The King : Eternal Monarch (2020)

The King: Eternal Monarch is about parallel worlds with one being the Empire of Korea and the other the Republic of Korea. The emperor (Lee Min Ho) of the Korean Empire teams up with a detective (Kim Go Eun) from the Republic of Korea to try and stop an evil man from gaining control of the kingdom and causing havoc in both worlds.
Lee Min Ho plays the emperor of Korea, Lee Gon. He was thrust into power when he was a child after his father was murdered during an attempted coup. Those events have haunted him as well as piqued his curiosity surrounding a mysterious person who saved him during that time.
Kim Go Eun is Jang Tae Eul who is a detective. Her reality gets shaken up when Lee Gon suddenly appears and she discovers he’s from a parallel world. As she works to help him stop a traitor from his world, she begins to fall in love.
Next is Woo Do Hwan in dual roles as Jo Young, the stoic right hand man and close friend of the king as well as the good-natured Jo Eun Sub in the Republic of Korea.
Then there is Kang Shin Jae (Kim Kyung Nam) as a conflicted man who works with Tae Eul. Next up we have Yi Rim (Lee Jung Jin), the man from the Korean Empire who attempted the coup and still seeks to gain power by traveling between the worlds.

The latest drama from hit writer Kim Eun Sook is The King: Eternal Monarch. As usual, there was a lot of anticipation for this one. I usually fare well with her dramas, and luckily, that was the case here.
The opening episode was strong with a good hook as we were introduced to the back story that sets everything in motion. The next few episodes move into more set up as we learn an interesting story of parallel worlds with one being the Korean Empire and the other the Republic of Korea. A bit of a mystery and a struggle for power is also introduced.

Then there’s the romance. Of course, love between worlds has the makings of a grand story. Lee Gon and Jang Tae Eul have a fun banter in the beginning that nicely progresses into a very dedicated and powerful relationship. Lee Gon is very regal with a matter-of-fact type personality. He’s kind but blunt and doesn’t hesitate to say what’s on his mind. I found this to me a mix of charming and bland. I definitely liked it when he relaxed a bit more and had fun. He never becomes super engaging, but I liked him more as the drama progressed because of how much he had to overcome and what a honorable and dedicated man he was.
Jang Tae Eul is also very straight forward. She’s a solid character with a bit of roughness around the edges. I enjoyed seeing her soften some as she grew closer to Lee Gon while also maintaining her strength and never-give-up attitude.

We also get a bit of a bromance here between Lee Gon and his right hand man Jo Young. Gon was more playful while Young was completely serious. It made their relationship fun to see. These two also completely trusted each other which was a great thing.
And be prepared for a serious villain here with Yi Rim (Lee Jung Jin). There’s not much to him other than the fact that we wants the throne, and he will stop at nothing to get it. He mostly works behind the scenes moving the pieces of his plans into place and appearing at key moments. He’s not the most thrilling of villains, but he does his thing and causes plenty of trouble for everyone.

There are a few things to be aware of concerning this drama. First, it really takes some paying attention to catch everything. Some parts of the story were a bit confusing because of how the information was presented. There are several times you may be left feeling a bit perplexed as to exactly why things happened a certain way.
This drama also has plot loopholes galore. Mixing in parallel worlds and time travel just opens things up for all sorts of problems. I think the show tried to do a bit too much as a whole. There were so many characters and plot lines mixed in with some iffy rules as to how the worlds worked. The story is grand, but in a very messy sort of way. I think this is definitely a case that you just have to role with it or you may end up very frustrated with how things play out.

So in the end, I had the exact same experience I do with all of Kim Eun Sook’s dramas. I always love the grand plots and world building with interesting stories to explore. I tend to find the humor on the dry side which is not my favorite, and the characters are very matter-of-fact at times. The finer details are a little rocky too.
The grand stories and high stakes romances tend to outweigh those things for me though. So with an interesting story, a big romance, a good writer, and solid production, The King: Eternal Monarch was a very entertaining watch.

