De Koning: Eeuwige Monarch (2020)

A lengthy review...

An over ambitious project from star scriptwriter KES, that buckles under the weight of it's own arrogance. This drama fails to respect the intelligence of it's viewers, by littering it with a minefield of plot holes, cliches, overwrought acting, and ineffective filler characters. In fact, one can't help but think that out of the hundreds of plot lines this drama attempts, if it had just focused on one, it would not have been as bad.

For a supposed modern drama, you would think that the writer would move away from emulating 1960's Disney shows, where characters were either morally black or white. But no, she chooses to portray the the Villain and Heroes in KTEM as either Extremely black, or Extremely White; there was nary a grey character to be spotted. And the few that were grey were rendered useless, as their characters morality are swiftly demolished in the latter episodes. The character in KTEM end up being very boring one dimensional character, lacking any depth, character, and complexity.

The writer does a poor job of showing neutrality in her writing as her bias for the hero character of LG is shown again and again versus the incompetent villain in LR. From episode 1, all the way to episode 16, we are bombarded with repetitive propaganda on the merits and accomplishments of the main lead LG. In fact almost all the scenes with LG and another character, whether hero or villain, exist to show us the viewers, how amazing LG is. This pervasive themes of omnipotency in the drama is a real turn off for me, as I cannot relate nor feel any sort of emotional attachment to such a privileged character, fiction or otherwise.

To be fair, the concept on paper sounds good. In fact many viewers may have already seen time travel, parallel worlds done properly in other shows, and thus were excited to see KTEM. KES
could have just used existing time travel/parallel world theories and put her own mark on it. But that isn't what happened. What we ended up with instead, is the case where a writer is trying to be too clever and failing miserably. What happens when you create and misuse so many plot devices? They slowly morph into glaring plot holes. The story employed ineffective plot twist, reset buttons, and retrograded many of it's time travel/parallel world theories as the foundation of the show. A foundation that was built shakily, and was easily decimated by the intelligent viewing population.

In fact, one can argue that the writer, in her hubris, made a drama so inexplicable, that she believes viewers who do not understand what is happening, will just immediately assume that the drama is too smart for them, and proclaim it a masterpiece. The problem here is that, even though KES did not bother doing any actual research on such a technical genre as science fiction, the smarter local/international audience, did. So the improper logic, false theories, and faulty scientific explanations, all just serve to further instigate a viewing audience, that is already reeling and cringing from a hyper unrealistic and bland romance.

Based on KES previous works, like DOTS, Goblin, and etc... Most fans know that in her dramas, romance is at it's core. Somehow, KTEM did not get the memo. Although the romantic scenes are plentiful, albeit forced, the show's insistence on inserting poorly researched time travel theories, for the sake of increasing the show's IQ, is very distracting from the already weak romance it is trying to build. So instead of attempting to build a proper romantic connection between the two main leads, the show instead waste a lot of time building a pantheon of side characters, who in the end serve no purpose to the plot, other than to make us laugh at the absurdity of it all. The moments between the ML and FL are suppose to be punctuated by a beautiful set design, production value, and mellow OST. But because of the ineffective buildup, much of the emotions you are suppose to feel, do not line up.

Themes, metaphors, and symbolism, all serve important roles in many literary works. But, instead of focusing on one central theme or motif for the entire shows, it appears KES has pulled in symbolism and metaphors from various literary works (Alice in Wonderland and Greek Mythology for example) and tried to forcefully insert it into the plot to give the show the appearance of depth. But just like with most of her writing in KTEM, these insertions serve no real purpose. They do not add a deeper understanding of the story, but rather exist to continually clash with each other, and further confuse it's audience.

Compared to most reviewers, I actually don't mind PPL, I understand it's importance in a show, and I often can easily ignore it. But the PPL in KTEM is a whole different beast. The PPL's in KTEM are so poorly timed, that they distract you, and forces you to shift your mindset away from the plot, and onto their sales pitch. There are even a few occasion where a PPL takes front row seats over a supposedly important scene. In fact BBQ Olive Chicken PPL may be the least obtuse of the all the PPL's on the show, and that is saying a lot.

The show attempts to emulate a "Memento" (US movie) type of editing, where the past is being shown in clips in future episodes. But what was so effective in "Memento", absolutely fails in KTEM as the editor/director spliced, and restructured the scenes in a very pointless way, that in the end you ask yourself, "What was the point of that scene?". The poor editing also made sure that any emotional impact of the show is never felt, because just as you are about to process an emotion, whether it is love, sadness, or anger, you are already being dragged to the next contrasting emotion. The drama would have benefited from less episodes, in fact it boggles my mind how they were able to stretch it out for so long. Oh wait, I remember now, they had so many slow mo romantic scenes that lasted at times 10-15 minutes in one take. And Since there is no emotional attachment early on, all these scenes really accomplishes is to make you feel as awkward as seeing two siblings making out.

The boring pace of the drama isn't helped by both Main Leads. As if LMH could not get blander, he somehow finds another lower notch in his acting belt. I don't even think LMH knows how he should be acting, and it shows. What we get is an incredibly haughty, emotionless, monotone speaking, narcissistic ML, who KES decide to make omnipotent. Compared to other more traditional actors, who don't rely on looks, LMH's stiff acting, emotionless voice, and lack of any facial muscles, makes his acting as tiring as watching paint dry. The only emotion that you feel watching him is emptiness.

KGE on the other hand, tries her best to illicit some chemistry from LMH, but you can only get so much water from a stone. I am biased against KGE, because I hated her in Goblin, and still remember her character from there as incredibly annoying. But I will take her nubile Goblin Bride over this hardened female police office, who WILL NOT stop crying about everything. But STILL, she does better in her role than LMH.

The only advantage I can see about the parallel world concept is that it allows the better actors in the drama to show their acting range. Best example of this being WDH. His portrayal of ES and JY is superb, you feel more chemistry between these two than the Main Couple. SJ, is another standout from the show, as you could not help but root for him to have a satisfactory ending given his hardship. KES does a satisfactory job of creating supporting characters that we can care about. But unfortunately, after these characters are created, the plot then proceeds to either place them in the meat grinder, or remove their screen presence completely. This is tragic, because if you get as far as episode ten, you will start to appreciate the backstory, life, and character development of the supporting actors more than the Main Lead, only to see all that emotional investment go to waste. I myself have been absolutely devastated with the way the writing has treated the PM, a strong, independent woman.

One last thing I would like to touch on. Almost every cliffhanger in the show, has been anti-climatic, the cliffhanger happens at the end of the show, or is a minor/major plot twist in the middle. As viewers, we are often fooled by these plot devices because we think that they are important pieces of the KTEM puzzle; more often than not though, the logic, and reasoning of these plot device fall short of our expectation, and viewers often end up feeling disappointed to see such buildup, explained away in one to two sentences. The show really does a great job of pushing you away from the edge of your seat.

Long story short, KTEM is essentially a below average drama that was dressed nicely with a high production budget and big stars. The only thing KTEM manages to accomplishes in it's 16 episode run is to constantly disappoint it's viewers each week.

Would not recommend this drama even if you are a fan of the LMH and KGE.

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