It hurts my drama loving heart to have seen so much talented wasted so far and I wish these young actresses came of age a decade ago when there was actually good female lead sageuk roles and amazing scripts. The year of 2021 was supposed to the arrival of the grown up child actress talents and their headlining role in a female-centric sageuk. There was Kim So Hyun in River Where the Moon Rises, Park Eun Bin in The King’s Affection, and of course Kim Yoo Jung with Lovers of the Red Sky (Hong Chun Gi). But so far drama land has batted 3-0 for in terms of these talented actresses, each drama has ended with middling ratings and criticism of the plot. Poor Kim So Hyun had the bad luck to swap out a male lead at the beginning of her drama airing and re-filming, Kim Yoo Jung singlehandedly kept Red Sky watchable solely on her acting charisma as the script went to pot, and Park Eun Bin try as she might cannot anchor a drama when her male leads are all completed outclassed by her and the entire adult cast out-acted by the child actress in that drama. Remember way back when there was Ha Ji Won in Empress Ki, Lee Yo Won in Queen Seondeok, Han Hyo Joo in Dong Yi, and of course the queen of them all Lee Young Ae in Dae Jang Geum. Those days feel like another lifetime ago. But there is still one more grown up child actress with the final sageuk of the year on deck – Lee Se Young arriving in November with The Red Sleeve Cuff. If that drama has even a semblance of a decent plot then it could salvage what has been a tremendously bad sageuk year.