Flowers that Bloom at Night (2024)

Raging comedic banter, battle and romance. I highly recommend!

Cho Yeo Hwa (Lee Ha Nee), lives as a dutiful widow by day and by night she's running across rooftops fighting criminals for the poor secretly. One night, she got into a chaotic fight, she landed in the arms of a palace guard, Park Soo Ho (Lee Jong-won). Unbeknownst to both, there’s a secret in the past left to be unfold. As Yeo Hwa continues living her lifestyle, Soo Ho keeps running into her, wanting to know who she really is… will she be able to keep her disguise?

This drama is consistently entertaining! While I expected the show to be as fun as it was, I didn’t expect to be immediately connected with our characters and their motivations. I love Yeo Hwa, her mother-in-law and her quirky friend, too. That she's widowed due to a tragic past, controlled by her mother-in-law and almost 100% locked inside her house, it all sounds depressing, but the storytelling is so so fresh. Also it's interesting to see like how our male lead, Soo Ho with his role to serve justice but he's bind by a lot of rules, while he sees this mysterious person just do it each night.

The intro and the epilogue scenes are A+! Each episode is meaningful with steady pacing. Interesting twists happened here and there. There's a whole lot of wuxia-style fight scenes; flying to the roof, hitting people by acorns, and I enjoyed a lot. The action scenes are funny, also the little gestures, sound effect, visual effect, they're all worked together perfectly. The romance is fun, low-stake, and heart-fluttering! Every romantic scene counts. Not much complicated intrigue until the last few episodes, where it was resolved but falters flat. Though so, the whole experience of my watching is truly entertaining!

-Feb 2024, Yovita
Find me on Instagram: @kdramajudge

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Cheeky, cheerful and heartfelt, drops of suspense included

“Knight Flower” is set in Joseon days, yet it is no epic, historical KDrama in a classical sense. It has endearing comedy to offer, the touch of a romance and even a touch of crime thriller, while the setting back then in Joseon is accounted for predominant neo-Cunfucian social ethics in those days. In particular, back then being widowed was bad news for women, whatsoever. (See side note). This circumstance is providing the hook for a cheeky and fresh-minded KDrama plot.

In "Knight Flower", the widow simply cannot get herself to merely spending the rest of her long life in honorable, virtuous seclusion, mostly invisible to the rest of the world, trying not to be too much of a burden to her in-laws, and otherwise mourning the deceased husband (whom she never actually met) in the afterlife.
No, this widow does her own thing. She is not interested in being reduced to the virtue of mourning. During daytime, her everyday life is that of a honorable widow and decent daughter-in-law. Yet, at night she is dressed in black, wearing pants and a mask, climbing over walls, jumping over roofs and helping the poor – as "Midam", a kind of Robin Hood of Joseon. Such is her double life. All goes well, until one day...

While the plot is drawing its dynamic appeal from the actually rather sad background of a dubious tradition of treating widows (not only practiced in old Joseon, and not only back then…), the good news is: "Knight Flower", as a production broadcast in 2024, is built on intelligent emancipation, too. What is called for is not compliant bowing, but rather self-confident, creative solutions in dealing with life. Obviously South Koreans are craving for such a role model these days. The show was quite a success. People there apparently enjoyed it. So did I.

"Knight Flower" is cheeky, cheerful, and heartfelt, drops of suspense included, thus with alluring wit offering an enjoyably entertaining genre-mix.








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SIDE NOTE: --- Yeolnyeo or Yeolbu, the virtuous woman of Joseon ---

A loyal subject can only serve ONE king and a virtuous woman can only serve ONE husband. This perhaps briefly summarizes the core of the moral teachings of the period between the 14th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Practically speaking, this implied a widowed woman could face death penalty, if she ever wanted to marry again.

Women had to be obedient to their parents and in-laws. They had to honor their husband. And after his death the eldest son had the say... The greatest asset of a woman, besides bearing children, was her virtue. And that was eventually all that was left, if her husband might have died before herself. There was even granted an official award for valuing outstandingly honorable virtuous widows with the reputation of being a Yeolnyeo or Yeolbu. Thus they had to be particularly determined with living as a commendable model wife even after their husband´s death – according to all the rules regarding morals and daily routines as set out in detail in the book about good conduct for virtuous women…

However, the pressure on widows to be respected as Yeolnyeo became excessive over time. At some point it was even common for widows to consequently take their own lives, too, thus expressing their praiseworthy being loyal to the husband until the bitter end. In this way, they could posthumously provide their family (or that of their deceased husband) an honorable glory of virtue in which all family members could bask. Eventually, suicide was even expected of a widow – especially if she became a widow at a young age...

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