I just finished this and I’m dropping my review here.

I agree with @elizabeth. The villains are comical. There are people who are evil for good reasons and then there are evil people just to be ***holes, and this series is FILLED with the latter, which doesn’t make good TV. I understand that villains are commonly driven by greed or lust, but the villains in this show are plain sick and annoying. From Griselda’s character, to Carlo’s, Karl Ting’s, Angel’s, Li Shing Cheong’s, Jeannie’s father, Regina’s, and the father and younger brother of Jeannie’s female manager. I get not all villains need a sympathetic backstory or should be likeable but most of the evil characters in here were soooo one-dimensional. There’s too much dogblood going on that it no longer makes it satisfying or enjoyable for viewers to follow. Characters pathetically either had ZERO morals and/or ZERO brains. It’s hard to relate to any of them or understand their motives. It’s like the scriptwriters decided “Oh, we need everyone to have devil horns so we can put a halo on our Protagonist and that’ll push her to become morally grey near the end bc morally grey protagonists are ‘in’ right now.” The only interesting characters were Moon, Joel, and Rebecca. Bob and John Chiang were ok.

Most of the cast were either overreacting or overly wooden (again, with the exception of Moon, Joel, Rebecca, Bob, and John Chiang). Jeannie’s wide-eyes were terrible. Angel tried but some scenes felt unnatural (I blame part of it being the script that caused her to overreact). The leading men were a snorefest. Is it just me but it was kind of awkward when everyone in the show was awestrickened when Jeannie appeared, like she was the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen? Like, yeah, she’s pretty but not THAT pretty for people to be acting like Cinderella just entered the ballroom. I felt like HUGE Jeannie was a miscast for the role and I don’t even dislike her as an actress.

The “you are not like other girls” trope was used TWICE in this series. Joel towards Jeannie’s character and Bob towards Moon. In conclusion, the theme was good but the execution was horrible. Horrible script, bad casting. I would say Moon and Rebecca saved the series but Rebecca barely appeared until the end so there wasn’t much saving after all.

Also, the title is grammatically incorrect? Shouldn’t it War of Beauty (Beauties)? Beauty of War means there’s beauty in war… like troops and cannons lmao.

One of the worst series I’ve seen since Bet Hur.