King the Lander (2023)

Pick it when you need it! It will be a huge comfort for you!

The first time writing a review but I felt the need to write one because of all the negative comments.
I'll list some facts here that made me love this drama

What made it different from other Romcom:
1- Smooth romance without unnecessary breakups or misunderstandings between the main leads.
2- many romantic scenes, almost every ep after ep 8 and they are satisfactory, so wait for it and don't drop it
3- the main leads were clear about their feelings and didn't care about the people opinion
4- their feeling developed quickly without hesitation, non of them tried to avoid the relationship or deny it from the beginning to the end (for example the FL didn't get scared because the ML is from a higher level, and the ML didnt get scared that his family might oppose)
5- Very positive, which you is sth need when you are tired from everyday life, this drama will surely comfort you especially if you watched it before you sleep.
6- strangely the father didn't resist the relationship a lot and he quickly accepted
7- the OSTs are all amazing
8- it resemble a sweet and somehow realistic love story which everyone one dream to experience.
9- The trust and honesty between the main leads is amazing they depended on each others supported and loved each others despite the problems they faced throughout the drama.
( i really love how they didn't break up when their relation was revealed and also when the FL saw the ML with his potential fiancé, she believed him and didnt misunderstand)
10- again solving the problems easily was a positive point for the drama in my opinion because sometimes you get tired from how other dramas complicate each problem and spend many episodes it so this drama can be resting area for you.

But I have to say that I skipped some parts which were mostly about the father and the sister and their unnecessary problems, they really didn't add anything to the story.

So all in all, what I want to say is that when other people think that the simplicity of this drama is what made it bad i believe that it is exactly the opposite, the smooth happy and honest relationship and the sincere acting of the main leads made it a perfect choice for a comforting drama.

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Definition of a true romcom

Some people may say that this rating is too high and maybe it is, when looking objectively. I am not looking objectively. No, I am completely looking at and reviewing this show fully aware of the rose-tinted glasses I’m wearing and could care less.

Yes, there are problems with the show. Sarang could’ve been given better depth as a character and the Arab Prince storyline needed to be completely trashed. This show could be corny, cheesy, and even cringey at some points, but the happiness and joy this drama gave me outweighs anything else.

Like i said, i know I’m viewing some aspects of it with rose-tinted glasses, but this show couldn’t have come at a better time for me. My anxiety was at an all-time high when the majority of this show was airing and it was so nice to be able to escape into the lives of these characters and their relationships.

Won and Sarang’s romance is probably one of the most mature and healthiest I have seen in a kdrama. They never fought over stupid things, always communicated, tried to understand the other’s perspective, and fought for their relationship when circumstances tried to force them apart. Listen, I love drama and messiness too but sometimes when couples break up for little to no reason I’m left wondering why I rooted for them to get together in the first place. I never questioned that with these two, they always proved time and time again why I loved them and why they should be together.

I also loved the majority of the side characters. Both of Sarang’s besties were great and I liked how they both had their own individual storylines outside of being Sarang’s friends and supporting her romance with Won. Pyeonghwa and her noona romance with Rowoon ftw! I also liked Sang-sik, he was very chaotic as Won’s secretary and I liked their begrudging bromance. Sarang’s halmeoni was also a standout and her relationship with both Won and Sarang was lovely. Also, even though I’m supposed to hate her, and I did, I liked Hwaran as a villain. Mainly because she didn’t bore me in her scenes like so many do nowadays.

In terms of Won and Sarang individually, I mentioned earlier how Sarang didn’t have as much depth to her character as Won did. While this is definitely true, I still really liked Sarang. I liked how hard-working and kind she was, but wasn’t a pushover by any means. She remained true to herself and her beliefs throughout the whole drama and never tried to change herself for other people. I loved her ending and how she started a hotel herself and it worked out because of her as a person, not because of any outside factors. Won was also like the best kdrama boyfriend ever. He actually tried to see things from Sarang’s perspective and actually changed the way he acted and did things accordingly (Shocking, I know). He never tried to pressure her into anything and always wanted what she wanted, never want he wanted for her. His character growth was great and I loved his arc because although Sarang helped him appreciate the people around him, you knew that it was always in his nature he just needed the guidance he never got.

Junho & Yoona had great chemistry too and were genuinely wonderful in their respective roles. I can definitely see why so many are obsessed with their pairing now, lol. They had so many moments that were clearly them improvising that really made Sarang and Won’s relationship believable. Some couples come across as very rehearsed when your job as an actor is to seem the opposite.

This show was just really enjoyable for me and is highly rewatchable. I would say this show is my guilty pleasure, but I really don’t feel guilty about it at all.

