Regele, Monarhul Etern (2020)

If you love a good story and a good romance, this isn't where you will find it

This is probably the most overrated drama i've seen that not only disappointed in every trope it dipped it's hands into, but made me question if i should give up on kdramas altogether.

It has a lot going for it if it wanted to make it work. be it the sci-fi aspect, the crossing over worlds aspect, the "i broke the world for us" aspect, the secret identity, the villain who crosses over for the hunt aspect-- all of this has incredible potential but i truly wondered if the writer wanted to achieve anything at all story wise except make the audience confused because none of the premise is ever followed through on.

The male lead is insufferable. i have tried to think of other words for him but this is truly the only word that describes him best. even a sad backstory is no excuse for the attitude he has and he is so underwhelming as a character all together. meaning he himself has no defining traits that set him aside or make him a believable character. the female lead is a cop who is a self-proclaimed flat-earther and while she tries to present herself as smart strong female lead, the things she does is far from it. Not only do the main leads not have any chemistry, their 'romance' is so sudden and out of no-where that it genuinely makes no sense. Not even the excellent cinematography can make you believe their is anything worthwhile between these two in the entire sixteen hours of your life you waste on this show.

The only redeeming factor this drama has is Woo Do Hwan, who exhibits incredible variety as an actor as he plays a dual role, switching almost seamlessly from a stoic bodyguard to a mellow confused fellow who takes care of his siblings with his whole heart. I hope he moves onto better projects where he can showcase his talents better because if you want to watch this drama for him alone, you can. But the rest of the story will leave an incredibly bitter taste in your mouth.

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Can Lee Min Ho be more handsome!!??

Lee Min Ho was an handsome king and that is a fact...he was born for this role but.... Story was SHIT ....I get what writer wanted to say, but screenplay was to raw, forced, predictable and characters were not good developed. Kim Go Eun and Lee Min Ho are not good match at all... there is no chemistry between those two! Kim Go Eun is great actresses but she couldn't do much better since screenplay was Shit! Her character was rude and without empathy to the point that I hated that girl. Why king fell in love stayed mistery to the end.... End of story is a pure shit in a much higher level they stayed together forever in different universums.... Crap! All in all cast was good , OST and production but in the end when story is bed only bitter taste stay in your mouth.

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Disappointing

Story :
The scenario and all the characters were very badly organized, I hardly understood anything :’) Nothing was logical and nothing was explained. The concept is good but it has not been exploited well enough...

Acting :
Kim Go Eun was very good, she's a charismatic actress.
Lee Minho was also good of course but we all know that he's not versatile, his facial expressions were the same as usual so i was a bit disappointed by his acting.
Woo Do Hwan was amazing, the two characters he played are very different and he pulled that off really well.
I discovered Kim Kyung Nam with this drama, he play very well and I had a second lead syndrom T-T

Overall :
Despite all that, there is action, suspense and humor so I watched everything pretty quickly and I had a good time, surely the reason why I put this note while this drama deserves less objectively.

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Fantastic story captivating actors

This is one of my favorite K-dramas, I've watched it 3 times already. and each time added clarity to the complicated story. Will probably watch it again to figure out a few more characters. This is the first time I watch actor Lee Min Ho, and he is captivating. His portrayal of a King is eloquent and perfectly measured. A King's face may be taught to be stoic, but his feelings can't hide from his eyes. I ended up searching all his works on Netflix, Prime, Viki and YouTube and seem to watch him grow up from the time he was a teenager. What a delightful performer and actor he is. I look forward to seeing all his future work. The leading lady, Kim Go Eun, is naturally beautiful, she can show such strong raw emotions. I had delayed watching TKEM due to seeing some poor reviews, but I'm totally fascinated by this powerful fantasy movie. I saw many reviews saying the love between the King and plain Detective to be rushed and not believable. But I can understand why she would have developed caring and protective feelings for a King who had been orphaned from childhood. She, herself, having lost a Mother at age 5, would definitely have soft feelings for another soul who lost a parent at an early age. Perhaps some viewers just saw a powerful King living in a rich palace, but she would’ve seen a sad soul who had to appear strong, but had all the hurts and loneliness of being an orphaned child, as only those who have experienced it would know. Had you seen him from that angle, you would’ve given him a loving hug and understanding as well. She Immediately loved him, because they understood each other’s pain behind their masks. As a King, he must hide his feelings. As detective, she chose to be brave to hide her inner hurt as well.

For me, the concept of parallel worlds and existences was fascinating. Imagine if Korea fought off its aggressors in the 1800’s, avoided being colonized, and maintained its Kingdom till modern times. How different a world that may be. Why was it even compared to real world as we know? Who is to say how this fantasy world should be like?

We all think of other worlds and existences in various forms. I found it fascinating !

I am a retired from the US, with plenty of time to rewatch this drama, and others that touch the heart !

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If you want to actively feel your brain cells deserting you as you watch, this is the drama for you! OR watch for a lesson on what happens when you rely on star power, ppls & production value over TELLING A GOOD STORY.

The plot is frustrating, the pacing is all over the place, the hate for powerful women is strong, the chemistry between the leads is about as fire as a wet fish (despite being super cute off-screen???), god this drama is bad. It also has one of my personal most hated tropes of introducing a supposedly badass female lead only for her to descend into crying damsel by like... episode 2. I KNEW it would happen but damn was I unhappy to be right.

There might be a few reasons to watch this drama. Woo Do Hwan having crazy chemistry with himself is no.1, Jung Eun Chae being beautiful is no.2. But other threads like Kim Kyung Nam’s storyline which has the potential to be good or Luna or even our main villain - are all so sidelined in favour of the boring romance & making Lee Minho look cool that I was just frustrated waiting for the interesting parts instead of looking forward to them.

Also if you watch on mute you can be dazzled by the gorgeous cinematography & production value. Plus, the OST is amazing as I find the OSTs of trash dramas tend to be. (Why is this such a common kdrama trend?)

Anyway, I’ll be waiting for wdh x jec to receive justice by starring together as lovers in something else bc they have chemistry just by glancing at each other & meanwhile enjoy myself via the rants of people hate-watching a dragging every other second a ppl appears to the dirt.

Ps. Writing this review was extremely cathartic, thankyou @myself for the rant I needed it.

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Personally I don’t understand why people didn’t like this , I loved it. At first I thought that it would be a typical drama with a long so it wouldn’t be as interesting but then once I actually got into I loved it. I’m so sad that this has ended because I became emotionally attached to this drama. The chemistry between the main characters was so real which made the scenes between them so beautiful, especially everytime they met each other. It was also funny when it needed to be and the plot had the right amount of twists without making it too predictable or unbearable. I loved the romance and friendship between them because it felt so real. The music is on another level for me, I loved all the OSTs from this drama and it made me like the drama even more since the songs were thought out well. The only thing I was sad about is that eun sup and yeong didn’t meet again like they’d promise each other and I wanted to see know who the little boy actually was. I know the ending can seem to be a bit unrealistic as they do end up together but it’s a fantasy drama for a reason, and I would have the ending any other way. Apart from that, I know it can be kind of confusing but you will not regret watching this. It’s one of the best dramas I’ve watched and I’m going to have a hard time getting over it.

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I'm happy i decided to give this drama a chance this weekend. I wasn't going to watch it because of all the negative reviews i was seeing but i was bored and i thought I should watch one episode on Netflix but I ended up watching the whole episodes.
The story is nothing new but it is refreshing, the drama is fast paced and every episode leaves you wanting more.
The actors all did what they had to do and they brought their 'A' game.
The cinematography is one i haven't seen in a kdrama before and it just makes everything more beautiful.
Also, those saying the FL isn't pretty or cannot act can suck it because that lady actually acts well and I'm not even one of her fans but that lady is good especially the way she played her part as Luna.

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Honestly, this show was that one show I was more than happy about last year. I am a huge fan of KGE and her paired with LMH was like a dream come true for me. I didnt want to watch the show as soon as it released because I wanted all the episodes out ( I have a tremendously weak will power and probably go crazy if I had to wait for a week) but I was extremely curious because of the 'bad' reviews on the show.So I said Okay, I'll see it for myself. I absolutely loved the story line , for me it was 'amusing' with the twists and turns , probably people out there dont like it because it isnt your ordinary Cheesy Kdrama with the ceo, rich girl poor girl shit. Yes I agree LMH played the character of a king but seriously he did nothing whatsoever like those cliché kdrama plots. The only thing that did disappoint me was the way it was potrayed, I mean the cinematography was hats off but throughout the show I was confused af, I mean at one point he's leaving her world ,to come back after wards and KGE starts crying seeing him and I was like, wait how long has it been I mean where the hell is the time frame? Moreover people say they dont have chemistry?????? Like are you guys serious ,did you guys look at the BTS?, As I watched I understood its not that they didnt have sparks ,its just that they weren't really potrayed. I mean you know the small things that make you fall for the person , I kept thinking no there has to be some , until one episode she just turns to him and goes ILY and I remember I was like 'when, where , howwww?' I just feel they over worked the storyline to the point that they forgot to build a genuine liking between the leads. And the points where Ive been confused , dont even get me started there were scenes where Ive been like 'what happened, did I miss out on anything?' I mean it was like random scenes put together. I GENUINELY, HONESTLY feel like either they should've made more than 16 episodes to elaborately show what they wanted to potray, or make it a bit more SIMPLER to understand, Ive had friends who dropped the show at the very start all because it seemed too "complex".Yes, I am a bit disappointed with the outcome because somewhere at the back of my head I wanted more of KGE and LMH , not them discussing about the antagonist, but actually opening up a bit and focusing on their feelings. I feel it wouldve been more natural. Anyway , I hope they come back together, because their scenes are to die for. P.S. If there was one thing I absolutely whole heartedly enjoyed It had to be WOO DO HWAN I mean that character , you could just look into his eyes and know if it was Eun sub or Yeong. I loved his character and every scene he acted.

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So here is the drama i've been waiting for the most for a long time now. So far the story did not progress anywhere, we pretty much only had world-building (and some banter) in the first two episodes that I've seen. I feel that there is no hook for me, other than the writer's name. I remember, when I watched the first episode of Goblin & I was already hooked by the birthday cake scene. Very pretty people are not enough by themselves to entertain me..
I'm pretty neutral about Minho, but I don't feel that he was ever a good actor & I really hope that this drama has more substance than his face, his acting so far has not been very convincing. I like Go Eun quite a bit, but I'm not yet sure about her character in this one.

Anyhow I'm hoping that things will go up from here, a 9/10 final review is still on the table. It's not going to be another Abyss, right!?

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edit: After seeing episode 3-4 I'm really hopeful. The story is finally on track & I'm kind of hooked, I'm genuinely looking forward to episode 5. MinHo's acting seems to have improved, perhaps he got more into the character as the filming has progressed. The world building stage seems to be over and I loved the teaser & how episode 4 ended.

