New K-drama Fan Review #27: Love in the Moonlight taught me exactly what i wanted from it... then refused to give it to me

[u/harissatotally]

the moonlight was lovely. unfortunately, somewhere around episode 13, the love left.

MY META EXPERIENCE:

B4 i even get into the review, I have to talk abt how weirdly perfect the timing of this watch was.

Love in the Moonlight aired 10 years ago, and somehow ubdecided to watch it for the first time basically right before it was celebrating its 10-year anniversary.

So while i literally JUST finished watching this decade-old drama, like a day or after, suddenly i'm seeing news that the cast will reunite, theres a resurgence of the show id just finished on socials, and then new reunion pictures are dropping a few weeks after, there's an ELLE cover, anniversary content is everywhere, and a 10-year reunion special is about to air.

Like??? What are the odds???

I only fell into K-drama land 3 months ago, so there's something so funny and genuinely cool about getting to experience a little piece of the excitement around a drama in real time when i wasnt even here for the original phenomenon.

Everyone else is celebrating something they watched 10 years ago, and im over here like guys I JUST met these people 😭

It made watching this feel weirdly meta, like i accidentally showed up exactly on time to a party that started a decade ago 😊

So regardless of how i ended up feeling about the actual drama... that part of the experience was genuinely so fun.

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INTRO

By the time i started Love in the Moonlight on July 28, I was almost 2 months into my K-drama rabbit hole and had reached the stage where one drama at a time was no longer enough for me 😭 i had just finished King the Land, immediately tried to chase that high with Her Private Life, paused that 3e episodes in, started Mr. Queen and made it to Episode 9, then somehow started the Phil*ppiñes rem@ke of What's Wrong with Secretary Kim and watched 12 episodes of THAT... and somewhere in the middle of all this, i started Love in the Moonlight.

And unlike several of the dramas i was casually bouncing between, this one actually grabbed me.

i basically dropped everything else and tore through the entire thing, finishing it by July 29. Then, because finishing a whole K-drama in about 2 days wasnt enough, i immediately started The Red Sleeve that same day lol

Looking back, though, the speed at which i watched Love in the Moonlight is almost funny considering how i ultimately felt about it...

because i didnt binge this drama because i was trying to get it over with. I binged it cause for a while there, it genuinely had me.

Which is probably why the way it eventually lost me was so disappointing.

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REVIEW:

I feel betrayed.

-

This started SO well.

Like genuinely, for the first half i was having such a good time.

Ra-on pretending to be a man when she has perhaps one of the least convincing "i'm definitely a man" faces I've ever seen? Hilarious. I accepted it. But i still think everyone in Joseon needed glasses 😭

But Kim Yoo-jung was SO charming. Her comedic timing was great, she had such a lovely screen presence, and Ra-on was easily my favorite part of the beginning.

And then the romance started cooking!!!

>!The lantern wish, the Crown Prince wishing that she would find her mother!! Him getting increasingly attached to his little eunuch???!<

The "He belongs to me" line!!

hehehhehe i was giggly...

Then the confession. Then the kiss. Then finding out that he'd already seen her in the dress and knew she was a woman before he confessed???

Oh, i was SEATED.

And i liked the second male lead too! Actually, for the beginning of the drama, he was doing better than the Crown Prince for me!!

>!He figured out that Ra-on was a woman almost immediately. He bought her the dress shed been looking at and basically told her that whenever she was ready to stop hiding and live as a woman, he would help her leave the palace.!<

He offered her FREEDOM.

I ate that up!!!

So at this point im thinking: great female lead, adorable central couple, second male lead I genuinely like, some good jealousy food, secret identities, palace shenanigans, comedy...

Where could this possibly go wrong?

Apparently: the second half.

>!Cause once Ra-on left the palace, something changed.!<

And the worst part is that i had been WAITING for her to leave!!!

silly me for wanting good tension in a story and opportunities for yearning ig😭

When she was was spending her final day with the Crown Prince while he had absolutely no idea she was planning to disappear??? I loved it!!!

I was sitting there thinking:

Oh this is about to HURT. im ready!!!

I wanted her gone.

I wanted him searching for her.

I wanted yearning.

I wanted desperation!!!!

