I wish Cruel Romance was easier for me to rate, but I always struggle with dramas that captivated and mesmerized me at the beginning, only to leave me longing for something more in the second part of them.

I loved the fist half of the show. The story, although somewhat ridiculous, was engrossing. The characters had enough spunk and unique features that their encounters were interesting and the sparks kept flying. The main lead might be a bit standoffish, but his demeanor and the way he treated his people and the women in general, Jin Xiu in particular, was quite charming. The fight scenes were over the top, but that also could be seen as somewhat the part of the charm. I loved the reverse harem theme that kept resurfacing and I even could kind of understand why this supposedly simple girl was so popular with men. Being related to the most beautiful woman in the entire province makes for a compelling argument as to why everyone would be so captivated by her. Even the main bad guy was interesting because you kept disliking him and then rooting for him in some capacity. This part of the story convinced me that I actually can like a good damsel in distress story with some really hot rescue scenes if it's well done. I haven't seen many shows that did that type of romance well before.

Then somewhere around ep. 24 - 25 the story got messy and somewhat predictable. The bad guys became wicked, main female lead became super annoying and the secondary female lead became wretched. The story took a turn that I didn't particularly care for. It's not that it wasn't good at all; it just wasn't as good as it was before. I skipped tons of scenes during the second part of the show and I didn't feel like I missed so much. In the end, the show fell short for me. I believe that it would have been a really good drama had it been around 30 episodes. I did re-watch a couple of the first episodes and found it enjoyable, but I wouldn't re-watch the drama it it's entirety. That why I ended up giving it a 7.