The King of Tears, Lee Bang-won

Firstly, the low ratings are due to the death of a horse on set. Focusing only on the show, it is one of my all-time favourite non-romance historical k-drama. The show is paced wonderfully, not too slow and not too fast. It also makes the various titles and ceremonies involved easy to understand and remember. Unlike most other historical k-dramas, the acting is not too over-the-top that it feels unreal. The actors do a very good job of making the scenes real, engrossing and believable. All events depicted in the series are also almost completely accurate (the places, people and decisions shown are accurate, while the dialogues are obviously fictional). As a bonus, the series also shows the buildings depicted in the series which have survived to this day in the end-credits.

All actors and crew know animals are killed to make this show. Just look at the poor video of them killing a horse for just one scene. Purposefully tripping it. It died a week later, but looks extremely injured so therefore it must have suffered for a long while. This show needs to be banned and and all participants jailed or fined. Disgusting.

The series was great. Every episode of the series was wonderful and exciting and the actor of the main character "Joo Sang Wook" was great in it. His acting was very cool and impressive and I liked him very much. His facial expression and acting in different scenes made me think that he is a versatile actor. He's a really talented actor. Definitely, he's been in the industry for so long, but he's still able to deliver amazing performances.

And about the story of the series, because it was completely based on Korean history and historical facts, it was very attractive and exciting to me.

It was such a touching series Thanks to all the creators of this series.

I totally agree with rkpmthk's observation. I really wanted to see this and I started watching it at a Korean friend's place - couldn't continue. Animal cruelty is the most abhorrent thing to me and this just turned my stomach; then again, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.

All participants in this drama, both actors and directors, understood that in making such a decision, there is a huge risk of injury and death of the animal. Apologies are easy to say, it is impossible to restore life to a living being. Drama cancellation and litigation is the perfect solution for all of them. Cruel, but deserved.

For such a company, using computer graphics is not a problem at all, but it is clear that someone is especially greedy and continues to exploit animals for their stupid purposes. The question is, how many such projects were there before this drama and how many animals were harmed on their set for the sake of a few "spectacular" minutes? An animal died, footage of animal abuse was included in the episode, and the film crew just apologized .. do you think this is normal??