Lazy Unnie’s Couch: Love in the Moonlight

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I dislike historical dramas. Every time I find myself watching one, I say the same thing. I find them slow and confusing most times and lacking what keeps me interested. At the same time, each time I watch one it happens to be one that is light on the historical aspect and heavy on the comedy and or romance. I found Love in the Moonlight to be a pleasant balance between what I dislike and like about historical dramas.

Since this is an older drama, everyone probably knows the plot already so I won’t go into much of it. Basically it’s a story surrounding the Crown Prince and the difficult love story between him and his eunuch. What?! Yeah, no. Said eunuch isn’t actually a man but a woman who is cross dressing as one and was sold to the palace. Along with the love story there is a tale of revolution and uprising among the people and the royals. A historical drama isn’t complete without the scheming political subplots involving murder, embezzlement, spies and even some baby mama drama. If that wasn’t enough, lets sprinkle a little love triangle in the mix.

After all of that, there were things that I loved and things that I could have done without. Some of the subplots just felt unnecessary. There was one with princess and her secret admirer. I mean, it was cute and all and a break up from the seriousness between the Crown Prince and Hong Ra On. However, I think it was the fat suit they put the princess in that had me disinterested. I also found the love triangle between the Crown Prince, Ra On and Jo Ha Yeon, the daughter of one of the King’s officials, not needed. We already had one triangle going on between the main couple and Kim Yoon Sung, so why add another? Her character got the shortest end of the stick because its purpose was so small.

Now to the things I loved. Lee Young, the crown prince. Kim Byung Yeon, the crown prince’s right hand man basically. These two made it really hard to focus on what was going on because one, so attractive. Two, their on-screen presence really commanded any scene they were in. Add in the dynamic between these two and Hong Ra On, they became my favorite trio of the show. The love story grew naturally to me and reminded me a lot of Coffee Prince. I felt the cross dressing was a little stupid because she was obviously a woman but I guess if you’re not looking for a woman among a bunch of eunuch’s then I can see how someone could be fooled.

On the whole, the show was pretty easy to follow plot wise. There were times where I would get a little confused and at one point I stopped watching all together but that was mostly due to my own drama ADHD. What I think is this drama’s strengths are is the chemistry between the leads, the romantic plot and the unfolding of the political aspect. I’m not sure how close to reality this is but I will say this is how I like my historical dramas from now on. Now lets look at how beautiful Kwak Dong Yeon looks in long flowing locks.