Une pointe de déception
Cette série à gros budget n’a finalement pas tenu toutes ses promesses...L’idée de départ est plutôt intrigante, des mondes parallèles et diamétralement opposés entre une république et une monarchie.
Mais le soufflé se dégonfle bien vite :
- acteur principal beaucoup trop lisse, toujours tiré à quatre épingles même quand il se bat, court ou fait du cheval à bride abattue ;
- Kim Go Eun qui passe d’une policière avec du caractère à une pleurnicheuse invétérée ;
- la première ministre qui n’apporte au final pas grand chose à l’intrigue alors qu’elle aurait pu jouer un rôle majeur;
- placement de produits beaucoup trop présent et très très peu subtil.
Au niveau des points positifs :
- la réalisation globale même si j’aurais aimé plus d’informations sur les deux différents pays ;
- les effets spéciaux, globalement maîtrisés ;
- l’histoire, malgré quelques imperfections.
Bref, tout n’est pas à jeter mais cela reste quand même une demi-déception :-(
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Enjoy little things
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A voir même si un peu décevant
L'histoire et l'intrigue m'ont beaucoup plu dès la lecture du résumé. En plus, joli casting, j'étais aux anges.Mais force est de constater que j'ai été un peu déçue…
Dans l'ensemble, ce drama se regarde, et j'ai passé un joli moment.
Mais…
* Histoire complexe, à laquelle il manque pas mal de réponses par rapport à ces deux mondes parallèles.
* Relation entre le King et son bras droit, qui aurait mérité plus de développement.
* Personnages bien portés mais superficiels.
Par contre :
* Le parallèle entre les deux mondes, et le fait de retrouver les personnages mais qui vivent complètement différemment est intéressant.
* L'idée du scénario est sympa.
En bref, un bon moment, mais il ne faut pas en attendre plus.
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Gros potentiel mais ...
Nous avons pour ce drama un excellent casting et un gros budget mais cela n'a pas été suffisant! En effet nous avons Lee Min-Ho qui interprète le rôle du roi mais je n'ai ressenti aucun attachement pour ce personnage qui me semble trop parfait physiquement (toujours bien coiffé, bien habillé et beaucoup de plans qui le met en valeur) mais aussi moralement, je trouve vraiment dommage que son personnage ne soit pas approfondi. Quand à Woo Do Hwan il joue le rôle du bras droit du roi mais malheureusement j'aurais aimé ressentir l'amitié qui lie ces personnages, puisque l'on a plus l'impression qu'il est son "esclave" (il n'a pas d'émotions) que son ami, mais j'ai beaucoup aimé l'autre personnage qu'il a incarné puisqu'on le voit prendre conscience de ce qu'il est et il évolue tout le long, c'est un personnage très humain et attachant. Kim Go Eun incarne une policière qui est présentée au début comme une femme forte qui sait se battre mais je trouve qu'elle perd tout son charme par la suite car je ne ressent plus la femme charismatique qu'elle était, je trouve que le couple qu'elle forme avec le roi manque d'alchimie, je ne ressent pas assez leur complicité, il aurait peut être fallut plus développer les sentiments de chacun. Le "méchant" est aussi un peu décontracté, il est trop sûre de lui j'aurais aimé ici aussi que ses motivations et ses sentiments soit bien plus approfondis pour pouvoir ressentir une forme de haine pour lui.Passons à l'histoire, le concept un peu fantastique avec deux univers parallèles, avait l'air vraiment sympa mais ici aussi je suis encore déçue, le début est bien mais par la suite il faut bien suivre pour ne pas se perdre, elle manque beaucoup de fluidité nous avons des scènes à rallonge ou inutile, mais paradoxalement nous manquons beaucoup d'approfondissement comme sur l'origine des deux mondes, les règles qui s'y appliquent... A vrai dire je me suis ennuyé à cause du manque de fluidité mais j'ai tout de même apprécié le début ainsi que le dénouement.
