Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Critical response

After the premiere, audience reviews were mixed, with the adaptation, the soundtrack, the photography, and Lee Joon-gi's acting being praised, while Byun Baek-hyun's performances received criticism. Lee Ji-eun's performance received mixed reviews: some critics believed the actress was doing a good job despite the frequent mood changes from one scene to the other, while others believed that director Kim Kyu-tae's trademark close-ups revealed her lack of emotion.

While for Kim Yoo-jin of TenAsia the drama's brevity compared to the Chinese counterpart and the rapid pace weren't sufficient to introduce each character, for MediaUs the first two episodes established good connections between the characters through rapid development, suggesting however that, if Moon Lovers had focused on the power struggles of the early Goryeo Dynasty "instead of setting up the Goryeo version of Boys Over Flowers," it would have received a positive response from male viewers interested in political dramas. According to Lee Woong of Yonhap News, the first part of the drama, which highlighted the love triangle and had almost all conflicts stemming from Queen Yoo's pathological love for Wang Yo, made the entire series too fragile. There were also doubts about the plausibility of the developments, such as the historical knowledge of the female lead, and that Wang So's scar could be covered with makeup.

With the 10th episode, the mood of the drama changed with the beginning of the power struggle over the throne among the princes, and the development of a three-dimensionality in characters considered "flat and dull" until that moment: Yonhap News again wrote that "IU has shed her comic acting and grasped Hae Soo's emotions in front of a tragic fate. Wang Wook, who has failed to win love and is anxious to choose power for the survival of his family, has become a tragic but empathetic real person." Lee Seung-rok of MyDaily also noted that after turning to tragedy in the second half, the acting, directing and writing had found stability, contributing to the increase in ratings.

The opinions on the finale were discordant: despite the good acting performances of the actors, viewers complained about the excessive product placement in the last episode. On the drama in general, Lee Woong of Yonhap News expressed a positive opinion, writing that Moon Lovers faithfully portrayed the tragedy of a love whose ideals are broken by reality, using fantasy as a dramatic device to show the tragedy of reality and exposing the same contradictions people experience in ordinary life. Park Si-eun's and Woo Hee-jin's acting in their last episodes was also praised for its solidity and maturity.

The reception abroad and on the Internet was more positive than in South Korea. After five episodes, the Beijing Youth Daily wrote that "the Chinese version is calm and steady, while the Korean version is more catering to the new generation of online audiences: the overall style is bright, adding a lot of funny elements. The handling of these details reflects South Korea's serious attitude in remaking foreign work."

Audience viewership

The series aired simultaneously in China and abroad. On Youku, it reached 300 million views after the first three episodes, more than a billion views after episode 9, and two billions after episode 18. It topped Taiwan's VOD service website KKTV Drama Chart in the September 19–25 week, and was the top content on Hong Kong VOD service's Laiko since the first week of September. On DramaFever, which made it available in North and South America, it recorded more than two million views mid-airing of the series.

According to Nielsen Korea, the first episode recorded a nationwide viewership rating of 7.4%, then taking a downward trend. Ratings started rising in the second half of the series, and reached the highest rating with the last episode, which recorded the 11.3%.

With an average nationwide rating of 7.6% for Nielsen Korea and 7.3% for TNMS, the drama was considered a failure for performing below expectations. The main cause was identified in the decision to film the whole series before airing, which made it impossible to make changes on the way based on feedback. SBS tried to remedy by re-editing the episodes aired domestically starting with the sixth. The fact that the drama wasn't an original story, but a remake, was also indicated as a reason for the disappointing ratings because it created in the potential audience the preconceived idea that the story was heavy and difficult to approach.

For Hankook Ilbo, the audience was tired of bad guys and complicated emotions, preferring instead a kind male lead and a simple story like in Love in the Moonlight, which aired simultaneously on KBS2. The two series were compared throughout the entire broadcast, during which Moon Lovers was overshadowed by the other drama in terms of share, remaining in last place among the dramas broadcast the same evening from the three main television channels, but otherwise recording the highest Content Power Index in the second week of September and October.

With the end of Love in the Moonlight on October 18, viewership rating started increasing steadily and Moon Lovers was the most watched drama on the evening of October 24.

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo

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Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo

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