The King 2 Hearts

Deserves a lot more recognition!

This is a great drama that I can't believe everyone is sleeping on! I love modern Korea royalty interpretations. The story - although it does have several clichés - is very original in the way it is put together. You constantly know where the story is going and it keeps you on you toes. I love that in dramas. The second I ask myself while watching a drama "Okay, where is all this going?" it's loosing me. But not here. The character development of ML was amazing. He was so unlikeable in the beginning but became my favourite character of the drama. Also FL being badass and being able to save herself was extremely satisfying to watch while not loosing her femininity.
I do have some mild criticism concerning the acting of the foreigners (still don't get why they couldn't get better actors), the villain acted like such a clown in the beginning, the "cute" acting of FL was not good and the portrayal of North Korea did seem quite unrealistic at times. But I can excuse some of these points due to the drama being from 2012 - dramas just weren't as sophisticated back then.
But please don't let these points stop you from watching the drama - it's great and deserves a lot more recognition!

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I love this drama, it made me want to watch Shining Inheritance and My Girlfriend is a Nine tail fox which I had avoided for over 10 months of watching these dramas. This is hands-down one of my all time favorites of the 100 or so Kdramas I've seen. I can barely wait until the next episode...the only down side since most of the dramas I watched in one sitting...16-3+ hours at a time. I have neglected work, husband, etc for these dramas... my family is threatening an intervention. I can't blame them. The female actress is one of my favorites.. the scene. This show has one of my all-time favorites of any action scene and as a person who has seen almost every martial arts movie ever made, that's saying a lot. Don't miss this show. Of course, it has the most despicable antagonist I've ever seen too..I can barely watch him on screen.

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Stockholm syndrome in a nutshell

WARNING this review may contain very slight spoilers, so if you're like me and you don't want to know anything about the drama before watching it, please reconsider reading it.

Watching this drama was truly a wild ride. For various reasons. For first five episodes I was questioning my life choices and wondering if it really is the drama recommended for me by a friend. For a moment there I was sure it was a cruel joke. Like twenty episodes of shaky cam kind of joke. Because getting through those first episodes was really difficult. I don’t know what happened there, who was to blame, but this drama really doesn’t start well. But for those who manage it, their patience will be rewarded. Kinda…

So first impressions. Camerawork is absolutely bizarre. And I’m not only talking about shaky on-hand camera. Using fish eye lenses and very weird angles in the most unexplainable scenes, it all adds up to very weird and sometimes hard to watch cinematography. Plus it makes the series look very outdated. Shaky cam may not be annoying all the time, but in a scene where two characters are running with cameras strapped to them and next on hand camera following them, I’ve honestly started feeling nauseous. The problem persist with the lighting, or lack thereof. We only have natural lightning, which really doesn't do it's job. Colours look very washed and a lot of unnecessary shadows appear. Sometimes it looks almost as those cheap para-documentary series.

Let’s talk about first impressions about the characters.
So we have couple of main characters. I’m not sure why does the trope of male lead being a total asshole at first even exist, but it does and needs to be talked about. I’ve seen it a couple of times already and male character making fun of female, being absolutely mean towards her of even openly ridicule her is just so bad. Why does it even exist when after scenes like that I never want leads to end up together? I understand character development reasons, I know that in couple of episodes those characters will fall in love with each other, but at this point it just seems so unrealistic, that even later on I had trouble coping with it. There are some things that just cannot be so early forgotten.
Villain in this series is absolutely exaggerated. Him and all his people is just such a weird bunch of characters that there’re mostly ridiculously funny rather than scary. It's really hard to treat seriously someone who's main character trait is eating chocolates in weird manner.
Overall characters sometimes seem so childish it just seem so unrealistic that their actions would be possible in the army.

So we get the main character, Lee Jae Ha, your average, everyday Korean prince. You know the type, right? I always assumed that being royalty means that from early childhood you’re being taught how to manage this life. Well I guess Jae Ha skipped some lessons, because his older brother was equally with me embarrassed with mostly all the things that he did. His greatest accomplishment in the early episodes was not being killed right away by the North Korean team and trust me, nobody would blame them. And I know that it was explained that he attended normal school to blen in with the plebs or something, but still it looks like the guy has no preservation instinct whatsoever.
Opposite him, we have Kim Hang Ah, lethal weapon of North Korean Army. Woman who can kill you with rolled newspaper or whatever there is. Her only weakness is that the moment she changes from her uniform, she becomes this annoying high school girl who only dreams of finding herself a boyfriend. I’m not kidding, the change was overwhelming and so comical that I just couldn’t believe it. At one point she’s this strong soldier and then she acts like a damsel in distress being absolutely childish. When she’s off duty she dresses and acts like a high schooler and it completely doesn’t fit her serious army demeanour.
One more thing about this character, or rather the actress portraying her. Ha Ji Won. I’ve already seen her in Secret Garden, and I don’t know what happened but here her acting in some moments was so off. Maybe it’s because of her North Korean accent. To be honest, I’ve heard genuine North Korean accent only couple of times, so I’m no expert, but for her it sounded so artificial that it was hard to watch some scenes. It looks more like she tried to make fun of the accent.

