While I've watched countless Chinese drama, I'm rather new to Korean ones because I'm less familiar with the language and the culture. This drama was suggested to me by Netflix and after seeing that the lead actress was Kim Tae Ri, whom I loved in the Handmaiden, I immediately decided to watch it.

24 over-one-hour-long episodes flew by. This I the first drama I've watched where I never skipped a scene once. I admit I was more interested in the romantic subplot(s) than in the general historical plot – also because I already knew what sad and terrible history Korea was about to go into so I wasn't exactly on the edge of my seat – but the political scheming was never boring, and the villains and the antagonists were never flat or too stereotyped.

Also, this drama had zero drama clichés, or at least they were very sparse. No stupid misunderstandings or jealous rivals; no clueless female protagonists or jerk male heroes; no situations that make you cringe or roll your eyes. It had more of a movie feeling than a TV drama's.
Every character, especially the main 5 (Eugene, Ae-sin, Hina, Dong-mae and Hui-Seong) was interesting and well-rounded and I really empathised with them all.
The funny bits were actually very funny, and the product placement was sparse.
The music and the cinematography were outstanding – though regarding the latter I think they put all their effort in the first half and the second half doesn't have as many gorgeous or iconic shots. If I have to think of the shots of this drama that are iconic for me, they're all in the first 15 episodes.

The acting was really good, with Kim Tae Ri and Byun Yo Han shining the most in my opinion.

I only gave 8.5 to the story because, just like with the cinematography, I had the impression it wasn't as strong in the second half. It got slower around episodes 15-20, then it got a bit more predictable and sometimes it felt like they didn't have a clear idea where they were going with some storylines. I also wish the ending was different in a couple of aspects. But overall it was a very solid story and they managed to juggle well the personal stories with the political/historical background.

I'm keeping this review spoiler free but in the next paragraph I will go into more detail about things I didn't like so if you want to stay 100% spoiler-free please stop reading.

I've already said that Mr. Sunshine is amazing and listed the good things, but I have a few small complaints I'd like to mention as well.
First of all, I'm a little disappointed that the romance subplot became less and less relevant as the episodes progressed, especially towards the end. While this won't matter to those who watch this drama mainly for the overall story, I'm a sucker for the romance and I wish the relationships had progressed a bit more. I think there were things that could have been done but sadly were never explored.
Second, towards the end they introduced interesting new characters and situations that were left as loose threads and never brought to a closure. That was also a bit disappointing.
I'm also a bit bitter about how a particular character's arc (my favorite character, actually) ended, and I think that, again, there was still a lot of unexplored potential there.

In the end, I'd give 10/10 to the first half of Mr. Sunshine and 8/10 to the second half, so my overall vote is 9. If I'm ever gonna rewatch this drama, I'll probably only rewatch the first half.