The King : Eternal Monarch (2020)

Didn’t live up to the hype

I was really disappointed bcz it didn’t lived up to the hype that was created. the 1st half of the show was really boring and slow and It was hard to understand what is actually the theme of the show What’s the purpose ? Besides the concept of parallel universe nothing else was fascinating as it should have been. .There were soo many supporting characters that made the show more confusing. Time travel event was a lot not explained properly. I didn’t liked the chemistry between the lead characters , The chemistry between Jung tae eul and kang shin jae was more interesting.Also Kang shin jae was better character than lee min ho’s character,bcz it had more story and character development. I feel like supporting characters were more strong and interesting than the leading characters. End was also really boring.so much more could have been but it was just not that interesting.

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It really started out great. The first ep was good enough to catch my attention. Frankly, the first ep gave an impression that this will be a different Kdrama, that it will be a intellectual sci-fi drama. Something I haven't seen in Kdramaland. Well, this is definitely NOT a sci-fi drama. It wished it was a sci-fi drama but it didn't even come close. Towards the end of the drama when they can no longer scientifically or logically explain all the time and parallel universe jumping they just threw all explanations in a basket called Manpashikjeok, the magic bamboo flute. So in the end, after all the use scientific words and phrases such as doppleganger, quantum theory, relativity theory and after using lines like " your universe is still flat" ; " the X and Y axis meets at this place and that" and all the mathematical solution to the square root of the prime number mumbo-jumbo it all comes down to the magic flute being the one and only reason they are time-space traveling. No science there. So you'd think that for all the power of this magic flute at least a single episode, or even half an episode will be dedicated to tell us about the background of this flute. Instead we have a less than 5 sentences in ep 1 that tells us that it was passed down from previous kings and has been in their possession as a symbol from "Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms " for who knows how long.

And what's with the overuse of this editing technique where they leave out a scene from a prior episodes to be revealed in the beginning or early part of the next episode? I've seen a lot of Kdramas that used this technique effectively but not in TKEM. First, you can't use the same strategy in more than 2 consecutive episodes and/or more than twice in the drama because it loses it's shock value when you do. Second, the scene you are trying to hide from the previous episode MUST be vital to the development of the ensuing episodes. Sadly, this is not the case in TKEM. They can omit those scenes entirely and nothing would have changed in the story. I can deal with too product placements in this drama because I understand that quite a huge amount of money was spent in the making of this drama, but of course the producers will do everything to recover the money and more if possible. But the editing technique and the story telling - I just can't.

I don't find the romance between the 2 ML believable. Up until the time the female lead went to Kingdom of Corea she was being rude to Lee Gon (the King). Sure there were moments when she seems to worry about him but the overwhelming emotions that was conveyed was more of curiosity rather than developing love. Then she went to the Kingdom of Corea where she was treated lavishly and personally by Lee Gon. They shared a ride on a private plane where they flirted a little, the king himself cooked food for her and even picked her up somewhere in the Kingdom ( I forgot where it was but it was from a tall building, chatted in the bedroom and that was that. But apparently this is enough to convince us that she suddenly became hopelessly "in love" with him to the point she confessed it first? There was a lack of emotional development there. There was also a lack of character development with the main villain - the King's uncle. I mean was he just evil incarnate that the writer forgot to bother us with his background or his motivation for all the bad things he did? Just for power? to live eternally? I mean I've seen a lot of Kdrama about fight for corporate and real power (in historical dramas), the villains - as bad as a person and hungry for power as they were, they always had a justification for their actions. The villains always have someone or something they want to protect and so they act the way they do. So as disgusted as we are with them , we know where they are coming from. But the villain in this drama has no solid ground to stand on in terms of justification. The other villain - the woman prime minister role started as a really strong character. Like at par with the King's evil-incarnate uncle but she ended with just a puff. Defeated by a mere voice recording which will not even stand in court. Such a waste of character when she was the one with the right justification to be the real badass in this drama.
And all this confusion with the parallel universe traveling and then time traveling in a universe that Lee Gon don't even originally belonged to is soooo unnecessary and soooo distracting. it was hard to enjoy this drama with all the unnecessary plot twist and characters. In the end all that confusion about time-space travelling was just meant to make us believe that Lee Gon will travel in all universes in different timelines just to be with the FL. So Ok, we get it you're in love but must it really be that complicated?