Ce gros budget a été acquis notamment grâce aux placements de produits qui sont beaucoup, même trop présent ils ne sont pas assez discrets et peuvent déranger à la longue. Je trouves aussi que l'on a trop voulu nous montrer les richesses du palais (qui s'inspire plutôt du Japon que de la Corée) sans nous montrer la richesse du pays et de ses habitants nous restons toujours dans le même cadre ce qui est dommage... (Je tiens à souligner que les effets spéciaux comme le lissage de peau ou même le ciel violet entre les deux mondes sont vraiment de mauvais goûts.)
Je pense que cette série a été beaucoup trop mise en valeur avant sa sortie et que l'ont s'attendaient tous au drama du siècle mais il n'est pas pour autant un mauvais drama, il faut simplement savoir l'apprécier à sa juste valeur et surtout rester concentré pendant tous les épisodes pour ne pas perdre le fil de l'histoire !
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The King : éternel sur mon cœur
J'avais plusieurs fois remis à plus tard le visionnage de The King: Eternal Monarch à cause de plusieurs critiques que j'avais lues et qui le dépeignaient comme un drama passable voire très mauvais et puis, je me suis dit "allez, on essaie, autant se faire son propre avis" et la chose que je déplore le plus c'est... d'avoir écouté ces critiques!Je ne dis pas que c'est le meilleur drama de tous les temps mais il m'a paru vraiment bon avec l'expérience que j'ai acquise dans ce domaine, donc j'ai décidé de vous faire par de mon propre ressenti.
L'histoire :
Le drama nous emmène à la découverte d'une Corée différente de celle que nous connaissons, un monde parallèle, qui va, par l'intermédiaire des personnages, rencontrer la Corée du Sud de notre monde.
L'histoire va donc sans cesse passer d'un monde à l'autre et j'avoue que, parfois, ce fut un peu déstabilisant. Il ne faut pas regarder les épisodes quand on a du sommeil en retard ou quand on a décidé de faire sa compta à coté sinon on ne comprend plus rien très rapidement et c'est pourquoi je ne conseillerai pas ce drama a des personnes qui ne sont pas déjà familiarisées avec l'univers des K-Dramas, car ici on n'a pas le temps de parler des différences de cultures, d'habitudes, ou de tradition, les différences sont posées et il faut rapidement le comprendre pour avancer dans l'histoire et l'action.
Les personnages :
Je connais maintenant très bien l'acteur Lee Min Ho (Lee Gon) et il ne se départ pas de sa façon habituelle de jouer, surtout concernant la partie romantique de l'histoire ce dont je le remercie. Il plante un personnage de roi charismatique et fonceur mais il sait aussi montrer un côté vulnérable et drôle également.
J'avais déjà rencontré Kim Go Eun (Jeong Tae Eul) dans le drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Goblin pour les intimes) et elle ne m'a pas déçu non plus, elle nous montre un personnage féminin fort et assuré qui affronte les épreuves qui se présentent à lui, elle ne succombe pas au désespoir et cherche plutôt les solutions existantes.
Je donne ici une mention spéciale pour l'acteur Woo Do Hwan (Jo Yeong / Jo Eun Seob que j'avais déjà rencontré dans le drama Tempted que je n'avais pas particulièrement apprécié et c'est donc une bonne surprise de le voir ici avec non pas un, mais deux rôles qu'il joue à la perfection. Mes plus grosses barres de rire, je les ai eues avec lui et il développe, encore une fois, non pas une, mais deux bromance que j'ai adoré. Du coup ça m'a donné envie de voir plus de productions avec lui, affaire à suivre donc...
La réalisation :
Je l'ai déjà dit, les passages entre les deux mondes et raccorder chaque scènes ensemble peut être parfois déstabilisant et j'ai dû donc quelque fois m'accrocher mais le drama fait souvent reculer l'action en début d'épisode pour nous montrer comment on en est arrivé à la scène finale du précédent et j'avoue que c'est quelque chose qui m'a beaucoup aidé et ce à plusieurs reprises, d'autant que j'avais souvent l'impression de regarder comme des "secrets de tournage" de l'action en elle-même.