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King The Land is a new-breed of kdrama rom-coms even with a generic plot

KTL: Welcome to King the Land, where we invite tropes in, but they must leave as different creatures from how they arrived. What we’re trying to say is that we only fly green flags here. Disclaimer: We do allow for umbrella scenes, slo-mo walks, falling into each other’s arms, identity mishaps, silly meet-cutes, and staring longingly while a banger OST plays. We do NOT allow for miscommunication between partners, time skips, noble idiocy, misogyny, nonconsensual kisses, forced separations, social status as a barrier, or mere pecks on the cheek. [This is what I found on a reddit written by some user, it perfectly summed up my thoughts on the show so i decided to put it here]

The show gives you exactly what it promised the Romance and the Comedy and both in balance enough that you don't bother thinking about the painfully generic plot..

Lol before starting I thought this show was gonna be some wannabe 'Business Proposal'+ 'Whats Wrong With Secretary Kim' fiasco but boy was I suprised, pleasantly at that, Gu Wo has to be the most Greenest Flag Chaebol male lead k-dramaland has ever seen. I’m just so happy that this drama didn’t do the “let’s keep them childish and immature until the last 2 episodes.” Or “let’s have them break up and make up every single second” troupe.

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Perfect love story ❤️ worth the watch!!

Nice drama from beginning it flow no boring moments, love the storyline of the bully big sister and the rich little brother Gives an insight showing that not everyone born into wealth is happy. Some are hurting from the same pain most of us without money are going through.Also, I love the development between the two main leads it's. Natural not forced Lol, episode 5 is so wholesome. I love the chemistry, and I can't get enough of the main leadsHands down, one of the best kiss I have ever seen in a drama I hope they won best kiss at the awardsEpisode 11 was so moving and heartfelt with a touch of laughter.

I am ready for 2 more episodes.

Episode 12 is one for the books. I couldn't stop laughing 😆 I won't ruin it for everyone by Telling you why it was funny, but it started out with a bang lol 😆 😂 😅 you will love it.Oh wow, just when I thought I had seen it all in this drama episode 12 came in with a big splash.

episode 16 was the best most happiest ending I have ever seen in a drama, it was so satisfying that I would definitely vote for another 16 episodes. This drama made me change my mind about marriage. lol 😆 it was that good.loved ever second. ❤️

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Nice, but no cigar. Chunks of borrowed storyline?

So.

The hype all indicated that KTL was going to be a really great watch. And LJH is definitely worth waiting for. I duly waited for this drama to finish airing so that I could watch at my leisure without the need to wait for next episodes to arrive.

In all...........I'm sorry, but when I had finished watching, I was quite disappointed. The lead characters were good but somewhat two-dimensional. The scripts were also fairly flat most of the time, and the storyline left little opportunity for the actors to put across any real depth of character. The two girlfriends of the female lead took forever to pull themselves together enough to stand up to their respective bullies - which was neither helpful to, nor reflective of, most women in such situations these days. There were enough k-drama cliches to feed the entire cast and crew cliche cake for a year, and enough tedious PP to make a profit after paying their wages for the duration of their next shoots. I did watch to the end, but only because romcom is my guilty pleasure, and kdramas generally do that SO well. There was definitely some rom and some com in here, and those swoon and chuckle moments kept me ticking along.

Now here's the thing I can't get past. All the webinfo (Google, Rakuten Viki, Netflix and MDL) tells me that this is a 2023 release, and nothing shows that it's a renamed or remade series. Also, I began watching only three days after the last episode aired. Therefore it's highly unlikely that I am REwatching KTL itself , right? However - I have seen substantial sections of this storyline before. Some kdrama I saw before this (possibly six months to a year ago) definitely had amazingly similar situations within its storyline. I don't think the following will be spoilers....

1. The rise of the female lead through the ranks quickly through competence, while her colleagues are mean/jealous. This is probably a situation in dozens of kdramas so I can let it go. But then..

2. At the BigBoss house dinner, an incident happens to her which is pretty much identical in setting, activity, dialogue, action and reaction to the one in KTL. Here it starts to bug me more but I carry on.....and then....

3. The child's lost toy. All details are the same here as in the drama I saw before. A) when everyone else gave up the search, she won't. B) She has the same out-of-the-box idea to look in the same specific place for it. C) She must hurry because the family has to leave shortly. D) When found, the toy even turns out to be the the same type of animal AND the same colour as that used in the drama I saw before.

There are more similarities too, but the toy incident served as a full confirmation to me that I was indeed watching regurgitated drama lumps.

