‘The Last Empress’ is one of those dramas that I didn’t know if I would like. Though when I read the reviews after it was aired in 2019 I decided to give it a go.
Featuring Jang Na-Ra as Oh Sunny (aka. the empress) and Shin Sung-rok as the emperor Lee Hyuk, ‘The Last Empress’ is a fictional set in Korea as if there was a Democratic Monarchy nowadays. The drama mainly focuses on the life of the royal family and how they’re able to get away with many of their wrongdoings because of the power they hold.
Written by Kim Soon-ok and directed by Joo Dong-min, this drama is not a typical one. For a very brief moment on the first episode I thought there was going to be a mix of romance with comedy, and a bit of fictional societal issues that could happen if a monarchy like that existed, but this drama took a completely different turn from what I expected.
The Story
‘The Last Empress’ is a drama that touches topics such as corruption and cover up of crimes committed by powerful people. It displays a constant fight for power which in the drama leads to even more crimes and corruption.
Throughout the storyline all the characters were abusing their power and using the people around them as if they were chess pieces. It was fascinating to watch, even though it got me frustrated too.
The writer did a great job developing the characters, many of them were written so viewers would hate them. Others were created so the viewers would feel empathy for them. The ‘bad ones’ are really bad in this drama, and the ‘good ones’ need to become bad in order to survive.
As it progressed I felt that the writers tried to make some of the antagonists more likeable and somehow comical, but as a viewer I felt that it was too late. The ‘bad ones’ had already done too many things I hated, so I just couldn’t feel any empathy for them even if they tried to redeem themselves.
The Acting
Every single actor in this drama did an incredible job delivering emotions, mental states and the feeling of every scene. I was particularly shocked with Shin Sung-rok, this guy is incredible, he delivered the pain, mental issues and even the ‘badness’ flawlessly.
The child actress Oh Ah-rin was just splendid, this little girl is extremely talented and I can’t wait to see more from her in the future.
One element that kept me from giving up on this drama was Jang Na-Ra, I’m her fan and she did an amazing job as usual. All the actors and actresses who had roles as part of the royal family or working in the palace were incredible. They made this drama almost feel too real, and got me hating and loving many of them.
Final Thoughts
There were a few points that I didn’t like in the drama, the first one was at the beginning with a drastic change of actor as he lost weight. It was a little on the nose that one. The second one was the constant resurrection of characters that were believed to be dead.
There were too many plot twists that I felt were unnecessary for the story, or they just tried to stretch the episodes because the ratings were so good for this drama when it aired.
‘The Last Empress’ is a drama that got me out of my drama comfort zone, and I’m glad I watched it. It opened a door of a new drama genre I didn’t think I would like. Check out the trailer here:
