Day 229: KDrama - The King: Eternal Monarch

The King: Eternal Monarch is a fantasy K-drama, a fight between good and evil between two parallel universes set in Korea. The other universe has Korea as an empire ruled by a single monarch. This KDrama marks the first show Lee Min Ho is appearing in after his military enlistment. While the show was one of the most anticipated series, it has not lived up to the expectations. Other Starring Kim Go-eun, Woo Do-hwan, Kim Kyung-nam, Jung Eun-chae and Lee Jung-jin.

If you enjoyed fantasy like me, this will most likely be your cup of tea. However, do note that this is slightly more complicated than the other fantasy as it involves time travel, universe travel and space-time gap. Sometimes I just find it too confusing and trying to figure out are they in Republic of Korea or Kingdom of Corea! I do love how they created the monarch world and also where the king was riding on his white horse! Pure imagination!

The cast was doing a good job, there was funny banter, a potential mystery, bromance and, I even managed to feel chemistry between the leads. I liked it and wanted to know more. However, 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.

Especially when comes to the romance. Albeit slow and full of filler at first, I 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. I just feel awkward that the romance with the shots happening either too quickly or too slowly and then BAAMM suddenly, we get romantic moments between our leads confessing their love ever-so desperately. This is a heavy handed attempt to make things thrilling without offering any development or consequences.

I just felt 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.

Finally, the saving grace of this drama is that it is dressed well in terms of cinematography and costume design. With a budget so high, it is hard NOT to be dressed well. It's money, however, it could've been spent better. This is truly the type of drama that once you finish it, if it disappeared from your life the very next day, you wouldn't be losing out on anything.

Rating: 4/10