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Not a background TV show

Overall I actually really enjoyed watching this drama, but I know a lot of people that didn't. I get that many people thought the storyline was messy and too complicated but that's why I enjoyed it as most kdramas I can guess basically the whole storyline from the first episode.
The acting is on point as expected from Lee Min Ho, Kim Go Eun and Woo Do Hwan and their characters are enjoyable to watch, especially Jo Young and Jo Eun Sub (both played by Woo Do Hwan) meeting each other.
The music from the drama is actually one of the best I have ever heard, the songs used are so good I listen to them a lot more compared to other drama OSTs.
The only reason I didn't give it a 10 for rewatch value is that I feel the mystery is what makes it worth the watch, if you know the ending I don't think it's as interesting and I can image it would feel like it drags on.
Overall I wouldn't suggest watching it if you're looking for something you don't need to focus on. I would definitely recommend this drama to my friends though.

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I'll be honest here, the reviews this drama got put me off of it for a long time. It's my belief that The King: Eternal Monarch came out around the same time as The World of the Married and while The World of the Married was getting great ratings and reviews, The King: Eternal Monarch wasn't so I watched The World of the Married instead. Now, I know its all a matter of opinion but I found TWOTM to be absolutely atrocious and when I watched TKEM I found myself wondering why it got such bad reviews. I mean, sure, the effects are a bit substandard and the acting can be slightly stiff at times but I generally thought it had a good plot, satisfactory acting and compared to TWOTM was way better in terms of ending and sticking to one storyline. I understand that not everyone is going to like it but I do think people were bandwagonning and were just being unnecessarily harsh on the drama. At least its not the Cats movie.

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Stunning Visually Beautiful Drama with a Great Story. A Tale of Parallel Universes.

I absolutely loved this drama. An incredibly Creative Masterpiece from South Korea. Set in 2 Parallel Universes. Such a Great Storyline. The Main lead Character is every woman's fantasy come true. A Stunningly Beautiful Knight in Shining Armour. The Female lead was excellent. It is a Visually Exquisite Drama. Set In a Police Station and a Palace. The story moves across The Kingdom of Korea and the Republic of Korea. An amazing Clever Story of Treachery that Crosses 2 Universes. I have watched so many Korean Dramas and am amazed at the Creativity of the Script Writers and Production Teams, I have yet to come across any bad acting. Incredible talent that is well nurtured. There are also many stunning Chinese Dramas too but I prefer the 16 episode Korean set up above the 50-60 episode Chinese ones. This is in my Top 3 Favourites. I loved it.

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It is my sincere opinion that despite all the love/hate floating around about the drama, it really had only one true problem - this was a 20-24 episode drama shoved into a 16 episode one.
Think about it - the most consistent criticism? The logic leaps, lack of explanations and editing. Well, to me, that is not having enough time to explain what's going on adequately. We had to guess.
I think given this, the writers did leave enough clues TO figure it out, despite the rushed feeling.
I enjoyed this drama - the production values, cinematography, acting and OST were excellent, and the story very interesting. Again, biggest problem I had with it was that sense of being rushed, of things left out or not fully explained.
Still, the ending did indeed wrap up EVERYTHING I wanted it too - which thrilled me :D
BTW, I thought the two leads had excellent chemistry :D

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When I heard about the release of this drama, I immediately wrote it down on my calendar and eagerly waited for the first episode.

When I watched the first episode, I ended up having a headache and more questions than answers. (In retrospect, I do know that is how it should really be to get the viewers hook on the show but the headache didn't really go away for the first few episodes). By this time, I was just actually watching because I'm intrigued. I want to know where this story will take us. To be honest, the leads I love the lead actors on this drama BUT the two of them together? I'm not really sure. I wasn't the biggest fan of their couple. It also didn't help that it wasn't clear enough why, when, and how Jeong Tae Eul fell for the ML. It was like Lee Gon went home, she missed him (or his company) and boom she was in love? That part, for me, really was a deal breaker.

I always tell my friends that if they remove the love line in this drama I think it will be 1000x more beautiful. The action/ political/ fantasy side of the drama was really off the charts. It was sooo good. Really intriguing and the concept was really good. However, I really didn't see the importance of the love line at first, it was only at the last few episodes that I somewhat saw the significance of it (but still not 100% sold to the idea).

This drama started as okay but got did get better in time. Ending was okay, I think almost everything was addressed properly except what will happen to the throne since I don't think they are planning to get married and start a family? Wished they showed more of the second leads love line. Especially our Yeong. He really deserved it.

Also, one thing I really loved in this drama since the beginning (other than the bromance of Lee Gon and Yeong) was the cinematography. Just wow. Daebak!

Anyway, congrats to the whole team of the drama for a job well done!