Les décors sont juste magnifiques et le monde de "l'entre deux" est oufissime, au niveau des effets spéciaux, on arrive a un très bon rendu, ni trop, ni trop peu mais je sais que ce sont des techniques qui demandent beaucoup de travail et d'investissement financier donc bravo la prod!
les scènes d'action et de combat sont très bien jouées, voire même orchestrées car on a souvent l'impression d'assister à une danse (sauf qu'ici il y a des morts).
La romance est belle et bien assumée des deux côtés, on marche souvent sur le fil du rasoir entre bonheur qui explose et désespoir de l'attente mais fort heureusement, les deux leads sont des personnages qui ne se laissent pas faire et qui feront tout pour être heureux ensemble, je vous laisse regarder pour voir s'ils y arriveront.
J'ai beaucoup entendu parler des placements de produits de façon négative mais je répondrais que quelque soit le drama, d'où que vienne même la série ou le film, les placements de produits sont partout, tout le temps, si on s'arrête à cela, alors il faut arrêter de regarder des films ou séries actuels et ne voir que des œuvres historiques.
Le "Deus Ex Machina" m'a un peu déconcertée par contre, je pense qu'il n'est pas assez explicité, je ne veux pas dire qu'il faut tout expliquer en long en large et en travers mais là ça m'a paru un peu trop flou.
Enfin, le final m'a bien plu malgré le fait qu'il reste des questions importantes en suspens et, attention spoiler!
ATTENTION SPOIL
Comment va faire le roi concernant la succession, voire même avant son mariage? Peut-il passer tout son règne sans se marier?
FIN DU SPOIL
et à nouveau mention spéciale pour la même personne pour qui je suis triste avec cette fin proposée.
ATTENTION SPOIL
Jo Yeong et Jo Eun Seob tous deux joué par Woo Do Hwan ne se reverront jamais après leur séparation déchirante, ça m'a fait un coup au coeur!
FIN DU SPOIL
Finalement, comme je l'ai dit plus haut, je ne pense pas que The King: Eternal Monarch soit un drama pour débutant mais c'est une œuvre dont je me rappellerais longtemps avec émotion et nostalgie. On se sent bien dans ce ou ces mondes et on aimerait y rester aussi. J'y penserais parfois avec un petit sourire en coin.
Maintenant, à vous de vous faire votre avis.
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Je vais pas faire d'avis tres long qui prendera des minutes a lire mais j'ai fait ce review avant tout pour encourager les personnes qui m'ont pas encore visionnée cette merveille à le faire ...je n'allais pas le faire et je remercie dieu pour ne pas avoir cédé aux maivais reviews .
Je pense que les gens qui n'ont pas aimé n'ont soit pas compris le déroulement de l'histoire avec la théorie des univers parallèles_ que je comprend _n'est pas au gout de tout le monde...soit ils s'attendaient à une histoire banale sans cassement de tête.
L'histoire :est magnifique avec une cohérence surprenante où aucun detail n'est laissé au hasard.
Le travail des acteurs : une alchimie magnifique entre les différents acteurs qui donne un jeu fluide LMH a fait un retour en force .
La musique :est tres bonne sans être mémorable.
Je voulais pas vous gacher la série mais plutôt vous poussez à la regarder car elle en vaut la peine .
Par contre si vous chercher un scénario banal passez votre chemin.
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1Cette critique peut contenir des spoilers
A complete basketcase, this drama tried to use formulaic writing and tried and tested cliches to manipulate the viewers into liking it but failed spectacularly.To be honest, in the beginning I didn't understand all the criticism. Sure, it was a superficial romance drama with more beauty than brains but so were many others and everybody liked them just fine.
The cast was doing a good job, there was funny banter, a potential mystery, bromance and I for one, even managed to feel chemistry between the leads. I liked it and wanted to know more.
