Surprisingly very enjoyable
I was very hesitant to watch this show because I saw that the writer also wrote Goblin and Descendants of the sun. Both of which are commonly very highly rated. I attempted to watch both of them previously but I couldn't bring myself to finish them. I did not really like Goblin and I thought DOTS was only okay. For me, they both seemed quite slow and drawn out at times. I got through about half of both and then just read summaries of the rest.Anyways, I saw this on Netflix many times and skipped over it because I wanted to save myself from disappointment because I figured that I probably wouldn't like it. But alas quarantining was getting the best of me and I just decided to go for it and wow am I glad I decided to try it!
TKEM has a very complex story that is unique and full of twists. I do acknowledge that the complexity isn't for everyone. Honestly, I didn’t really know what was happening for like half the first episode haha. But after that, it definitely started to pick up for me. Even though there are a few parts that I will probably never understand I still really enjoyed the show very much!! I found the story very compelling and was so invested that I finished it all in 4 days. The show was very interesting and felt refreshing since it wasn’t filled to the brim with typical romance. This show is certainly not perfect but let's be honest no show is, so just keep to minimal and realistic expectations and you'll be in for quite a treat. All in all, TKEM is a success for me because at the end of the day it is simply just an entertaining tv show so I say it is definitely worth a try at least. I don’t regret watching it all!!
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WDH's Appealing Facial Expressions
No SpoilersInside this parallel universe screenwriter, Kim Eun Sook penned a hidden gem that I cannot find my way back. It had an excellent premise that fell into limbo. At times, I felt like I was viewing an AD commercial in some scenes, and other times it was deft scriptwriting and acting buried underneath all the mess.
The writer's incoherent complexity strained the audience's patience. It exploits the same paradox elements in Nine: Nine Times Times Travel (2013). Maybe if you turn your brain off and try not to think everything will make sense to you. The Director who brought us Secret (2013) and Descendants of the Sun (2016) I was expecting a tightly knit plot, but instead got stunning visuals; nothing else.
Woo Do Hwan was the beaming light of TKEM. His dual role as Jo Young and Jo Eun Sub was visually sublime. Woo Do Hwan's perspicuous rapport with Kim Yong Ji, had me on the edge of my seat, hinting at the fervidness. I got to shout out to the roles of the Jo Eun Sub's twins siblings, for they were a time-out in so much occurring.
Kim Go Eun is an amazing actress except for her character in TKEM was dull and one dimensional. You may have a different opinion that would not be so cryptic to me. One Korean actor that is loved and hated Lee Min Ho. His potential appears to have a set limit because the characters he portrays in dramas fall short on many fronts; It is my opinion.
I am not going to explain it in detail. Yi Gon is an engaging character that suited Lee Min Ho, but the inconsistencies in the plot threw the chemistry of the leads off for me. The intenseness of the romance scenes between the LMH and KGE was muddy from the staggering plotholes.
The supposed villain of this drama wasted potential. The character development was weak on all fronts, causing me problems. It is a simple story dragged out a few episodes too long. The music was not bad, helping me through this show even though it was not original.
Watch this if you have nothing else to watch, and you might like it or might hate it. Even though I was not too fond of it, it does not mean you might not like it. If you have the willpower to propel through sixteen plus hours, You have the final say. Will the King solve his Mathematical problem/equation?
Final Rating: 5.28/10
Story: 5.26/10
Acting: 5.69/10
Rewatch Value: I would rewatch it, but a long way down the road when I have nothing to view, maybe on a rainy day or snowy day. Perhaps an episode here or there I would see, WDH scenes.
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The good parts about this was when it felt like I was watching Inuyasha or some other early 00's anime like that. At other times it felt confused, contrived, and also extremely focused on product merchandising and on Lee Min Ho's face.I mean - there was this single episode even my parents couldn't stop counting how many product placements happened. I think it was around episode 10/11. Almost every scene featured the king drinking some royal coffee or eating some royal instant kimchi. This suits my taste!
Oh God.
PS: Giving the acting a high grade for Kim Go Eun and Jung Eun Chae, they didn't deserve this mess
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I am really being gentle with my overall score. The screenwriter basically was playing with the views since she is not interested in giving us answers or explaining the plot. Actually, all the blank answers are substituted by Min Ho's kissing scenes. I honestly think it is disrespectful with the mature audience which is more interested in seeing the story than watching Min Ho's wonderful beauty.
Disappointing.
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Worth watching
Well, i don't think its bad or complicated story, please haters don't give negative reviews, this drama is full package of everything and every role played really well,I really admire the writers actors.
I am addicted to this drama.. Its worth watching.
Enjoy
Enjoy
Enjoy
Enjoy
Enjoy
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Did this make no sense or am I just dumb??
I wasn't planning on writing a review for this drama (specially because I've never written a review before) but I just finished watching the whole thing and I'm honestly so upset! I want my 16 hours back!!"The King: Eternal Monarch" presented us the concept of parallel worlds and later time travel. THAT'S PRETTY COOL! except it wasn't because it was very poorly executed. And I'm not talking about the actors (they were all pretty good specially Woo Do Hwan). I'm talking about the writing, which was clearly focused on the romance while the whole ~parallel worlds and treason~ storyline stayed in the background.
