Kingdom Episode 1

Solid Start

The first thing I will mention about this episode is that the violence depicted is unlike anything else I've seen on Korean television. Usually, Korean TV stays away from overt violence and oodles of blood. I know that this is a Netflix series, but I noticed right away that this show is far bloodier than traditional Korean TV. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a pretty obvious break from the norm.I must tip my hat to the writer for making me sympathetic with the Crown Prince almost instantaneously.I love Bae Doo Na.The twist right at the end with the soup was really good, but I guessed the twist as soon as I saw the soup. Maybe I'm intuitive, maybe it was easy to guess. I'm not sure, but it was still a solid twist.The scenes are all very dark. Not content-wise, but lighting-wise. In some scenes, it works and adds to the mood. In other scenes, it just makes everything difficult to see. The show looks very nice over all, though I did notice at one point that, when Bae Doo Na shouted, the mics popped a little. For as large of a budget as this show appears to have, it's kind of disappointing that the sound engineers let that slip through. It cheapens the show a bit.

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