That feeling lasted for all of about 5 episodes and then the show went to shit in the most extraordinary fashion.
First of all, you know how greedy the drama makers are for money to the point that the product placement in this show is blatant, ridiculously irrelevant and just shoved in your face time and time again. After a point, it feels like you're not watching ads in a drama, you're just watching one big ad with bits and pieces of the drama in between.
Then comes the lacklustre romance. Albeit slow and full of filler at first, you still hoped it would build to something beautiful but suddenly they rushed it to the point that before ever even letting you feel that they have feelings for each other, the couple already exchanges love confessions, plants a kiss or two on each other and acts like they have been in love for a century. And you're just awkwardly standing at the sidelines being like um guys, y'all just met a week ago...
I almost felt like I missed some episodes where they fell in love but apparently it wasn't me it was the writer who did that.
The character development is so bad and the roles are extremely poorly written that I am pretty sure the cast couldn't have saved them even if they tried their best.
Kim Go Eun is a charismatic actress and I like her a lot. And her character here is a badass, loud mouthed cop who needs no saving which is why it made me root for her at first. However, you can't help but see the way she changes from being extremely rude to the ML in one episode and then says I love you in the next. And ofcourse, conveniently it happens right after she sees all of his riches. I am not thinking gold digger, you are.
She also conveniently turns into a weepy damsel in distress whenever they need to hype the hero at her expense. Strong but weak enough for the hero to save her again and again.
Her doppelganger, which is a great opportunity for any actor to show versatility, is literally the same as her original character with bad hair and a bad attitude. No acting change there and they just popped a ridiculous wig on her head to convince us to believe she is a different person.
Now comes Lee Min Ho. As beautiful he is, this man with sparkling gorgeous mischevious eyes has been conning us into believing he is a good actor since many years. It's not that hard to figure out that he recycles his expressions in every drama but lets not go there. He plays his role convincingly enough to give you flutters in the stomach.
He is the perfect dashing super hero who can do no wrong here with excellent fighting skills, Jedi level intelligence and is basically Einstein with a pretty face and a horse.
That's fine we like our romance heroes to be all that but it's not fine when you also try to convince me that this flower boy can suddenly transform into this brilliant and ruthless king/ mafia boss nobody can mess with. I can't buy that because he simply lacks the intensity to be one and honestly we are shown nothing in his background or story to prove otherwise.
So everytime he tried to be a serious king, to me he just felt like a toddler wearing his daddy's oversized shoes and shaking his fist trying to assert authority. Did I find him cute? For sure. Did I take him seriously? Hell no.
Some people said that it's a very hard to understand show and that those who don't like it, actually just don't understand it. Let me pop that bubble right here. It's a very simplistic plot with confused and lazy writing trying to mask itself as complicated. This is a tactic used by the writer because naturally if you make people feel like they don't get what's going on, they're gonna think the show is smarter than them and end up being impressed.
Let me tell you, I understood everything that was going on and it ain't that deep. It's a very commercial show with one goal alone: making money. That's why without putting any thought or effort into plot and execution, they casted hype worthy actors, ripped off another OST, and produced a dumbed down version of Goblin. Unfortunately for them, no amount of Lee Min Ho's boyish smiles can fry our braincells enough for us to lose the ability to tell a good script from bad.
Yes, the cinematography and direction is beautiful but there's only so many pretty color pallets, shots and sceneries you can enjoy till you start to question the bad writing.
Despite all the flaws if you still want to check out this show and just want one reason to push you towards it, then that reason is Woo Do Hwan. Who tried to save the show with his excellent acting and scene stealer self by bringing forward two characters who despite looking the same are entirely different people.
He brought forth the bromance and laugh out loud moments that act as the show's only saving grace. Yeong/Eun Seup are the best characters in the drama and you can't help but fall in love.