The Acting:
Lee Min Ho for sure was an eye candy. BUT, a big part of me wishes that he could act as well. There literally is little to no difference in his acting from The Heirs, Legend of the blue sea, BOF, City hunter from his acting in TKEM. It's the same facial expression, the same monotonous delivery of lines. I can't help but sigh. He sure is lucky he is that handsome.
The only actor that stood out in this drama is Woo Do-Hwan, thanks for the double roles he played. It also helped that the roles he played was so different from each other in personality even when they looked the same. It gave him a lot of leeway to play around in terms of acting.

What I like about this drama? one word. MAXIMUS.

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THIS DRAMA IS ONE OF ITS KIND ... SO STOP WITH YOUR UNNECESSARY HATE!

I just don't really understand why this drama is getting so unnecessary hate?
You did not like it ? Then move on .
I am not saying that the drama itself is perfect .... there are flaws ... there are over the top advertisements put in the scenes ... a bit overrated production ...But here people are just demeaning it like anything !
I liked the concept with which it started ...a parallel universe and the monarchy system which made somewhat sense cause previously there were very few dramas with present day monarchy setting (ref Goong , Goong S , The Last Empress etc ). Many might even argue that the plot was somewhat like W ... so what ? Well for me it does not really matter cause it is watch worthy and the efforts of the cast , music production and the graphics was clearly praise worthy (In this context I just want to say I personally loved the ost maze it was sad at the same time beautiful ) .
Coming to the cast ... many are arguing that LMH is back with same acting style...guys just understand its his own way of portraying characters that makes him different from others ....he was great here and nailed his character too . The rest of the cast were great as well .
Now coming to my personal opinion I enjoyed it overall ... some of the dialogues were really great ! Don't pay heed to the negative reviews and give it a go ..... and finally be a judge for yourself if it was worth your time or not

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I wonder what my parallel self thought of this drama because in this world I'm pretty confused

STORY
The story was okay i guess, there was a lot more potential then what was delivered but it certainly wasnt the worse i have seen.
Other than that i wish they had focused a little more on the backstory of side characters as in my opinion we got like one defining thing about a couple of the characters but that was about it , there wasnt any real depth (in my opinion). honestly this could be just because I'm a sucker for a lot of deep backstory.
In the same breath some of the characters seemed to have a rushed closer to aspects of their plot and storyline which was a disappointment because it was built up to make us seem their was more to come
Despite that i did enjoy the dynamics of a few characters and that's honestly what kept me watching.


ACTING/CAST
The acting was pretty good no complaints here, the fire exit door can remain shut there was no catastrophic acting and it was actually a pretty enjoyable performance from everyone I think the dramatic juxtaposition between both of the characters wdh played is one of my favourites (such an original thought ik I'm not like other fans)

MUSIC
The music I didnt think stood out enough but that also means it wasnt bad tbh I'm not a huge focuser on the music unless it was one of the defining things from the drama.

RE-WATCH VALUE
I might rewatch tkem just to grasp some things better as parallel universes tend to f**k with my brain and confuse me upon first viewing but I dont see myself reaching to rewatch it all for any other reason.

OVERALL AND EXTRA
Overall I think it was written okay with the best part of it being the acting.there is a lot of product placement , for me it wasnt the most annoying I had seen but it wasnt woven into the story as well as I couldve hoped but props on them because moneys money I guess.
I think if you are going to watch this go in with no expectations and just dont think too much and then maybe youll enjoy it more than me.

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More of an eternal ordeal

I put off watching this show for various reasons, the first being that the trailer gave me major Goblin vibes and I couldn't shake off the feeling that the writer(s) wanted to ride on that show's brilliance. The cinematography, the story of two ill-fated lovers, and the FL (who I thought was just juxtaposed from the Goblin world to this show's world and asked to love Lee Gon now instead of Kim Shin).

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't prepared to be projected to a pretty flimsy plot. I knew what I was getting into. The plot chasms ( calling them holes would be too generous ), made it so difficult to follow the story many a times. And I need to mention the absolutely horrible way the episodes were linked. There seemed to be no sense or reason or pattern or explanation to connect the scenes. One moment you'd be watching an event in present day and the next you'd be suddenly taken back to a distant past (even a different world) with characters who were not even there in the present scene nor does the scene hold any relevance to current events! What am I, as a viewer, supposed to make of this. Now I just have information that I think might be useful but turns out to just be a filler. This was just one of the ways that the writer(s) tried too hard to make the show seem smarter than it was. It really wasn't. It was more or less a sad and unnecessary rip off of, yes you guessed it right - GOBLIN.