I've searched my extensive watched list and the internet, but I'm unable to name the drama I originally saw that contained these storyline lumps. The similarities are substantial enough and numerous enough, though, that I came out of it feeling quite cheated. It feels like I was served reheated waste food instead of the freshly-cooked meal promised by the hype. It's fortunate for me that the child's toy incident came late because if it had arrived earlier I would have been tempted to quit and move on. I might have missed LJH in the kitchen, and that wouldn't have been good.... :)

Bias aside, I really think highly of LJH as an actor and like what I see of him as an individual too, so I hate leaving a negative review for a drama of his. Unfortunately there was little in this storyline to showcase his remarkable acting skills, so this time even his charismatic presence as lead didn't camouflage the numerous and blatant shortcomings this series has. That really saddens me.

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liked the actors did not love the storytelling

I really wanted to love this drama but the story was just too thin for me. Too many characters, too many subplots and too many aspects were touched upon, but not densely told. That's a pity because I really liked the actors. The female lead was very likeable, a nice person through and through, you could imagine being friends with her and begrudge her all the happiness in the world. I would have liked to have had more insights into her inner conflicts and thus get to know her even better. However, there was little opportunity to suffer with her during the plot in order to get closer to her. The male lead was not only very attractive on the outside, but above all a great partner for the leading lady. Any woman who finds such a partner, who is not a bit fickle and remains level-headed and steady even under family pressure, can count herself lucky. Perhaps a few rough edges would have done the main roles good. The actors in the supporting roles were also, without exception, of high calibre and delivered as far as the story allowed. Unfortunately, however, all potential conflicts were only touched upon here as well. I would have liked it better if the story had concentrated on a few conflicts in order to dive into them fully. In my opinion, this is well done in "One Springnight", "Something in the rain" but also in "Call it love". If it should be a romance at the workplace, "Romance is a Bonus Book" or "She would never know" set the standard for me. I was hoping to find a drama that I like to watch every now and then. Too bad, that is not the case.

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Not the first time KDramas are culturally insensitive.

So for some reason in this show theres a character present for 2 whole episodes. A rich Arab prince with many white women around him who frequents bars. Okay, that alone is clearly sending signals of how they perceive Arabs, but even the prince's character throughout the two episodes is this very pushy man who is using his position and money to be weird and creepy to Sarang. Sarang clearly doesnt want to be with him and obviously finds him an inconvenience but they only tolerate him because he has a lot of money. Let me reiterate. Sarang is basically being harassed at her workplace by this rich man (who by no coincidence is made very clearly an Arab of high esteem in his land) who uses her power to try to get her to like him?! So not only are they making a joke out of workplace harassment but also making light of Arab people and their character.

For those saying well it's not Muslim. First of all there is no Arab country in the world with a non Muslim royal family. Second of all, Arab Christians are just as conservative and good charactered people. They also do not go around flaunting women and harassing them.

The only reason people are defending yet another racist caricature by KDramas is because this is how they view us, Arabs, too. It is so normalised but its not how anyone would like their culture to be viewed. This happens time and time again to POC, like when Shooting Stars made it seem like Africa is one country and they are all poor and resourceless waiting for the first white man (or Korean) to save them (for publicity, too). Backstreet Rookie had a racist character playing an African man with dreads and quite literally had insects fly around the mans dreads. Implying Africans are dirty and that he can casually spray paint tan on his face to depict them.

DO BETTER.

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Turned out to be the OPPOSITE of good.

Why did I pick this drama ?
Because I've watched Rain or shine & The Red Sleeve, liked them both. I THOUGHT this one would be excellent. Turns out its not (and worse, far from good)
It was my first drama of Yoona as FL. A good plot and a good acting are two different things. I haven't really covered Acting, because I found the characters ridiculous (and acting was based on that. They did well)
(I loved Jun Ho's acting in The Red Sleeve, cant really comment on this one , coz I hate Gu Won).

I dont understand how and why people repeatedly compare this with business proposal. They're so freaking different. Business Proposal was damn good & King the Land is not even close.

I felt BP had a much better plot compared to this. Not just the ML &FL but SML &SFL we so worth watching. It was humorous, had depth in the story as well as the characters, also the romantic development was gradual (& made a lot more sense).

King the land has lots of cons. Still, I think why people like it so much is because it presents the story like a fairy tale. (Too shiny, but unrealistic )
There are dramas, that keep you awake all night, but this one turned out to be a sleeping pill for me. Initial couple of episodes were so boring, I literally fell asleep.