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I watched this one as it came out, and as a result I was disappointed for a lot longer than I needed to be. However with this I hope others don't need to be, and that those who will truly enjoy this drama find it well.
NOTE: I added a whole star to the overall simply for the first ep which was really well done. And spoilers are general rather than being about specific scenes/plot points.

WHO THIS DRAMA IS FOR:
1. People who'd watch anything as long as Woo Do Hwan is in it
2. People who are all about aesthetics. Not just the actors/actresses, but also the costume design and scene comp is so pleasing to the eye.
3. People who have no issue with overused tropes, predictable plot twists, and romance that takes up half of each ep.

STORY ~ 3
This one had a strong enough premise, but starts to fall to apart at the end of the first ep. The first ep had the ideals for everything in this drama. The pacing was good, the characters distinct and somewhat likable, the dialogue told more while saying less. Starting from the end of ep 1 that attention to detail drops, only reaching such lvls of quality once in a blue moon. Many plot points were utter wastes of time as they didn't lead anywhere.
This drama also masquerades as Sci-fi when the writer clearly wanted it to be fantasy, using her usual deus ex machina to fix every.

ACTING/CAST ~ 3.5
--Screen time wasted on shallow characters, and star cast wasted because of bad writing. Protagonists win for reasons, and the antagonists look menacing on the outside but don't accomplish a single thing.--

Main leads: while the main male character was consistent he lacked depth, and while the main female character seemed to have depth with other characters, all of that went away when in the presence of the ML (AKA half the show). As for the acting, it's LMH as usual meaning you'll either hate him or love him (AKA he still hasn't learned how to act). Kim Go Eun gave a solid performance, but with how badly her character is written it's hard to distinguish if her cruddy scenes are due to inconsistent abilities or writing/direction.

WDH/Jo Yeong and Eun Sup: both characters are likable and have much more to them than many of the others. Also with a stellar performance from WDH it's easy to find habits, movements, and speech patterns (not just accent) held by one or the other.

Kim Kyung Nam/Kang Shin Jae: Thought he was gonna be a typical a**hole 2nd lead who was bitter from years of pining after 1st lead, however I'm happy to say that wasn't the case! In fact he easily stole the show for me. As much as I adore Eun Seop and Yeong, neither of WDH's characters had half the depth as Shin Jae's character did. He is such a well written character and he has the only satisfying character arc in this entire show. Kim Kyung Nam's portrayal of him was awe inspiring, really adding to the character.

Antagonists: The antagonists get a 1 star in total for the actors being great, however the two main antagonists accomplished nothing throughout the show.

Ensemble: There were some fun characters in the ensemble cast, however they were still under explored and some characters left me wondering why they were included if they didn't ever further the plot or have their own agency.

MUSIC ~ 3
I've heard it's got a great OST, but considering I can't remember a single word, nor any tune other then the opening one I can't rate this section any higher.

REWATCH VALUE ~ 3
Only worth it for specific scenes or if you can't sleep until you've figure out what the hell is going on.

TL:DR
Great premise but badly written. Great cast (for the most part) but numerous useless characters. A soundtrack that works but might not make you feel anything.

If y'all want specific examples or spoils lemme know and I'll spoiler tag them in the comments.

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Why?
Why was this given the green light?
Why did the actors agree to this project?
Why does the screenwriter keep getting work?
There really are no words to describe how bad this drama is regardless of how hard it tries to portray itself as a good one. Again I was suckered into watching this as the hype for it became to much and I succumbed to peer pressure. Every imaginable troupe that you can think of is in this drama: tough fl, sweet ml, product placement, sml secretly in love with the fl, evil character that wants to kill main character, product placement, beautiful scenery and did I mention the product placement?
The actual dialogue the mains would have with each other is the most contrived dribble I have EVER come across in a drama... EVER! It's so pretentious and full of itself that I couldn't help but just roll my eyes every time they were on screen; I fear I would have major eye damage towards the end.
Lee Min Ho- has never been a favorite actor of mine. I've seen several of his dramas and dude is just not a great actor... but he's really handsome so he has that going for him. Kim Go Eun- she's hit or miss for me; sometimes she pretty good (Monster) and sometimes she's really bad (Goblin) and this was a miss. Woo Do Hwan- I really don't need to say anything about the kid- he's PHENOMENAL in everything he does even when the script is crap- like how does he do it?! It's pretty safe to say the writing for this is straight up atrocious- like absolutely no logic at all. Any and everything you thought you knew was just thrown out the window.
If you've read this far then you should know that I do NOT recommend this drama, but if you're a glutton for punishment- go for it.