I liked the FL's work in Goblin, and was looking forward to seeing how she carries a more or less similar character. Absolute disappointment, although I doubt it had anything to do with her acting skills but rather just the way her character was written. But I also think there is always something an actor can do to liven up a dead script. I kept seeing flashes of Ji Eun Tak and I swear I wasn't even trying. The crying, the snarkiness, the love sick behavior, right down to her mannerisms. There were moments where I'd almost anticipate her to break into one her signature "Ahjussi!" Lee Min Ho is an absolute eye candy, and served the purpose of nudging me towards the end of the show. Let's be honest, he's not really one of the finest actors out there, but he still did a better job than Go Eun-ssi. I wouldn't give up on her altogether, maybe just chalk it up to bad writing, God knows how many ships that iceberg has sunk. I saved the best for the last. Woo Do Hwan. What a masterpiece that human is. I confess I fell in love with both his roles. I shed tears for his characters more than I shed for the lead pair (zero). There was a depth and a meaning to his characters, and he played them both brilliantly. If Lee Min Ho nudged me along to finish the show, it was Woo Do Hwan (Yeong, or Eun Seop, really) who's hand I wanted to grab and run off into the sunset with. I waited for him to appear on screen, but alas, the writer(s) by this point had probably just thrown all care or respect for the art of storytelling and sold their soul over to the advertisers.

Did this show even have music? The first time that guitar melody plays, I paused and stared at the screen in shock. Had they, had they really? Could they? HOW could they? Was pasting the same fall/winter aesthetics not enough? Really? And it didn't even sound good! I kept waiting for a good ost to play, or stick to my brain, and I'm still waiting, and probably will be waiting eternally. They really should have just played the Goblin OST and had some saving grace.

Will most definitely not rewatch this and do my duty as a responsible KDrama viewer to stop others from watching this too. Unless you're doing it for a case study. A case study of how not to rip off a successful drama and turn it into a circus; of how not to chart a love story; of how not to write flat characters; and basically how no matter the star cast, the production, the backbone of a show is the script and without it, it might take off spectacularly but then crash within a couple of episodes never to pick altitude again.

The intensity of my disappointment with this show far exceeds the intensity of the love that the leads shared which the writer(s) were trying to shove down the viewers' eyes. I get that these are two people who love each other very much, but for God's sake, pace it out. Although I do understand it would be very difficult for any sane woman to resist the charms of a man who looks and talks like Lee Min Ho for more than a minute, but that's besides the point. The love felt forced, the dialogues made my eyes roll far back into my head, the scenes which were orchestrated to make the viewer bawl left me staring awkwardly at the screen waiting for the cringe to be over with. I do need to mention the other relationships in this drama were far, far superior. The bromance was heartwarming. I was more invested in the friendships and bromance than I could manage to be with the lead pair.

The makers had a fine and easy on the eyes cast, a swanky budget too I'm sure, and could have made a memorable drama but sabotaged it all up with poor writing and poorer execution. The finale was the last nail on this coffin. I'm a sucker for fan service endings (forgive me as I wipe a tear recalling Crash Landing On You's end) BUT, that does not mean I will consume anything in the name of a happy ending. Theoretically my brain understands that these are two very very in love, and the rules of the world don't really hold any ground, since the story itself spans worlds and ages. But that doesn't take away the emotions and depth, which again the writers probably traded for product placements. "Here, take about a month long worth of bonding, and give me the milk tea latte with chewy tapioca seeds, which I should taste before stirring" "Ah, still, refreshing". Not.

My verdict would be to steer clear of this show for as long as you can. It's addictive in the wrong way, almost as if you want to watch how much more they can botch show. I will have to watch Goblin again to rinse my mind off of the badly recycled piece this show was. There are definitely better dramas out there, I'd skip this one if I had Manpasikjeok and could go back in time to stop my foolish self from watching this. Or maybe I was fated to watch it (and discover the brilliance that Woo Do Hwan is), and I'm fulfilling my destiny by writing this review and stopping others from watching it.

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Is not a Romance, is Sci-Fi. Can't be watched while looking at your phone.

TL:DR
If sci fi, parallel universes, time traveling shenanigans, a touch of magic, a nerd mathematician/prince hero with a white horse and a hot bodyguard/BFF are your jam, dive in.

Frankly I didn't understand the criticism this drama got, then it clicked: people have wrong assumption about it,thinking is a fantasy romance, while is pure Science Fiction with a romantic storyline.

It starts slowly because it needs to build two separate worlds, introducing all the characters, etc. Must be said i found the Kingdom of Corea (KoC) scenes, characters and plotlines better executed, the Republic of Korea (RoK) parts in the first 3/4 episodes are boring.

