haha why am i not surprised! its Mishil y'all! she's all ready making waves in the political circles ( with the added benefit of dethroning one Mr.Bi the undisputed king of k ent!) GO GO MISHIL! FIGHTING SEJUNIM FIGHTING!

Yeah, this issue sounds a bit like the previous director's project Style. The Situation says, "We got a Situation!"

My guess is that they're not sure about Kwon Sang Woo's character's role. If you take out most of his scenes, what you have is something like West Wing. When you have his scenes, it's a bit like The President Who Loved Me.

now THAT's surprising news... hm... very surprising in fact but i'll believe their reason until proven to the contrary...
as for whether or not it'll hurt the drama... hm, i don't know.
i've given ep 3 & 4 a chance and it still doesn't speak to me but even so, the writing wasn't too bad, if not of my taste. i liked new heart though, although i can't remember if the writing was the main reason or not.
as for the other writer, i've seen ladies in the palace and the king and I and it was decent but i'm afraid it might go more into political conflicts than it already does... and honestly, i dislike when it's too politics-heavy.
sigh. i'll give it one more week and then we'll see.

I wanted to see Dae Mul because of KHJ. I hope they're doing the right thing by her with the writing change. I remember King & I had some epic scripting problems (a fistfight on the set at one point), don't remember whether it was with this writer.

The plot doesn't interest me at all, is this drama any good?

Maybe the writers couldn't agree on if Lee Soo Kyung's character should be the one to end up with Kwon Sang Woo's character.

Thanks for clarifying, JB. I honestly though Yoo Dong-yoon was already back and had written 1-4. I thought there was something lacking in the writing, quite glaringly so. (Though y'all know the PD ain't really all that either, jus sayin').

Not happy with the behind-the-scenes shenanigans but I'm happy to know he's back for good (he'd better be!) and that means the political tension will hopefully hold a lot more weight. (And we won't just be seeing lengthier versions of the first episode!)
After the schizophrenia-inducing first episode, the second and third episodes were a huge improvement (off to watch four shortly), definitely feeling the atmosphere, maturer tone and the weightiness of the characters now. And I totally don't mind it being infused with some playfulness and humour as long as it's not the other way round.

Power to MISHIL! ;-)

By the way, do you happen to know if anyone is thinking of subbing this? I looked at With S2 but it seems its not in their plans.

Cheers.

I hope this is a winner....Kwon Sang Woo needs to began his comeback.

"There is definitely more of a noona-dongsaeng relationship between KSW and GHJ,"

Their dynamic is reminiscent of HIT, when she was paired with Ha Jung Woo. The director's chosen some really good music to motif their relationship. Really, the onus is on KSW to lay off his proclivity to smirk through a scene. The more he plays it straight, the better.

In my ideal world, Daemul would have paired GHJ with Da Cha Syndrome as lovers/political enemies, and we would have a tortured Deokman/Bidam "I must defeat you to have you!!" dynamic. And to have KSW and LSW as a true second couple.

Yup. Daemuel had something like three writer switcheroos even before it went on air. The PD is notorious for demanding things go his way, or the highway, and for being a controlling ass. He often arbitrarily changes not just lines, but entire scenes, the flow of the story, and character motivations, without consulting the writer. According to people who've read the original scripts for episodes 1-4, the differences were staggering.

This was originally Yoo Dong Yoon's project anyway, so it's not a huge leap. He's actually an improvement over Hwang. But with that PD at the helm, I don't feel any hope. At all.

Yeah, I'm going with this is almost never good when there's so much behind-the-scenes drama with writers and PD. Past experience tells me the train is going to de-rail, so I'm not going to start watching until it's over and I've read some reviews.

"Yeah, I’m going with this is almost never good when there’s so much behind-the-scenes drama with writers and PD. "

You'd think so, but bad press with Dae Mul has been going on for almost FOUR YEARS.

The real reason I believe is that this Daemul has generated some political pressures from Country A and "someone" rather senior from Country A has sounded the displeasures South Korean Lee. To avoid Country A buying more of South Korean's government bonds and leading to appreciate of Korean won. Hence ultimately hitting the Korean export, Lee decided to flex his muscles on SBS board.

As can be seen in Daemul itself, the idiots who run the broadcasting station, in this case SBS senior management were the people who has taken the action to replace the writer. It is not a dispute between the PD and the writer. The PD, I believe is under pressure himself. It is decision from the management of SBS.

The mistake that the original writer made was that she should have depicted the truth (as reported in the press worldwide about the North sinking the South's submarine) i.e. "stir up the propaganda" against Kim Jun Il rather than picking on Country A leader!!. It is just simply too obvious!!

Have to say, Episode 4 turned out pretty well. It flowed a little bit like City Hall, finding humor in the political games themselves (the ox tail soup bit is hilarious!) rather than going bipolar. KSW's Ha Do Ya is a lot of fun here.

Also, I like the detail they've put into the mosquito storyline. It feels somewhat like the human interest documentaries that MBC runs at night.

I strongly believe now that Go Hyun Jung doing a full-run sageuk has made her a better actress. Halfway into Queen Seon Duk, you had a sense that the PDs began giving GHJ free reign with her interpretation of Mishil, and in turn GHJ started experimenting with different moods and facial expressions. It was like national improv.

There's various scenes in Daemul where she not only acting with the eyes, but she is almost speaking lines of unspoken dialogue through them. In one scene here, when she is watching Ha Do Ya play with her son, you see a narrative of emotions there, from shock to recognition to deep gratitude to romantic ambivalence. So clear and expressive her acting here, so wonderful.