edit2: I enjoyed episodes 5-6. I guess the only thing that's really lacking is humor, there is not a whole lot of it, but nonetheless I'm still excited about next week.
Here is me being nitpicy >>>
The writer is not the best at writing realistic warfare scenarios as we have seen in DoTS, we had some of that in ep6, probably it was an effort to jab at Japan due to their ongoing trade dispute. It's not great when real world politics have an effect on the entertainment industry like this, but I've seen much worse in Chinese works, hopefully there will be no more of this in future episodes. The second Jung Tae Eul detective Kang Shin Jae childhood origin story was completely unnecessary, feels almost like a byproduct of live filming/live writing. The drama had to be preproduced due to all the visual effects, but it's possible that the script was only written week by week as the filming went along, I hope that I'm wrong, because weekly writing almost never leads to a coherent script and that is pretty important for a high concept series to work.
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Final edit: "next week" came a little late, I had the time to binge the last 10 episodes over the course of a week. I'm disappointed overall. The romance got serious really abruptly, but Minho's acting was probably the worst it has ever been. Kim GoEun makes all these really lively animated faces & cries a lot, but Minho has no emotional range what so ever, their most epic scenes are completely butchered by Minho. I think it's safe to say that his bad acting killed the drama for me. The story goes real slow in between e6 & e12 and that would have been fine, if we had some cool romance, but Minho sort of ruined that, what else remains from the drama doesn't amount to very much.
I guess Kim Eunsook kind of borked the script, but objectively the script wouldn't even be that bad. With a better director & without Minho we could have reached the level of W, well too bad..
I heard folks discussing that the OST was really good, very similar to Goblin. Well, I'm not saying it's bad or anything, in fact is perhaps slightly above average, but to me this comparison doesn't make any sense. I feel that the 15th best track on the Goblin OST double cd is more valuable than all the soundtrack that TKEM has. It's pointless comparing them.

I just finished watching the last episode, which was probably the best episode of the drama and because of that I decided to give a final score of 6/10, but it's probably too high..

I almost forgot, good God the ad placements were terrifyingly bad. At times it felt like the entire drama was just an advertisement. There were some product placement scenes that straight up made no sense. I mean FL drinking something & then praising it is something that could actually happen, but Nari's supercars..

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This is the drama I've recently finished watching. I expexcted it for quite a long time and I had a high expectations about it.
The story is set in two different worlds- the modern Republic of Korea and the Kingdom of Corea. The series' genre is not only a fantasy but also a romance, so the main part of the story is the blossoming love between the King of the Kingdom of Corea Lee Gon(played by Lee Min-ho) and Jung Tae-eul(played by Kim Go-eun), who is a police officer in the Republic of Korea. The other thing in drama is the appearance of Lee Lim (played by Lee Jung-jin) who is the uncle of Lee Gon. He wants to become the King so he kills Lee Gon's father and tries to do the same with his nephew. Unfortunately the traitor manages to escape and go to the Republic of Korea thanks to the Manpasikjeok(a magical stick, which can open a portal between the two worlds). Lee Gon has the mission to stop him in order to keep both worlds safe.The drama has exciting and intricate plot so if you are interested in love stories with fantasy elements you'll definitely like it!The special effects were amazing! I could easily feel the difference between the two parallel worlds.The acting was so on point! Maybe it was very challenging for the cast to portray double images. For example Jung Tae-eul's counterpart in the Kingdom of Corea is called Luna and she is a thief.
All OSTs were good, but my favorite are : Orbit by Hwasa(MAMAMOO), Please Don't cry by Davichi, Heart Break by Gaeko and Kim Na-young and My day is Full of you by Wendy(Red Velvet) and Zico(Block B).
I hope my review is useful and I was able to make you check out this k-drama! Expect reviews on other series soon!

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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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King: Eternal Moron

I’m going to start off with the good parts of this drama aka the parts that can pass off as decent.
- The cinematography
The scenes were shot beautifully, everything was grand and extravagant as expected of well, a king and his palace. I might even go as far to call this a cinematic masterpiece if not for the dry, non-existent plot. But for now, I digress. (I will delve into that soon).
- The casting
Let’s face it, the casting was easy on the eyes and the main reason why most of us kept watching this boring ass show. Because in the end, we’re just humans who want to see pretty faces. Lee Min Ho was enough a justification for me to click this show but Kim Go Eun as well? No shit I decided to stick to the end. I have loved her since watching her appearance in Goblin and I must say I adored her character in this series because she was a badass cop with a backbone. I’m not a fan of woo do hwan but he was the only one who showed real versatility in the roles played here, him acting as a serious bodyguard and then taking a whole 360 with his other role. Kudos to his superb acting skills. The rest of the cast were perfect and their acting was on point. If there’s one thing I’m not complaining about, it’s the cast.