So after all of this, we finally get like eight episode and finally this drama can pass as watchable. I will try not to include any spoilers here, but beware. At this point we get some instant character development (like, you know, absolutely irresponsible child of a man suddenly decides that he can rule the country of something) and finally some minor intrigue (till this point the villain was mostly unintended comic relief). We’ve been served cliche amnesia and blackmail. But life seems back to normal and anthem is the biggest issue now. We discovered that casually listening to Flight of the Valkiries while chilling in the garden passes in Korea as something normal and news headline is absolutely valid piece of evidence in court. We’re being served harsh truth about life and some other weird ideas. Overall a lot is happening in this drama, but it’s mostly just a lot of minor events that barely influence anything since they’re rarely mentioned more than once.
Scenes related to politics and international relations were mostly ridiculous and thanks to English speaking actors exaggerated ad unintentionally comical.

And here’s a twist. After all that bickering, after pointing out all of those things and more, that I cannot write here, cause spoilers, I woke up one day and decided that I enjoyed this drama. I don’t know what kind of weird Stockholm syndrome that was, but at some point I’ve actually started liking the characters and the drama started to be even enjoyable. I still seen all those ridiculous motives, I still think that the villain here was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. But somehow after twentieth episode I decided that I’m going to miss this drama.

I’d say that this drama is like a pug. You know, this small, cross eyed, snoring dog. It’s a bit ugly, it’s somehow sad, but you still love it. It just grows on you.

And I want to explain the rating I'm going to give. 6.5/10 is for me hight for this drama. At first I was thinking about giving it 3, but second half of the series redeemed a bit the mistakes of poor writing and bad cinematography. This drama is not perfect, it's somehow good but only when it's not embarrassingly naive. Still, I'm glad that I made it to the end.

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starts out riveting but leads have no chemistry. Violence & traumatizing deaths

I felt like this drama was was written very badly.
Here's a list of things that made this rather "meh"

1) The Female lead every so often would suddenly start to act really cringy presenting the girly side of her character & it was not only embarrassing but unbelievable.

2) Lead Male was presented as bad boy/womanizer but you never see anything to back it up.

3) American soldier being named Colonel Sanders -seriously !? It's a well known persona who represents an American chicken franchise !

The started out riveting but

4) the leads had no romantic chemistry

5) The bad guys were too scary.
6) The death scenes were traumatizing.
7)A beloved character dies later in the series & though it's handled well, it was too much.
8) Things are winding down [with the bad guys] Then, they bring them back for another round trouble. UGH! So much tension.

By episode 18 It was tedious & I was really, really tired of it .

9) I was disappointed with the writing of the female lead that was so tough and capable in the first part of the series but who was easily overwhelmed in the 2nd part. She had so many skills and training but a bullet wound to the arm just takes her out...really ?!

10) There was so much of the series that was violent & unpleasant

I liked the leads but they had zero chemistry and the romance was written badly.

Random notes:
Though it is never shown - a couple sleep together which ends up being important, but it caught me by surprise [could they not have mentioned it!?]

Weirdly, the queen mother wore the same earrings in every single shot & they were really plain and cheap looking.

a brief happy ending and then a 4 year time skip! {death to time skips !!!}

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This show is an EPIC MESS.

If you're looking for a North-South romance, you'll be better off just watching Crash Landing on You.

The first few episodes of this show were rough. Just a bunch of barely connected scenes (I legitimately considered the possibility I was blacking out and missing parts of the episodes, that's how little sense they made). They got better later on (either that, or I just stopped expecting the show to make sense), but the later episodes, especially towards the middle were much more enjoyable than the first ones (the WOC ones were my fave).

Honestly, there's always something so compelling about the star-crossed lovers trope. It's hard not rooting for the underdog; for the young couple in love that has to fight against the world to be together. I think with a tighter, cleaner script this show could have been a smashing success.

Well, a better script and a whole new cast of western actors. This show had an insane amount of none Asians playing minor (and not so minor) roles, but not a single one of them could act to save their lives. TBH, they probably could have done better if they'd just casted foreigners off the street (or maybe that's what did and why everyone was so awful).

The main cast did an ok job given the insane script the had to work with. I kinda disliked Hang Ah's characters because she kept switching personalities and turning into a meek, helpless, weak little girl when she was supposed to be a badass Special Forces soldier, trained in assassination methods, torture techniques and whatnot. But I'm sure Ha Ji Won did her best with what she was given. And, at least, she played off Lee Seung Gi pretty well. Special mention also to Lee Yoon Ji, she really did gave her role as the traumatized princess her all.

