I have seen Shin Hye Sun in three series before this one: Oh, My Ghost, Stranger, and most recently in Hymn of Death. All of the above are dramatic roles, and all I can say is, “Oh, my God!” Her comedic chops are off the charts! She is nothing short of brilliant, stealing virtually every single scene that she is in! I compare her to Lucille Ball. While the rest of the cast is absolutely fantastic, this series doesn’t work without Shin Hye Sun’s incomparable performance!

Most body-switching movies and shows are same-gender switches. I’ve seen just a handful of cross-gender switches, and while they tend to go for comedic effects, the actors tend to overcompensate. The man exaggerates female characteristics such as speech and walking while the woman does the same. Shin Hye Sun, instead, goes for more subtlety and realism as a man who’s suddenly been thrust into the body of the Queen. Jang Bong Hwan is a chef from the future, so he not only has to figure out how to live in the body of a woman but also a woman who also happens to be of royalty!

What we end up getting is some of the funniest and zaniest roles I’ve ever seen. Shin Hye Sun brilliantly doesn’t even alter her speech very much. Just to the point in her smirk, the way she sits and communicates, which is Jang Bong Hwan’s style. In short, she gives us a very masculine queen as well as one from the future, who isn’t afraid to inject current idioms, terms, and ideas into her speech, often causing hilarious confusion among the Joseon people from 200 years ago who have no idea what she’s talking about. King Cheol Jong even begins keeping a Dictionary of the Queen’s Language in an attempt to understand her. He also has no idea why his once docile queen is now far more aggressive and direct in her speech and manners!

We are taken back to Joseon about 200 years in the past when a puppet king is being controlled by nearly everyone around him, but most notably by the Grand Queen Dowager, the Queen Dowager, and Kim Jwa Geun (the Grand Queen Dowager’s brother). It did take me a few episodes to get the names down because there are so many. Basically, you have two rival families in the Kim’s and the Jo’s who are vying for control of the country. The Queen is of the Kim family while the King is of the Jo family. Little do they realize that the King is far stronger than anyone realized or anticipated as he struggles to find a way to bring balance and contentment to his subjects, who mostly live in slavery and poverty. But the wild card in this drama is the Queen. No longer meek and docile, Jang Bong Hwan quickly decides that the Queen is nobody’s puppet and nobody’s fool. Instead, he figures out a way to understand his new role but also how to help the King gain power to stand up to those who would use him for their own purposes.

I’ve said this in numerous reviews already, but Koreans are masters of storytelling and always find a way to convey an uplifting message or something to think about to improve things. This series is no different. Overall, the series is comedic, but it does have some dramatic moments, some heart-wrenching ones, and also some inspiring ones too. In the end, we find that both King Cheol Jong and Queen Kim So Yong (after she’s reverted back to herself without Jang Bong Hwan) have both changed (even if Jang Bong Hwan left behind a few seeds of influence!). Jang Bong Hwan, himself, realizes that he is no longer the same, self-serving man that he was before either. He wisely states, “Perhaps it isn’t about trying not to be rotten, but instead cutting out what is rotten.” And that such an idea might—in fact—help to change the world, but it first begins with changing yourself. Gandhi himself stated as much when he said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

This is simply one of the most delightful series I’ve seen, and it is literally rock solid from beginning to end. I kept waiting to see if the story would begin to falter or drop off slightly toward the end. It didn’t. It kept me completely invested from beginning to end.

Unfortunately, the government in Joseon from 200 years ago proves that not much has changed in the world since that time. The rich still oppress the poor. The powerful still exploit the weak are always in search of ways to retain even more power. Mr. Queen gives us some food for thought; that just because that is how things are, it doesn’t mean that nothing can be done or that they must somehow stay that way. King Cheol Jong and Queen Kim So Yong give us two examples of what can be done if will, determination, and courage are vested. Or perhaps one of my favorite quotes from Lord of the Rings: Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.