Now, it’s time to get down to business about why exactly despite the stellar cast and brilliant cinematography, I gave this drama a withering 4/10 stars.

- The plot or lack thereof
Okay, the idea of parallel worlds and doppelgänger sold the show AT THE START. It was what made me click besides LMH and KGE and it was what made me finish that first episode. Great start with the history of this magical flute that had to potential to connect both worlds. Yay, sitting on the edge of my seat. Well, until LMH started to get on his horse and trod into the other world. The first thing he said to KGE was literally something like “finally, I have seen you.” or some shit. Cue the swooning and fangirling because wow this handsome dude i’ve literally never seen my whole life is now hugging me?!?! After that, what happened from ep2 to like 11 was literally nothing but him travelling back and forth, flirting and dating and using that half broken flute to return to his kingly duties. I’m not even sure when the romance started because there was no slow-burn, no tension and NO CHEMISTRY. The next thing I knew, they were kissing and saying cheesy things. I don’t even want to talk about that over-the-top, dramatic scene where his whole troop of bodyguards went to save KGE, the crying damsel in distress. It was ultimately, a waste of bloody resources.
The ending was confusing to say at least. I spent many episodes wondering who was the one who saved LMH when he almost got killed by his uncle on the night of the treason…only to find out it was LMH himself from the future. BOOM mind-blown. Was that the expected response?

K. More like poor, convoluted plot and a pathetic attempt to salvage an already broken storyline. And if you think about it, LMH from the future gave LMH in the past an ID card with KGE’s face on it so that LMH in the future would find her? Seriously. But anyway, the most messed up part was when he literally opened all the doors to the universe to find KGE. Hey, I get it all you romantics like this kind of stuff but at this point, it’s just getting tiring… This drama was just 90% romance and 10% fantasy where the action ONLY PICKED UP AT EPISODE 16 OR SO. All the times when LMH approached his uncle the traitor, they only had dramatic eye contact before he let him slip away. And then somehow, he managed to catch him so smoothly towards the end? I would’ve liked to have seen the uncle outsmart LMH given how that’s what he’s been doing all along. Quite disappointing for a villain.

- The romance
Was there chemistry? I’m pretty sure they already got together during the first ep. I loved KGE’s badass cop character at the start but afterwards…I’m pretty sure it’s not her acting but more of the character she needed to play…she became dry and just lovesick throughout. The whole time she was waiting for him and then crying when he finally came. The dramatic scene at the end of ep11 (I think) where she waited for him, crying in the middle of the road was over exaggerated. And to be realistic, if LMH was really a king, how could he even have time to travel between both worlds and how did no one impeach him for neglecting his duties? Unless head court Lady Noh did all his work for him while he was busy playing boyfriend with KGE. There was no swoon worthy moments for me, not even that neck kiss which was overhyped. Seriously, it was just a brief peck on the neck. And the cooking scenes where he wore his navy uniform? I’m sorry, I skipped it because it was way too cringe. By the way, I think it was ep 4/5? When they confessed their love for each other despite the fact that their only interactions being limited to the chicken restaurant? Alright, people fall in love fast sometimes but i did not see that coming :)

- The place where time doesn’t exist

They just wasted time filming a balloon and an empty vacuum of space. Nothing happened there except when LMH brought KGE there to gush and show off his brainiac knowledge. Oh, and I guess the part where the traitor died there and KGE was trapped inside for a while. Other than those parts, nah.

- Who saved me? Future me😍😍
I’ll never stop. This plot twist had no twist and was just, just—Maybe because I don’t quite understand it but I say for sure that i know i won’t be the only one who didn’t grasp that concept. You know why? There was NO EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER. Then again, what sort of explanation could they possibly come up with to support this wacko theory? Physics? Alright.

I’m done here. Please, watch this show if you’re looking for a cheesy royal romance because rest assured, it’s the only one with a high budget and a stellar cast. But really, don’t even waste your time to finish this drama because I can assure you, you’re not missing out on anything but a measly neck kiss ;)

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