My reason for watching “100 Days My Prince” instead of “Where Stars Land” summed as as video:
“Never gonna give you up” by Rick Astley.
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
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Frankly speaking, I stuck with this episode because of the actor Do KyungSoo.
Not because I’m an EXO fan. (lol. What’s their fanclub called? Exo(r)cist? Exotic? Exotica? Exoderm? Exodus?)
Not because he’s handsome (he’s alright if you’re into bushy eyebrows).
But because I watched a movie on a plane featuring him as the blind brother of a scam artist (see? I can’t even remember the title), and his acting impressed me.
To me, he’s reprised his role. The story is different but the same skill sets are required. Staring down the enemy, not flinching when a blow or an arrow flies toward him, enunciating his lines as if they were royal edicts — and they kinda were, considering he’s the Crown Prince here, and so on.
The added bonus, however, is he gets to have romantic scenes in this sageuk.
That’s why I was disappointed with this episode. I was expecting more.
It was like watching two stories ineptly mashed together in the editing room. There was no flow. I waited for developments in WonDeuk and HongShim’s relationship but the palace intrigues, the peripheral stories of JeYoon and MooYeon, and the petty antics of Lord Park and the mayor kept INTERRUPTING the flow of our couple’s romance.
The episode was only an hour and 11 minutes in length, but the scriptwriter threw everything in it resulting in a hodgepodge of irrelevant mess.
This must be the writer at work. 
The writer could have streamlined the narrative by trimming the scenes of many minor characters.
Take for instance JeYoon. Really? Really? Stop making him (and that actor) relevant to the story, writer!
It bugged me that the writer wasted time introducing his prosopagnosia to us (So what if he has that disability? Where’s the writer going with this?), AND that we were also educated on cinnamon as an ant-repellent. Geeewhiz, are we supposed to be impressed that he knew this factoid?
Then, who cares about his relationship with the geisha? (Relevance?) He gave her a note, out in the open, knowing he was spied on and she was going to be targeted. Gee. What a guy!
Instead of giving us all these unnecessary details to this secondary character, the writer should have made it CLEARER that he was the half-brother, Minister Jung, the chief censor and the co-conspirator of the Queen. That’s THE pertinent information here.
Then MooYeon. Okay, I appreciate that the writer attempted to make him a more sympathetic assassin. He was going to kill the Crown Prince so he could finally buy his freedom as well as the freedom of his comrades and his sister.
But when you think about this… what’s the logic there? Is he really that naive to think that Minister Kim will stick to his side of the bargain? How on earth did he become a top assassin if he’s this gullible?
And that secret royal inspector? WonDeuk deduced that he was a SECRET royal inspector because a) he took a civil service exam, b) he wrote a poem, “The outhouse rat scares easily and the enlightened rat is wary. For the rat steals grain in the safety of the magistrate’s storage,” and c) he caused a maid to trip at Lord Park’s feast.
Well then, following the logic nonsense of this writer, I must be a nun because a) I once took a religion test, b) I can quote psalms from the bible, and c) eardrums rupture whenever I sing.
Also, does anybody still care about the CPrincess’s baby’s daddy? We were informed that “the eldest son of the chief scholar at the Royal Advisory Council” died but I yawned. In Episode 6, the CPrincess left a letter between the tiles which Minister Jung promptly retrieved. Soon after that, the “eldest son of a chief scholar” conveniently died. Sure, he was the baby’s daddy alright. (rolling eyes)
To me, the impressive thing about Minister Jung is that he appears to be the winner in any scenario. If the queen’s son, Prince Seowoon becomes the CP, then Minister Jung will be in good hands. If the CPrincess’ baby becomes the heir to the throne, then Minister Jung hits jackpot, too….
Because, you see, the baby’s his.
Bwahahaha.
And no, MooYeon couldn’t be the baby’s father. He requested to be released from Minister Kim’s service, right? At first, I thought that he agreed to kill the CP, without question, because he wanted the CPrincess for himself. But he had asked Minister Kim to let him go after he fulfilled this last mission. He wanted to return to his sister’s side who’d been waiting for him. If he had fathered the child, he wouldn’t leave CPrincess’ and the baby’s side. It would be out of character of him to walk away from his duty and responsibility.
Oh well.
That’s why I want the romance between our lead to begin moving along now. The return of Lee Yul and his original bride is the only way to sort out this palace mess.
So far, we only had the fight scene, the hair-tuck scene, the undressing scene (yeah! like that’s soooo gonna happen. Undressing him in the middle of the road? pffft), the bandage scene, the bed sceneS, and the hug scene after they were rescued by the secret royal investigator.
I want demand moorrreee!
But do you know which scene I liked the best? That scene when she was anxiously waiting for him to arrive and he turned around the corner.
Everybody was about to drink to forget the day’s hullabaloo but she slipped away to wait for WonDeuk. I like that because it tells me that she was beginning to think of them as a couple, as a unit. She could hardly drink merrily when her WonDeuk hadn’t returned yet. But her anxiety about WonDeuk’s safety was no longer something she could share with others or whine about (like she did before) in the presence of other people. It was her burden alone to carry now. That was why she walked away from company.
If you watch that scene again, you’ll notice that, at first, she was in sharp focus, and WonDeuk was a fuzzy shadow in the distance. Then, she became blurry, and WonDeuk was in sharper focus as he steadily approached her. Although we could see his shadow, his appearance wasn’t menacing but comforting. She could breathe a sigh of relief. He’d come home safe and sound.
And I liked that camera change. We’ve been seeing HongShim as a steady character. She can be feisty and rough at times but she’s good intentions. What you see is what you get. But slowly, we’re also getting a clearer vision of WonDeuk. He’s become a better version of his old self.
With his memory deleted, he’s been molded by his interaction with HongShim and the kind villagers into a more empathetic and even-tempered guy. Of course, he still behaves regally as when he ordered HongShim to stay still so she could serve as armrest for his wound. But he can smile now, even when he orders preposterous things. He’s come to find and understand the levity of even the “uncomfortable” situations.