Who is Gu Won? Seriously, they glamourized him so much in the drama, that they forgot to show his character development. No matter what the situation, our prince charming solves the issues in a blink. The first episode did mention how he went back to europe , finished his education and came back years later, but still, the ease with which he does things is just so fancy and unreasonable. We almost never see him working . All he does whole day is, sitting in his comfortable chair and gawking at Sarang's photos and texts (or worse disturbing her at work ), and when reminded of his duties by manager No, drives him out of the office, throwing cushions aimed at him (& sadly, often misses the target) .
During the initial days of joining the hotel, the way Gu won behaved was utterly ridiculous. Him being a crybaby everytime someone smiled, or mentioned his mother was just too much. Given his status , educational background & the competitive environment at work, his character should be a lot more serious and mature.

Why does Sarang like Gu Won?
Why does Gu Won like Sarang? Their relationship lacks development. It shouldn't have been so spontaneous.
Some things just makes no sense at all (especially the employee trip (horrible plotline). There are just too many loopholes in the story.

In terms of comedy as well, its definately not on the same page with Business Proposal. It has humor, I agree on that. The plot has its share of hilarious moments ( my favorite being : This place looke familiar though(followed by an overcoat flick)) (The Red Sleeve reference) .
(But, the comedic elements in BP; much better).

Its an entertainer, agree. But, so not worth the hype. Truth be told, it wasn't surprising to watch the ratings stoop down from 8.8 to 8.4 (I think it'll go lower🤞🏻).
I'm still wondering. Is it really worth my 6.5 rating 🤔?

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An expensive production with a whole lot of nothing

I was really looking forward to this drama solely for Lee Jun Ho because I loved him in the Red Sleeve. But, the show is so utterly underwhelming and shallow, there is nothing to look forward to. The characters only exist to pine after each other without trying to accomplish anything in life making for a very boring and uninspiring story.

This is a cliche rom-com where a rich guy falls for a working class employee. It would've been interesting if the writers treated the characters like adults, instead of high school students, and gave them mature interactions and meaningful conversations. Instead, they proceed to bore us with every single overused cliche known to k-drama making the plot extremely predictable. Gu Won has no personality outside his crush on Sarang. At the beginning, he is shown as a sophisticated and rich bad-boy skydiving in a suit and landing on a helicopter pad James Bond style. Later, we find out that he is nothing more than a nepotism baby with no social awareness, no competence, no charisma and exists solely to pine after Sarang. Even his feud with his sister is superficial because he doesn't do anything other than pursue his love interest. He finished an MBA at the beginning of the show, which could've been a nice plot device for him to start serious work in the hotel and eventually become the owner. No, he is a director in name only and doesn't do anything or show any particular interest in work. Even his employees have to tell him that he needs influence and support in order to succeed, instead of spending so much time obsessing over FL.

Some story arcs are completely asinine. The Arab prince is reduced to a total simp for Sarang competing for her affection with Gu Won. God knows why we need another atrocious love rival trope where everyone falls in love with the heroine because she is so precious. And the arc with the flight attendant friend isn't interesting enough for me to care about because she is such a minor character.

Overall, the show felt like a high school drama filled with overused cliches. Characters have no motivation and there is no real plot. Pass.

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GRUMPHY AND SUNSHINE??? [BOUND TO FALL IN LOVE]

A CLASSIC ROMANTIC COMEDY.
Do you all remember the old kdrama??? The 2016 kdrama era??? When kdrama use to be fluffy without unnecessary murder mystery, bully and revenge trope.
This is THAT kind of drama. The Nostalgia i felt watching this.

It will make you laugh till you have tears in your eyes with its humour. It will make your blush like a teenager with its romance. It will make you wanna hide with the second hand embarrassment. It will make you want to crave more.

The drama is amazing. Its definitely is the romcom of 2023 just like business proposal was of 2022.
Light, fluffy and ridiculous. The romance is swoon worthy. The humour is amazing. The plot may be a little old fashionable and cringy but don't we all crave it once in a while!?

And the way he look at her. Cares for her. Looks after her. IS CHEFS KISS.
There may be instant care and attraction but their love grows slowly. Its not instant. It grows from a bud to a flower that blooms. Yes, it can BE EXTRA sometimes but who doesn't like a CEO spending all his love, attention and money on a girl like a love sick puppy??? LIKE who doesn't like that!?

ACTORS/CHEMISTRY
The cast is perfect. Not just that mainleads but even every single side character. And the chemistry between the main leads is absolutely EXPLOSIVE.
Like you can feel the connection and chemistry between them from episode 1. The way they look at each other, ahhhhh!!

Overall, JUST WATCH IT. People are over analysis a drama they shouldn't. Even with the massive post hype i will say it lives upto the expectations.

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