But the writer, ever so stubborn on digging her own grave steals that little happiness from us by reducing his screentime as much as possible. Take that as you will.
The skinship in this show is actually pretty decent with some excellent kisses. However, the romance is so poorly paced (trying to be intense just by the FL's cringeworthy crying scenes that pop out of nowhere without any reason) that you never get the feels you otherwise would. Again, I blame the writing because the two main leads have excellent chemistry in real life behind the scenes that just doesn't translate on-screen.
The villain, like every other character is poorly developed, one dimensional and his scenes (the very few there are) are horribly yawn inducing. The second FL (Prime Minister) and the second ML (Shin Jae) were both flat characters left with unexplored potential and by the second half, for the life of me I couldn't begin to make myself care about their stories.
Yes, there are a few scenes that are designed to make people react and make your adrenalin rush but even those scenes are extremely cheesy and come in to being with the help of the most unrealistic and ridiculous plot devices, that you can't help but laugh at.
Ending words: Quite definitely, a lost cause, you should watch it only if you want to take it as a bad parody and laugh at it, instead of with it.
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The story has a certain charisma of bringing sci-fi to a lighter romance novel-ish type of feels. Sure first few episodes will make your mind think like "WTF am I watching??" but as the episodes progress you get the satiafaction of finding out the reason behind everything that happend in the previous episode.
The director was so clever in putting lots of small hints and details that you will definitely see once you rewatch the episodes because they will make you rewatch to have that "oh did i miss that? let me see that again" moment.
You definitely need to level up your perspective in this series. It feels like Inception, Oldboy, and Fringe put into one pot, sprinkled with Korean Royalty and boiled in one sweet and spicy revenge water.
Overall, it was a good watch. Probably best not to binge watch at first then rewatch after you finished to check back on the cool details you might have missed.
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1Do You Want Some Cheese With Your Chicken?
Don't be confused. This is not a 7 first kisses sequel, it was not supposed to be an advertisement drama special..the moment the production decided to add more lines for the product placement than the plot/character development was the moment they threw away the viewers worth.
honestly I don't think I've ever seen a drama so bluntly advertise their sponsored products this much. "I've never found this fried chicken outside of korea", "this makes my skin moist", "this boosts your stamina", "this mask is a best seller" and blah blah blah ;/ if anything they made me want to buy those products even less.
one of their biggest problem was how they show you an event like ep11's over dramatic ending and then the next ep they start from a pre setup and repeat everything again and get to the point only halfway through the ep. (that's not how cliffhangers work)
the lines were so cheesy and cringe worthy it was embarrassing, and the acting from the 2 mains was mediocre and the only reason it was acceptable was becasue everything else sucked.
the romance lacked substance and it was too rushed that it made it seem like taeul only loved yigon's money. they had zero on screen chemistry and no amount of neck kisses (which was just 1) could save their so called love.
speaking of kisses, they start with the cliche open eyed fish kiss, gave 1 neck kiss and went back to "covering their face with a hand or something" so it looks like they're kissing but it was obvious they were not ;D and I don't personally care for kissing scenes since they don't add to the romance but enhance it, and so if the actors feel uncomfortable having more than 1 kiss they shouldn't be forced into it.
the plot was a literal zero. an empty flashy mess of a story. nothing was consistent, nothing made sense and nothing was explained.
this is what happens when the writer gets a deal to make their drama after only writing the 1st couple of eps, it was obvious she only had the start idea and the end (which was a total cheap move full of fan service) so she was lost most of the time.
now the directors all take the other part of the blame. the switching between the 2 worlds was so bad that no one could tell which world they were in until someone's name was mentioned ;/
the audios were always such a mess, the chewing were too loud and every sound felt artificial, like ep11's footsteps. it felt like a zombie apocalypse..
they had so many side plots and characters unrelated to the main plot that it was hard to know who was who and what purpose they held, but worse part was that nothing was explained and thus they were just fillers..
everything big and flashy uncle evil seemed to work towards was pointless. he looked scary and evil but was caught in 1second, they talked big of time stopping but it never became an issue..
so to sum it up we had 1 ep of plot, 14 eps of fillers and angst and 30min of resolution followed by 55min of fan service~
as if the 2 worlds was not confusing enough they had to add time traveling, but alas how else would they have had saved their empty black hole mess of a plot?