There are obvious editing mistakes in the first half, that contribute to the initial confusion. The crime investigation seem pointless, because the show didn't made immediately clear the connection between the first dead body in RoK and the doppelganger in KoC. Same must be said about the crime unit characters, with Kang Shin Jae being a complete waste of screentime, especially all his solo scenes, disconnected from the main plot.

It was also very hard for me to like Jung Tae Eul character, not Kim Go Eun fault, who did well in the dual role. Is just I hate when "strong female character" means acting like a man. She was excessively rude, a borderline jerk. That's not being strong, that's being an a**hole, is hard to empathize with her.

I liked Lee Gon a lot more. A well adjusted orphan. A just, loved ruler. A dork, a genius mathematician. A earnest man. Even when he said cheesy things like "this face is my present for you". I wasn't his fan before, so Lee Min Ho surprised me. One example: the king pain over the uncle death and the consequent rage scenes were amazing, he did an outstanding and intense performance there.

Kudos to Woo Do Hawn, he was a real scene stealer throughout all the 16 episodes. It was a bit underused in the middle, but got his shiny moment in the finale., I'm also his fan now.

Episodes 11-12 are still my favorite. The 2 hours worked almost like a solo movie.
The rescue scene with the cavalry charge and the king slaying his enemies? Perfect. From the way it was shot, edited, the score, all so well done, I didn't expected such quality in KDrama.

Cinematography, scene composition and framing: top notch. 18 hours visual fest. Sadly the editing from episode 1 to 10 is not on the same level. So many missed opportunity to leave visual clues to the audience. There is an obvious shift in quality in the second half.

The songs are great. The score is so good, I'm going to listen the various themes on repeat. Gravity, the King and The War is Over are my favorite.

All in all, recommended with a caveat: I don't agree to those who say you need to be extra intelligent to understand this drama, but you do need to pay attention to details all the time.

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While many others do not fully understand the TKEM series, it does not matter as long as the series has given their best to improve their series, it has never knocked others, but almost every foreigner has this is the main storyline because of the unique story in the series, not just the story of the series but also the unique look of the artists.
And as one of the avid viewers of The King Eternal Monarch, I am very grateful to all who supported this series, for which our brains are fully engrossed, we have shown our ability to adapt to a show that does not you immediately understand it and with full understanding it will pay attention to how wonderful it is.

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dont believe the reviews this drama is really good and very much worth watching

The negative comments made me want to put off watching this drama but i decided to take a bold step and wowwwwwwww!!!!!! did we all watch the same drama! this drama is great (not perfect of course). it has a different refreshing story and i was glued to the screen especially from somewhere in the middle. the cinematography is great and everything is just so beautiful. ps don't come looking for a full blown romance i guess thats why people might be disappointed because the romance feels disconnected sometimes. The mystery about the time travel, doppelganger, the suspense, crime, the plot twists..... are the main selling points of this drama for me. sometimes i was confused like what is going on lol but in the end it all makes sense. so bottom line.... try it out for yourself, dont have your expectations too high, hang in through the confusion from the beginning till about episode 7 and episode 14 lol and you will really enjoy this.
my questions though
1) was i the only one curious about na ri like how was she rich with all those cool cars lol?
2) they really should have helped us understand how the kings great grandfather did his travel movement in order to get the head court grandma to corea?
3) did they conclude that the yoyo boy was a god or was he just stuck in the time lines?
4)what was the whole situation with the prime minister koo... her arc was weird and useless to be honest. when her momma couldnt remember what she ate what happened to her next?
5)they really should have scrapped some romance scenes and given the time travel arc more screen tie
6)eun sop and na ri deserved better in terms of their romance development

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Watch it for the Royal Swag and Woo Do-Hwan....

