I have not seen a drama in a long time that was able to move me to tears the way Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo did. It is the epitome of a tragic love story that took place in a time when social status meant everything, even life or death.
The heart-wrenching angst in this is not for the faint of heart. It is not to be taken lightly. This drama is filled with bloodshed, betrayal, lies, backstabbing and deceit. Believe it or not, right in the center, there is still room for love and romance; All the good things that make up an amazing historical drama centered on family infighting over the power of the throne and the right to succession.
The drama starts off where the main female lead Hee-So (IU) is shown in modern-day Seoul, sitting at a lake contemplating her tragic life. She encounters a homeless man and briefly speaks with him while giving him the bottle of liquor she was consuming. While she is there, she notices a young boy is drowning in the lake. Against her better judgement, she dives in to save him from drowning. Mid rescue, Hee-So ends up going underwater herself. While she thinks that she will drown and die there, a total eclipse takes place in the sky and when she resurfaces from the water, she finds that she has traveled back to the Goryeo era.
In this era, she learns of who she is and while she is not at the bottom of the social ladder, she is not at the top either. As she gets accustomed to her new settings and slowly tries to make sense and adapt to this drastic change, she ends up learning about the fourteen princes of the kingdom. She somehow becomes the catalyst to everything that unfolds thereafter as the brothers fight amongst themselves to be the next heir to the throne. In this era, Hee-Soo meets and falls in love with the fourth prince Wang So (Lee Joon-Gi) who is initially feared by the citizens of the kingdom due to his upbringing and the rumors of his vicious personality.
He is no saint and even pictured as a sort of villain in the beginning. He is a very troubled young man and broods a lot but as the episodes go on, you will understand why he is the way he is and you will even come to like him, sympathize with him and end up rooting for him and Hee-Soo, despite the mountain of odds stacked against them.
This tragic love story will have you at the edge of your seat right to the very end. It is filled with unrelenting drama and turmoil. The happy moments in between are large breaths of relief and you will want them to last longer but they are always cut short.
If you love historical dramas and don’t mind some bloodshed, you will enjoy this epic tale of a great love story that transcends through time, against all odds.
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