Jo Young / Jo Eun Sub and Myung Na Ri / Myung Seung Ah were the highlight of the show for me, both as actors and as characters so I'm incredibly disappointed by the wasted potential. they could've had 2 more couples in this and increased the level of uwu but anyway, the Jos and the Myungs had better chemistry and more believable love lines and though I was happy with their end, I was again disappointed that they didn't really show them together much...
young was such a cold, professional no nonsense kind of a guy but his social life (shown only as laptop sticker -I wonder whose idea was that) and his interactions with both eunsub and their puppy twins showed how much more of a sweet warmhearted person he was. I wish this drama was about him ;(
https://mydramalist.com/35039-the-king-the-eternal-monarch#comment-3574531
eunsub was laid back, easy and friendly that people (ie the 2 mains) took advantage of and forgot several times, but his interactions with young was beautiful, they were the only 2 sane unselfish people (beside the Myungs). and in the end I loved his growth to a solid reliable man~
also since I don't want to share spoilers here I'll link my comment https://mydramalist.com/35039-the-king-the-eternal-monarch#comment-3565969
the music was a repeat/ripoff of goblin and they did nothing to add to the already non existent mood, and I didn't even want to watch this the 1st time let alone rewatching it (though I have rewatched WDH's scenes alot)
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Best drama of the year :3
So, I saw that everyone was criticising this drama for a lot of stupid things. I finally watched the last episode and I wanted to write a review for this one. ꧁ The story : yeah I agree it was a really complicated story, but with a little more patience and with some more reading about it, maybe, it was became a really good one. It was a really complex, unique story unlike other hit dramas of 2020.꧂ ꧁ The cast : all of the cast were really good actors and the characters were as complex as the story. 10/10 for the cast .꧂ ꧁ The OST : one of the best ones of the dramas in 2020. Hands down to everyone who composed and sang it, they have my respect.꧂ ꧁The ending was really good and cleared all the confusing things that may have happened in the show. I'm really glad that this show had a happy ending. ꧂ °Now about the thing that I disliked ( I won't say something like " oh the product placement it's just too much " cause they're dumb). What I actually didn't like about it was maybe the complexity of the story at certain points. I admit that sometimes I was kinda confused about what was going on, but again this confusion was ended in the next episodes and the end. So, to wrap this up, I highly recommend watching it. ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎Cet avis était-il utile?
The drama starts with bits and pieces of the two worlds, with an overwhelming number of characters (and their dopplegangers, which you may or may not recognize--). There's a lot of foreshadowing going on, as well as important details that will come in handy later on. Hence I suggest that while you're watching, you may want to subscribe to an analysis/explanation YouTuber or something (I had the benefit of being able to understand the Taiwanese YouTubers who did episode-by-episode analyses afterward. It helped me tremendously after ep 7 or 8).
Midway through the drama, things really start coming together and then the originally-slow storyline starts picking up. I think it took me til ep 9 or 10 to really appreciate the complexity and the plot development of this drama -- we follow Lee Gon on an unpredictable puzzle-solving journey to piece together how this world works and how he can save the world from being ruined by Lee Rim.
After finishing the last episode, I began my rewatch journey and suddenly *everything I saw in the first few episodes made sense.* After learning who's who, it's a lot easier to see the significance of every detail presented at the beginning and how everything fell into place at the end. Hence this isn't a one-watch drama -- it's something where after you go through it once to get the gist of it, you will want to go through again to pick up clues to the puzzle and interesting little details that didn't make sense without context.