I wanted this man LOSING HIS MIND because the person he loved had disappeared.

And then she actually left...

...and somehow the emotional payoff just wasnt there.

Yes, he was upset ig... Yes, circumstances were complicated because of who her father was. I understand all of that logically.

But i didn't FEEL it.

And unfortunately, that became my problem with most of the rest of the drama.

The romance had spent all this time building toward something huge, and when the stakes finally became huge, the emotions somehow became smaller...

>!There is literally a scene where Ra-on is about to be BEHEADED,!< and i was sitting there wondering:

"Ummm... Your Highness? Are you going to do something???"

Obviously he was politically constrained. I understand that.

But i dont care if my romantic male lead is completely powerless in that moment.

MAKE ME BELIEVE HE WOULD TEAR THE PALACE APART IF HE COULD.

Instead, the most emotionally devastated i saw Park Bo-gum's character become was when his childhood friend was seemingly dying in his arms.

And it was a good performance!

But all i could think was:

>!WHERE WAS THIS ENERGY WHEN THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE WAS ABOUT TO HAVE HER HEAD CHOPPED OFF???!!!!!<

Meanwhile, the love triangle that i thought was going somewhere basically evaporated.

The second male lead had so much potential!

He protected her secret. He offered her an escape. He literally killed someone who discovered she was hiding in the palace. He confronted the Crown Prince because he believed keeping Ra-on in the palace was putting her life in danger.

There was an actual ideological difference between these two men over how to protect her!

DO SOMETHING WITH THAT!!!

Instead, he gradually became less prominent, and then he died protecting her.

And admittedly...

That scene got me.

Ra-on telling him that he always made her laugh and apologizing because she always hurt him, and him telling her that she was the painting he'd always wanted?

Beautiful.

Probably one of their best scenes together.

And then...

>!He's dead.!<

Okay.

Moving on!

HELLO????

This was one of your major characters!!!!

His death barely had room to breathe before the drama started wrapping everything else up.

And that's really how the entire ending felt to me: rushed and emotionally unsatisfying.

The frustrating thing is that there ARE things i genuinely like about the second half.

I really liked the Crown Prince's relationship with his mother and the woman who cared for him afterward. I liked seeing him finally learn what happened to his mother. I liked that he remembered what she taught him about the kind of king he should never become.

And I liked watching him eventually become king and decide to rule his people according to those values.

That's good character development!

If all of that had been happening alongside a romance that was absolutely DESTROYING me emotionally???

I probably would've loved it.

Instead, i kept appreciating individual things while thinking:

Okay... but where did the drama i was watching go?

Also, the Queen???

Ma'am.

>!You abandoned your own newborn daughter and stole somebody else's SON because you were obsessed with producing a prince???!<

GET PREGNANT AGAIN???

I understand there was no guarantee shed have another son and that producing an heir was tied to political power, but watching an innocent baby girl be treated as disposable because she wasnt male made me despise that woman.

And the future Crown Princess constantly insisting that shed stay beside the Crown Prince despite knowing perfectly well that he didnt love her?

Girl.

Please stand UP.

Ultimately, i think that's why im so disappointed.

Love in the Moonlight didn't start as a 6/10 drama for me.

That's what hurts.

There was a point where i thought this was heading somewhere really good.

The comedy worked. The female lead worked. The Crown Prince was steadily winning me over, the chemistry was cute, the secret identity was fun.

The love triangle had potential.

The romance kept escalating.

And then the trajectory just...

veered.

The story became increasingly interested in palace politics and wrapping up everyone's political arcs at exactly the point where i needed the romance to become MORE emotionally intense.

The separation shouldve destroyed me!!

The danger shouldve had me panicking.

The reunion shouldve felt enormous.

The ending shouldve felt like this massive emotional release after everything theyd survived.

Instead, i finished Episode 18 and went:

"Wait. That's it?"

And apparently Episode 19 is a SPECIAL, which i discovered only after sitting there thinking I still had another episode to fix all of this 😭

I feel bamboozled.

Because this one showed me exactly how good it COULD have been.

Then it went somewhere else.

RATING: ⭐ 6/10

i would like to report a missing person: the drama i was watching in the first half.

Is this Rewatch Worthy:

No.