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Last weekend’s start to tvN new Sat-Sun drama Alchemy of Souls was probably as good as it gets. The drama is headlined by a younger cast with two idol-actors in the mix and looked like a hodge podge of elements in the promos. That it’s actually fun and interesting was all I could have hoped for, which is what makes the unexpected angst set up so nicely a bonus. I also realized that the leads are basically channeling F4 in Hana Yori Dango or more accurately the K-version in Boys Before Flowers. The female lead is the outsider and the four rich and powerful kids with their own little secret passage way reached forest and palace domain is the high school F4 as sageuk princelings with an added twist and one is a girl. Lee Jae Wook is doing his best Domyouji impression coming from an emotionally abusive dad and constrained life dreams while Jung So Min is totally the kickass Tsukushi with her shit together and trying to survive the F4 world that has no place for an assassin like her. Minhyun embodies Rui from looks to personality and aura perfectly. The HanaDan F4 dynamic has been used and re-used and adapted by many dramas and novels and other mangas even so it’s basically a trope of its own at this point but this time it’s really a fresh use of it. It’s funny, a decade ago when Jung So Min got her big break in another famous manga adaptation as the K-drama version of Kotoko (so stupid yet so earnest), I never would have thought she would be great as a K-drama version of Tsukushi and yet here we are and she’s just nailing it.
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Honesty loving this drama so far.
Desparetly waiting for Saturday Sunday, 1st 2 episodes are extremely well made and super pacy. Loved everything and fall for Jung So Min all over again.
It kinda reminds me Hwarang or Scarlet with the weird haircut, outfits and make-up.
So Lee Jae-Wook went from A3 to F4? :p
❤️Alchemy of Souls/ Soul shifters/Shadow assassin will be awonderful phenomenal fantasy drama.JungSo-Min’s finest.
Loving it so far and I love these posters, which reveal the sort of sprawling cast you’d see in a high fantasy drama. The Netflix preview autoplayed when I had left it on and the preview for the drama really sucked – just Mudeok getting bossed around and going “Yes, Master”. If i were to choose a teaser involving the leads, I would have chosen the first meeting with the crab leg or the one where she drowns him (in her mind) or a montage of her adding all those people to her kill list.
I much prefer the clever Jang Wook over Doumyouji!
Ooo this reminds me of Scarlet Heart
This drama plagiarized Chinese dramas.like Ever night. Ashes of love. The untamed and so on. They have exactly same clothes and scene. And its making chaos to discuss the plagiarism of the Hong sister(screenwriter) on South Korean.
There is proof. This drama’s previous poster, as well as some scenes, are similar to Princess Agents. However, kfans deny this. They make racist comments and even bring up what the Chinese government does. What’s funny is that the assassin transmigrate in weak body is a cliché plot device in many Chinese manhua and Chinese novels, and if they ever made an adaptation about that, they’d be accused of plagiarism of Alchemy of Soul even though that plot is theirs.
Xu Kai’s the Legends – “assassin in weak body”