Ok first of all this is one of those dramas that most people would love totally or hate completely and I'll tell you why.
The reason most of the people disliked this drama is because of the production team or writers mistakes. I'm pretty sure it was not intended so but they screwed up starting from the trailer itself. The final trailers for this series mentioned the writers name with the literal caption "writer of the Guardian: the lonely and great god". Add to it the fact that both of these dramas are of the fantasy romance genre and have Kim Go-Eun as the female lead, there was no way of stopping the comparisons between the two. Now to those of you who don't know about it, Guardian/Goblin is one of the most acclaimed K-dramas globally. It is near perfect with it's amazing cast, great storyline, explosive chemistry between the characters and addicting soundtrack. It also has a well balanced mix of action, suspense, sci-fi, romance and comedy. Being pitted against a drama like Goblin, the King was bound to lose the battle. The expectations were very high which this drama failed to achieve hence some of the bad reviews.
If watched without any prejudice, The King is a good drama. Although it's base story of parallel worlds is not a brand new concept, it's not a cliched genre either. There is also the element of Korea being one country with a modern day constitutional monarchy type system which has also previously been adopted in dramas (like King 2 Hearts, The last empress, etc.) but better since instead of simply putting a monarchy in the present day Korea like others, the writers here literally constructed a whole new "Kingdom of Corea". (Hence the extra amount of Royal Swag)
The back story of Lee Gon was quite good and it felt like a mini action thriller film inside the drama. The main characters were interesting (Lee Min-ho looks like he was destined to play royalty) but they unfortunately had no chemistry. Lee Gon's feelings were less like love and more like how fans adore their idols (because he connected Jung Tae-eul with the person who saved his life hence the idol worship). Jung Tae-eul's feelings seemed like fascination and grudging acceptance (because of Lee Gon's clingy and cheesy behavior). Kang Shin-jae's character was almost as irrelevant to the story as his therapist. Since only the ML's backstory was partly tragic (I know his father was murdered but he still had a happy upbringing) I believe that Shin-jae's character was there to add tragedy to the plot (he was poor and his mother tried to kill them both, then he got sent to another world, his new family soon went bankrupt, he became poor again, got bullied in school, etc. etc.)
Prime Minister Koo was one of the characters I had initially looked forward to since she was mentioned as the 1st female and youngest PM of Kingdom of Corea but she was not exactly the strong and stable head that I had expected. Her character was a mature version of the typical leader of the b*tch squad shown in most dramas, you know the pretty, popular, powerful, arrogant, mercenary and ruthless type. While the character was portrayed quite well by Jung Eun-chae, she didn't really seem that relevant to the story (since she neither did something overtly good nor really bad). Even though the writers tried making a love triangle situation with the main CP and her, it just wasn't convincing (same with Kang Shin-jae).
Lee Lim was definitely a good Villain. His plan was good but flawed and failed due to his own arrogance and stupidity. I didn't really understand why he tried to steal the flute and make people believe that parallel worlds exist. He should have either stolen the flute while the King was absent (that way there was less chance of failure since the security would be lax and he wouldn't be hunted for regicide) or usurped the throne if he had already staged a Coup (then he would be King and free to explore the powers of the flute like Lee Gon did).
But the best character across all of the parallel worlds in the drama was that of Jo Yeong/Jo Eun-sup. Woo Do-hwan was sensational in his portrayal of the two very different roles. He stole the show every time he was onscreen. The characters added to the drama what the main CP couldn't- chemistry, action and loads of comedy (You know an actor is great when he gets shipped with himself).
In conclusion, The King is a nice but forgettable drama. It was fun to watch and I will definitely re-watch all Woo Do-hwan cuts on youtube but I probably won't re-watch the whole drama again.

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Lee Min Ho is backkkk

From my understanding, this show was written by the same person who wrote DOTS & Goblin, and both of those dramas are my all-time favorites, so I went in having high expectations. Boy, should I have gone in with blank slate! If you want to watch this drama you need a pen and paper in order to take notes on what is going on. If you miss one thing, it seems you can get lost very quickly. Just know that this is about a parallel universe and the characters overlap, you can seriously get confused if you do not pay attention.

Lee Min Ho as always was a vision of beauty, his acting skills has not diminished at all. I also love me some Woo Do Hwan, such a refreshing role for him - I love it when he plays the badboy. The interaction between the cast and chemistry as a whole was pretty good. There is a lot of character confusion - they just randomly spill out their feelings and there's not really a build-up to the reveal like a usual drama.

The ending truly saved this drama. My only reason for not dropping this video was because I loved the cast members from other dramas so I had faith it would get better. Also, I was too invested in trying to understand the ending, and the frustration of being confused made me question my intellect. So all in all, if you are into a drama that is confusing at first, has cute love scenes, a strong female lead, eye candy, and an ending that made everything close full circle then by all means.

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Imagination gone wild

Don’t read this review if you don’t want spoilers.
I have to give credit to the writer for finding the best possible traits in a male lead in all history. Handsome king, just and loved by all, brave, excellent fighter, loves the FL unconditionally and provides her with constant support, praises, even provides for her poor choice of fashion, cooks for her in uniform etc. the list goes on. I would suspended my belief for all of it except an additional trait. He is a math genius with a sense of humor. That my friends is the most outlandish thing I have ever heard in my life ?.
The supportive hero called unbreakable sword is a very talented actor depicting two polar opposite personalities in a single frame.
Visuals are great, chemistry and acting is acceptable and even praise worthy.
Story line is a mess especially at the end. But suspend all belief and enjoy the ride.

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