The main love line didn't make sense to me (since I'm not a huge "destiny/fate" person and the character development wasn't that convincing). However, you will want to keep watching the show just to see how the other characters' relationships develop, and how Lee Gon strives to defeat the evil. There's so much going on with all the characters that having a faulty main lead romance won't kill the drama. Until the drama picked up, I totally watched it for Jo Yeong x Eun Seop. Favorite bromance. Amidst all the killing/deaths, the scriptwriter also did not forget to put appropriate comedic relief, so I found myself laughing a lot during the show.
Gotta commend the acting -- Woo Do hwan and Kim Go-eun especially, who had multiple characters to play. I really hope they win acting awards (and that Tae-ra is just a foreshadow of what will happen in real life next year ;)
The OST was also great. Not as great as Goblin, but I would put this on repeat.
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A lengthy review...
An over ambitious project from star scriptwriter KES, that buckles under the weight of it's own arrogance. This drama fails to respect the intelligence of it's viewers, by littering it with a minefield of plot holes, cliches, overwrought acting, and ineffective filler characters. In fact, one can't help but think that out of the hundreds of plot lines this drama attempts, if it had just focused on one, it would not have been as bad.For a supposed modern drama, you would think that the writer would move away from emulating 1960's Disney shows, where characters were either morally black or white. But no, she chooses to portray the the Villain and Heroes in KTEM as either Extremely black, or Extremely White; there was nary a grey character to be spotted. And the few that were grey were rendered useless, as their characters morality are swiftly demolished in the latter episodes. The character in KTEM end up being very boring one dimensional character, lacking any depth, character, and complexity.
The writer does a poor job of showing neutrality in her writing as her bias for the hero character of LG is shown again and again versus the incompetent villain in LR. From episode 1, all the way to episode 16, we are bombarded with repetitive propaganda on the merits and accomplishments of the main lead LG. In fact almost all the scenes with LG and another character, whether hero or villain, exist to show us the viewers, how amazing LG is. This pervasive themes of omnipotency in the drama is a real turn off for me, as I cannot relate nor feel any sort of emotional attachment to such a privileged character, fiction or otherwise.
To be fair, the concept on paper sounds good. In fact many viewers may have already seen time travel, parallel worlds done properly in other shows, and thus were excited to see KTEM. KES
could have just used existing time travel/parallel world theories and put her own mark on it. But that isn't what happened. What we ended up with instead, is the case where a writer is trying to be too clever and failing miserably. What happens when you create and misuse so many plot devices? They slowly morph into glaring plot holes. The story employed ineffective plot twist, reset buttons, and retrograded many of it's time travel/parallel world theories as the foundation of the show. A foundation that was built shakily, and was easily decimated by the intelligent viewing population.
In fact, one can argue that the writer, in her hubris, made a drama so inexplicable, that she believes viewers who do not understand what is happening, will just immediately assume that the drama is too smart for them, and proclaim it a masterpiece. The problem here is that, even though KES did not bother doing any actual research on such a technical genre as science fiction, the smarter local/international audience, did. So the improper logic, false theories, and faulty scientific explanations, all just serve to further instigate a viewing audience, that is already reeling and cringing from a hyper unrealistic and bland romance.
Based on KES previous works, like DOTS, Goblin, and etc... Most fans know that in her dramas, romance is at it's core. Somehow, KTEM did not get the memo. Although the romantic scenes are plentiful, albeit forced, the show's insistence on inserting poorly researched time travel theories, for the sake of increasing the show's IQ, is very distracting from the already weak romance it is trying to build. So instead of attempting to build a proper romantic connection between the two main leads, the show instead waste a lot of time building a pantheon of side characters, who in the end serve no purpose to the plot, other than to make us laugh at the absurdity of it all. The moments between the ML and FL are suppose to be punctuated by a beautiful set design, production value, and mellow OST. But because of the ineffective buildup, much of the emotions you are suppose to feel, do not line up.