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The cast and crew did an amazing job executing this drama. Personally, I found the storyline to be unique and complex, unlike other dramas that I have watched, and I loved it for this reason. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time, and I couldn't wait till the next episode came out. This truly is a drama that starts off slower but progresses quickly after the first 4 episodes. That being said, I do think the slower pace was necessary in the beginning, as looking back, it helped ensure viewers were not overwhelmed by the plot. This drama reminds me of other Western fantasy series that I've watched, and I feel that perhaps this storyline would have benefitted from a longer format-similar to Western series. *hint hint please have a second season!* Overall, this is a must-watch drama on my list, and I sincerely hope that those who dropped the drama, give it another chance! It's truly a drama that gets better and better with each episode.

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One of the best Fantasy K-Dramas: A Reassurance

This was my second ever kdrama; it pulled me into the world of dramas, and I've been hooked since then.
Do not listen to the mixed reviews; take it from someone who has seen a ton of fantasy dramas (around 45); this is one of the best.

This isn't a review of sorts; I don't remember the scenes well enough to do so.
But I recall the stellar acting and plot. You'll love it if you appreciate fantasy, romance, mystery, drama, and a sci-fi parallel worlds scenario. Give this drama some time; don't drop it after the first two episodes.

(I was obsessed after the first episode, but I know how different people can be; if you have any second thoughts, take my word and watch it.)

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THE BEST TIME TRAVEL/PARALLEL WORLD DRAMA I HAVE EVER WATCHED! AT LEAST FOR MY KDRAMA ASS!

I have never written a review before so ignore all the grammatical mistakes and typos you may come across. It's my first time writing a review and this masterpiece literally pushed me to write one! <3

Okay, i have come across many reviews and read them almost all were critical so yeah i don't mind. Every one has their opinion based on their taste and preferences alright? But many were almost negative and like giving a major NO NO vibes that honestly manipulated me to ditch this drama whenever i thought of starting it.
But,
Again as i have said earlier everyone has their own penchant so i made up my mind to give this piece of work a chance. An honest one as it's LMH we are talking about and he NEVER ditches me.
So i gave it a shot!
And AIGOOO I REGRET NOT WATCHING IT EARLIER. IT WAS A FUCKING MASTERPIECE AND A SPECTACULAR PRODUCTION!
The cinematography, acting, wadrobe, music, storyline, editing and almost every freakin thing was on point and so good!
I appreciate every single member who was involved in making this a put together drama. Really all the actors did a perfect work.
I don't want to give away anything as i want you to all who are hesitating to watch this and have a mindblowing journey as i had while watching this drama. A great journey indeed. The experience was really a bliss for me.
I accept that plot is kinda complicated but everything unfolds gradually explaining every thing in a really amazing manner. I loved every part and never skipped a scene. The chemistry was there, bromance was there, action was there, a marvellous plot was there, even beautiful music and humour was there! What more do we need?
Don't overthink and i'm telling yall to give this an honest try. It's really worth it!

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A underrated gem! Best kdrama of 2020!

UNDERRATED AND A GEM!! Okay I am gonna be honest, this was my favorite kdrama that came out in the crazy year of 2020. The story was original, beautiful and ahhhhh swoon worthy. I am a sucker for destiny and fate-like stories, and this one is one of my very top favorite kdramas. Kim Go Eun and Lee Min Ho are both two of my favorite actors! The characters Jeong Tae Eul and Lee Gon had amazing chemistry and growth as a couple. The two different worlds of Korea was so interesting and captivating, of course the queen kdrama writer Kim Eun Sook wrote this one so I knew it was going to be fantastic. Woo Do Hwan did a incredible job with his two characters, he is a wonderful actor and hilarious, his duality was amazing. I loved how this drama showcased a love story that had no confusing breakups or unnecessary drama. It always was right up to the main point of the story and the fight for Tae Eul and Lee Gon to be together. I laughed and cried and fell in love every episode in this drama! Visuals were stunning, OST was perfect, acting amazing, plot incredible! And of course I love happy endings SO please do yourself a favor and watch this amazing drama!

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