% of the fort of K-BBJX. 0.75% is Kang Ha Neul and the meager 0.05% is the writer for at least managed to deviate the plot from the original.

    First, I was duped to believe the so-called EPIC love story between 4th and Haesoo. Yet, the real epic love story here is actually between Wook and Haesoo. The romance between the main OTP was partially underdeveloped and partially due to IU having little chemistry with LJK despite the lovey-dovey scenes. All those kisses are just to shove to my face that they are indeed a couple in love. Period.

    But with KHN, all the love flow seems natural despite the lack of skinship. So, I say she does have really strong chemistry with KHN. Even at the end of episode 19, you can still feel the two oozes the long gone romance between them.

    And IU. Well, I was branded as being hateful for commenting on her as the main lead but I still stick to my stance that she is not cut out for the main lead just yet. She was not so bad in the beginning despite my frustration with her "deer caught in the headlight" look because the tone was pretty light and cheerful in the beginning and here, came the emotional part, I got so annoyed with her ways of emoting sadness, fatigue and frustrations, what's with that painful way of lifting her heavy eyelids and I am saying this by no mean to mock her at all.

    LJK was the one having to do the most works. We could feel all the love from him and due to the shortcoming of IU as his partner, in the end, the romance appeared to be one sided. Sure, there's the writing fault but the underwhelming acting worsen the interpretation.

    While I love LJK in saeguk especially in Goryeo saeguk (he is breathtakingly beautiful in SH) and he finally proven that he could do romance, I really hope he will take on something modern and light for his next project. He is too good in here and I am sad all his effort gone to waste with this lackluster below par adaptation.

    • I agree. I think IU did very well in her previous projects but she is no leading lady material much less a Sageuk leading lady. IU as Hae-Su reminds me of Uee in High Society. Both had pathetic writing that couldn't be elevated by their sub-par acting. But Uee did a 180 degree turn and delivered spectacularly with Marriage Contract, I was in awe of how much she has progressed in terms of acting skills. Here's hoping IU can do the same.

    • Dont they do screen testing in SK? I read somewhere that Twilight's Kristen Stewart had to do scenes with at least 5 male actors before they decided on RPatz. For a supposed epic romance, they really failed in casting IU. She was fine in modern dramas but a character such as K-ruoxi needed a more seasoned actress with emotional depth like Liu Shi Shi and Sun Li. I totally agree that she was unable to show HS maturing as a character. Bad directing and editing were of course also to blame but great actors like LJK can overcome and even rise above it. This leaves an aftertaste of regret of what this drama could have been. Pls stop casting idols until they have proven themselves!!

    • @potofink - you think people like Taecyeon or Suzy or that Gaksital chick would have acting careers if Korean dramas regularly did screen tests or actually cast young actors based on auditions?

    • When IU was bashed heavily back when this drama just started airing, a lot defended her, including myself. I was willing to give her the benefit of a doubt. By episode 13, I have finally thrown the towel on her. Other than her hairstyles, there's no maturity in Haesoo at all. IU gave us nothing but a character interpretation at face value. And LJK was also skeptical when she was first announced as the lead. Sure he said a lot of nice things after the filming ended, but did any K-actors ever bad mouthing their fellow c-o-stars? As far as now, everyone been pretty civil, so I took that as him just having to say nice things. Real actress like Kang Ha Na could drive a one dimensional typical K-drama villain but IU's lack of acting prowess could only developed this much and it's frustrating for a drama this heavy.

    • It's interesting how even Zhou Dongyu managed to have better chemistry with Jun-ki and have a more believable, convincing love story in their film Never Said Goodbye, despite the same age gap between the actors as with IU and Jun-ki, time limitation (a film of 2 hours), barely any scenes together (they were separated in the beginning of the film), AND on top of that, a language barrier.

    • @Del - it's ironic you say that about IU and KHN because I felt like their chemistry was only there when they had the forbidden love/serious physical desire going on. the minute Soo was transferred to the palace after Myunghee's death and Wook started to treat Soo in a more chaste way, I got bored of them and couldn't wait for their scenes to end. And all their interactions after that were just either boring or frustrating as hell because Soo/Wook were all about the attraction, without that it's hard to sell the romance.

      But when she did a similar vibe with LJK (lots of sitting and talking), they actually worked much better together than when her and KHN did the same thing.

    • @Gina The thing about chemistry is that, it resonated differently to different set of audiences. Until the very end, I could not feel the chemistry between LJK and IU, putting aside the slacking in the writing, the romance came across as one sided for me. However, I was totally sold with the romance between Wook and Haesoo. Therefore to me, they have better chemistry compare to the main OTP.
      @Missjb I never looked at the fact that she is a singer turned actress. First, I was never into Kpop and secondly, all I care is whether the actors have the acting chop or not. I admitted that I was skeptical with IU casting right when the announcement was made because she never wowed me with any of her previous performance. Being a fan of LJK, I knew beforehand that she does not possess the same acting prowess to match her male lead. Having said that, she is not terrible, just not credible enough to portray a role so complex and deep as the female protagonist in BBJX. She should probably at this juncture settle for less layered and supporting role like Cindy in Producers which she excelled. Above all, the PD is the main culprit for failing to guide those ingenue actors including IU but should Haesoo being portrayed by stronger actress, even without guidance, she could probably gave better trajectory to even the most unlikeable character that is Haesoo. Please do not regard such comment as being prejudice towards IU because I have no reason to have such sentiments.

  • Please don't look at Idol label on IU and Look at real performances... IU is Solid and great throughout the drama... In No way she can't bring complexity and subtlity in her performances... To my surprise..... She is showing much more depth compare her male compatriot like Kang Ha Neul (plus he is mediocre). She is showing so much range in emotion that any recent singer turn actress (except Eun Ji maybe) can only dream of .. Once again, Female actress always get so much hate compare to male actor. oh the bias

• Watching this episode makes me sad. Not because the OTP got separated but because I DIDN'T feel sad that they parted. I should feel pity and sadness for Hae Soo. Instead, all I felt was good ridden.It's not good when you spend a good chunk of the drama wishing that someone would push the heroine off a cliff. Hae Soo, I tried my best to like and understand you, but you made it impossible to.

• this drama is never been good (I think 2 episode is good) and it's all been fan assumption that the story would be epic since day 1 it aired,
  not feel really cheated, I just feel like they could have make this one a happy ending, bad drama with happy ending is at least a happy ending,