I really wanted to like this drama but the numerous plot holes just made it very difficult to accompany and focus. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT!! I mean I get it they are being sponsored and supported by these brands but that was absolutely shameless and ruined the immersion.
And now my thoughts on the ending: It made no sense. As simple as that. The King Lee Gon restored everything he wanted and that needed to be restored but that had a price: Jeong Tae-Eul and everyone from the Republic of Korea would forget Lee Gon and his world. And that's what happened... EXCEPT FOR TAE-EUL WHO DIDN'T FORGET ANYTHING!!!! AND WHY? FOR THE SAKE OF ~ROMANCE~ (a romance which, in my opinion, had no chemistry and seemed forced).
That's not how you write a coherent script! A better altrenative would be having Tae-Eul forget Lee Gon and falling in love with him again because she felt in her heart that that was her destiny! But nope! EVERYONE FORGOT COREA EXCEPT THE FEMALE LEAD BECAUSE OF THEIR ROMANCE AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER TRAVELING ACROSS TIME!! HOORAY!!
Can you tell I'm bitter and upset?? :))))))
To be completely honest the only reason I started watching this drama was because of Woo Do Hwan and (as expected) he delivered!! His character was what kept me going through this absolute mess of a drama. And I applaud him for his performance as Jo Yeong and as Jo Eun-Sop!
So, to summarize: If you're looking for a romance with some ~crazy~ background story, go for it! But if you're looking for a drama with a well developed plot and a romance that isn't completely forced, please run! Run as fast as you can and never look back!
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We had thousands of misplaced propaganda, hundreds of plot choices that made no sense, cliches and ideas that were randomly placed in the storyline with no justifiable reason, soundtrack was bad, multiple genres not well integrated and I could go on for many lines.
I also struggled with the chemistry between the main couple, well... There was none. And although Lee Min Ho came a long way in his acting skills, to me his best drama acting wise so far, the project was yet too demanding for his capabilities in my opinion. I’m sorry, he’s still handsome though.
I wish I could point out everything wrong plot wise and direction wise in this drama, but I’ll leave it at that as a warning for future viewers. It’s somewhat watchable still if you have the patience to endure and pretend thinks that make no sense can be overlooked.
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It’s a story about a guy saving his own life. Problems with this drama are too many to count but I’ll try..
1- The romance is super cringy
There are hugs, kisses and I love yous coming out of nowhere...it’s ‘scripted‘ literally and so the scenes have to be done not because the characters feel it naturally to do so...
2- The characters keep changing by the will of the writer.
A few examples given below
The female lead who is a police officer, strong, persistent and unapologetic about what people think of her, becomes a fast paced lovey dovey cry baby and falls for a king just like that. The king who should be trying to look for his murderer day and night is more interested in getting married and developing feelings without any backstory except he found an ID card of a woman when he was a kid.
A really ordinary man saves the king’s life (Not his king) without any training of knowing when and how to jump in front of a shooting bullet!
In the first episode there is a woman shown to be a prime minister and in a parallel universe she’s shown to be a singer/idol because she has huge billboard dedicated to her and female lead also confirms that one would need a ticket to see her... 12 episodes later the idol is just an ordinary person sitting in the bleachers of a ball game with nerdy glasses on and later found in a morgue cause ordinary people are easy to kill. When did the writer decide to change the character image from idol to an ordinary and common person?
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It was a very confusing experience
Expectations were high, it was THE Lee Min Ho comeback, Kim Go Eun working again with Goblin's writer Kim Eun Sook, who created some of the best dramas in the last decade, and lastly, it was on netflix for the global audience delight. But expectations were not met. I'll go through the good stuff first: Wo Do Hwan portrayed two of the most endearable and funny characters I've seen in a long time, and with such fluidity, it was so easy to tell them apart and he had a great chemistry with... Himself (?); music, editing and production design, were fine, even with the difficulties about japanese symbols and all that. Also, the chemistry was good between the leads. NOW THE CONS: I have to reckon it was very confusing for me and I did kind of finished out of a feel of commitment, also hoping everything would be explained in the end, it was not. 1: I didn't understand how and when they fell in love, one second she was so prickly with him, and the next they were kissing, like, what? 2: sometimes it could be hard to tell the two worlds apart, because they looked basically the same 3: Conditions on portal usage and travelling between worlds were all over the place 4: Everything went down when they add timetravelling, like, still haven't figured out the rules of it and how it works with timelines and stuff 5: some subplots didn't go anywhere 6: most of the time it is VERY hard to know what's going on and characters reasoning, i guess they failed at creating suspense, leaving everybody confused instead. Beside that, there are some cheeeeesy lines, but thats a given with LMH characters so i didnt actually mind. Also, i guess a big turnoff for some is the abuse of product placement, there was a lot of it, and not very well done. Although if you ask me, the food delivery service ppl is a gem. Still, DO KOREANS ONLY EAT BBQ FRIED CHICKEN?. And, last objection: The ending is sooooooo unsatisfying.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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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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