(Review for all of 2019 parts, aka "Season 1")
This isn't a romance. It's not about the ancient setting, the fantasy or the CGI. This tells the story of how different temperaments behave when confronted with adversity, power, wealth, technology, friendship, loss, honour. And it tells it all.

For that to work, you have to have 80 minutes per episode and keep you on its toes throughout. Every episode is much better paced than other Asian drama's where you can easily cut out and ditch a fifth because of repeats and lengthy slow motion zooms.

It's not the case here. Where things are going slow and focus on facial expressions of the characters, you have plenty to think about. You wonder what got this person to that point. How could they have been saved. Was it always in them? You start wondering because you know that the world we live in now, was built on the same foundation of deceit, greed and power. And that the basic fault we still and soon have to correct is the notion of ownership. How many of us think about how odd it case that man can own land, air, animals. And who looks at what that notion of ownership did to our morals, our habitats and our kin. Arthdal Chronicles is humanity's mirror.