9.5/10 is my rating. This is a 2020/2021 South Korean Historical Romantic Comedy with paranormal elements. There are 20, 70-90 minute episodes. It is also known under the web comic name "Go Princess Go".

In the modern age Jang Bong-hwan (Choi Jin-hyuk) was a star chef at the Blue House until one of the dishes he made was dangerously sabotaged and he was nearly arrested. While escaping arrest he falls into a swimming pool and wakes up to find himself not only in the Josean era but in the body of a woman. And not just any woman but a woman who, in days, will become Queen. Queen Cheorin (Shin Hye-sun) somehow wound up in the lake and part of Bong-hwan's goal is to get back to the lake and get his former self and life back. Only one problem - the lake was drained after the incident under the Dowager Queen's order and she is not immediately willing to refill it. Luckily Bong-hwan/Queen Cheorin is able to use her cooking skill to win favor with the dowager to get the lake refilled. Bong-hwan had not heard good things about King Cheoljong (Kim Jung-hyun) from the history books and figures he will be easy to manipulate. However, it seems there are reasons why history recorded him as a weak king and a prolific womanizer. Things are not all they seemed from history and Bong-hwan/Queen Cheorin have their work cut out for them to sort through the mess and make it back to the future. There is more to King Cheoljong than meet the eye and keeping your friends close and your enemies closer seem to be the rule of the day for Bong-hwan. Will Bong-hwan be successful in returning to his own time/body and will the sparks that fly between King Cheolijong and his curious and spirited wife become something more?

I laughed so hard in the beginning of this. His horror at being in a female body coupled with him trying to submerge his head in every bit of water to “get back” was funny. spoilers***
At first I really liked her cousin as second guy as he seemed sweet and caring but his character got darker as time went on to the point I no longer wanted to see her with him. The historical information the chef knew about the king was interesting. According to the modern time history books he was not a very good king and was only interested in women. Queen Cheorin originally found that she was supposed to be only there as a convenient marriage to keep a power structure in place and the king was not at all inerested in her because she was associated with a very corrupt and powerful family. The king’s love interest in the beginning was his concubine and since the queen was now actually a man in a woman’s body she was perfectly fine with him directing his attention elsewhere. Ironically the fact that she was so disinterested in him was something that piqued the king‘s interest. The queens somewhat bizarre behavior and interesting antics wound up endearing her not only to the king but to a lot of the palace servants as well. I liked how the relationship between the king and the queen evolved over time and each character had a lot of character growth and development throughout. There were some truly villainess and evil people in the palace and they were constantly after the king and also the queen to take as much power for themselves as possible. In fact when they discovered the king was not the convenient figurehead they thought he was it became their goal to get rid of both the Royals. The queen discovered why the king was the way he was and that in reality he was very capable and working behind the scenes to try to take down the evil and corrupt family behind the royal structure. The entire series held my interest from beginning to end. The only thing I did not like was the chef left the queen‘s to return to modern times and it felt like the queen was not fully the person the king had fallen in love with. Also now the chef is back in modern times and you assume he returned to his previous lifestyle which did not seem all that good. It felt like you spent a long time getting to know the queen who was a combination of the girl and the modern day chef and even though they tried to illustrate that she still remembered a lot of how he was it still did not fully seem like the same person. To me it felt like both the king and the chef were cheated out of a relationship they developed. Since the he was in a she body then it wasn’t like a male to male relationship it was like a female to male relationship with a female that just happened to be a little more masculine in her thinking. It seemed to me that they returned him to modern times leaving the body fully to the queen just to avoid any to male to male overtones. Love is love so I did not see any gain from having the queen changed at the last minute to being only partially what she had been when the queen king fell in love with her. The chef’s return to modern times also meant he could look at history and see it changed but that would have been obvious even if he stayed in the past. Overall it is still very good and I would highly recommend it as one of the funniest and most engaging Korean dramas.


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