Themes, metaphors, and symbolism, all serve important roles in many literary works. But, instead of focusing on one central theme or motif for the entire shows, it appears KES has pulled in symbolism and metaphors from various literary works (Alice in Wonderland and Greek Mythology for example) and tried to forcefully insert it into the plot to give the show the appearance of depth. But just like with most of her writing in KTEM, these insertions serve no real purpose. They do not add a deeper understanding of the story, but rather exist to continually clash with each other, and further confuse it's audience.
Compared to most reviewers, I actually don't mind PPL, I understand it's importance in a show, and I often can easily ignore it. But the PPL in KTEM is a whole different beast. The PPL's in KTEM are so poorly timed, that they distract you, and forces you to shift your mindset away from the plot, and onto their sales pitch. There are even a few occasion where a PPL takes front row seats over a supposedly important scene. In fact BBQ Olive Chicken PPL may be the least obtuse of the all the PPL's on the show, and that is saying a lot.
The show attempts to emulate a "Memento" (US movie) type of editing, where the past is being shown in clips in future episodes. But what was so effective in "Memento", absolutely fails in KTEM as the editor/director spliced, and restructured the scenes in a very pointless way, that in the end you ask yourself, "What was the point of that scene?". The poor editing also made sure that any emotional impact of the show is never felt, because just as you are about to process an emotion, whether it is love, sadness, or anger, you are already being dragged to the next contrasting emotion. The drama would have benefited from less episodes, in fact it boggles my mind how they were able to stretch it out for so long. Oh wait, I remember now, they had so many slow mo romantic scenes that lasted at times 10-15 minutes in one take. And Since there is no emotional attachment early on, all these scenes really accomplishes is to make you feel as awkward as seeing two siblings making out.
The boring pace of the drama isn't helped by both Main Leads. As if LMH could not get blander, he somehow finds another lower notch in his acting belt. I don't even think LMH knows how he should be acting, and it shows. What we get is an incredibly haughty, emotionless, monotone speaking, narcissistic ML, who KES decide to make omnipotent. Compared to other more traditional actors, who don't rely on looks, LMH's stiff acting, emotionless voice, and lack of any facial muscles, makes his acting as tiring as watching paint dry. The only emotion that you feel watching him is emptiness.
KGE on the other hand, tries her best to illicit some chemistry from LMH, but you can only get so much water from a stone. I am biased against KGE, because I hated her in Goblin, and still remember her character from there as incredibly annoying. But I will take her nubile Goblin Bride over this hardened female police office, who WILL NOT stop crying about everything. But STILL, she does better in her role than LMH.
The only advantage I can see about the parallel world concept is that it allows the better actors in the drama to show their acting range. Best example of this being WDH. His portrayal of ES and JY is superb, you feel more chemistry between these two than the Main Couple. SJ, is another standout from the show, as you could not help but root for him to have a satisfactory ending given his hardship. KES does a satisfactory job of creating supporting characters that we can care about. But unfortunately, after these characters are created, the plot then proceeds to either place them in the meat grinder, or remove their screen presence completely. This is tragic, because if you get as far as episode ten, you will start to appreciate the backstory, life, and character development of the supporting actors more than the Main Lead, only to see all that emotional investment go to waste. I myself have been absolutely devastated with the way the writing has treated the PM, a strong, independent woman.
One last thing I would like to touch on. Almost every cliffhanger in the show, has been anti-climatic, the cliffhanger happens at the end of the show, or is a minor/major plot twist in the middle. As viewers, we are often fooled by these plot devices because we think that they are important pieces of the KTEM puzzle; more often than not though, the logic, and reasoning of these plot device fall short of our expectation, and viewers often end up feeling disappointed to see such buildup, explained away in one to two sentences. The show really does a great job of pushing you away from the edge of your seat.
Long story short, KTEM is essentially a below average drama that was dressed nicely with a high production budget and big stars. The only thing KTEM manages to accomplishes in it's 16 episode run is to constantly disappoint it's viewers each week.
Would not recommend this drama even if you are a fan of the LMH and KGE.
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