Overall, a lot more enjoyable that I would have first thought (and it went by surprisingly fast given how long it was), but I still don't know that I would recommend it. There are so many other better shows out there. Just go watch CLoY instead.

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THE ULTIMATE FEELS

It's been too long that I enjoyed a drama as this much. I feel too much for this. AND I AM WATCHING THIS IN THE YEAR OF 2026, FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER IT HAS AIRED.
First of all a FUCKIN BADASS female lead. I really loved how she stayed till the end. She was consistent throughout.(well except the fact that she was a little off written in first some episodes- like how she just trusts Lee Jae Ha very easily and is kinda easily manipulatable for a North Korean SPECIAL FORCE CAPTIAN?). But ma girl came through, even till the last episode where she was ready to shoot him and planning an escape while kidnapped. SHE IS A DIVA AND THATS THE END OF DISCUSSION.PERIOD.
Now, to our king- I mean Yea Comrade Lee, he was very much irritable at first. OMG, I just wished to smash his head onto a wall at times. -ALSO YOU DON'T FUCKIN PLAY WITH ONES EMOTIONS AND FEELING, YOU PRICK. Okay ignoring the initial him, the latter him was chef's kiss. He has an insane character development and I'm here for it. BUT also, he felt off written at times- like he was said to be someone with great IQ and all, but he acted very childish sometimes. I think I kinda expected more from him, but yeahh whatever he was, he was realestic and great.
Talking of the story- I didn't even know a 20 episode drama could end this easily. Personally, this drama did NOT drag at any parts. It was THE perfect pace for me. It wasn't rushed nor was it lagged. The story unfolded in the way I loved. I loved how characters developed over time. And mostly the VILLIAN. First time in history I'm seeing a villain with an actual brain. Also, special mention to his torture methods, because that is as realistic as things can get. What I felt this drama had difference compared to others was in the 19th episode, I mean after catching John Mayar, the story actually continued. My boy, I totally didn't expect it because in dramas usually that would be the last episode and everything is good and happy, bye bye. But here, it showed his influence after he was arrested- because he had the money AND power. He was bailed out- yeahh that is realistic and I loved the drama for it.
Now, moving on to why this wen from 10 to 9.5 -*SPOLIER**SPOLIER* THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN EUN. Yeah, I am soo very disappointed because of his death. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to live. He had endured through that much trauma just to die?? No, bro you didn't deserve that death, idc you shoud've been alive and become the princess's bf. That was a shitty AF move and I HATE THAT. Also sometimes someone dying is okay, like the former king and queen who just died.. but the problem was the Eun Shi Gyun dying was totally unnecessary and I stand by it. Yeah, and also because of some inconsistency I felt both for the king's and Hang Ah's character in the beginning, that's the only reason we went down .5 .
And finally just wanted to say this drama for me had the perfect amount of all mixes for me, romance, comedy, politics, king x officer, princess x bodyguard. And, the realism as well - how Asians are treated on a global level, the racial discrimination, the political imbalance, historical differences for ally's of different countries and all also resonated deeply with me. To me, it was written well and with great consideration. But, I am not very literate on history between countries so idk how much of it was actually correct.

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Good cast, mediocre writing

The drama has an intriguing premise and a strong cast but sadly the execution is weak and unexpectedly
amateurish.
The most problematic part for me is that the drama fails to establish both the characters and the
relationships between them. The main leads are a South Korean prince (Lee Seung Gi) and a North
Korean special forces female officer (Ha Ji Won). It sounds promising but in fact not enough thought or
effort has been put into developing the characters and they come off as shallow and are really hard to
emphasize with. Especially the Fl faking the North Korean accent and acting cute and naïve look so lame to the
point it is impossible to take her seriously. I actually like the actress but the character she portrays here
is just not written well.
The prince is an equally underdeveloped character. When in the beginning he is spoilt and utterly
disrespectful to everybody else it looks convincing. Further on the supposed transformation into caring
and less selfish person is not explored enough and lacks subtlety. By the final episodes he does get
somewhat better and more defined but it is already too late. The romance line between the leads is no
better. Instead of showing how they gradually start to appreciate and fall for each other despite initial
distrust and differences the drama has two random people spending many weeks humiliating and
harming each other in all possible ways. Then suddenly she is deeply in love and ready to marry the guy
who did nothing but played cruel jokes on her. And what the prince feels is not even possible to
determine. They have almost zero scenes showing the growing affection or even mere attraction. They
even communicate smoothly only under influence of alcohol. Sure by the ending episodes there is some
glimpse of the feelings but not much. Besides the scriptwriter seems not to know how to use dialogues
because they all make little sense and add nothing to the characterization.
The second couple is definitely preferable to the main one though their relationship also is not given
enough time and effort. Nevertheless Jo Jung Suk does a truly great job portraying his character’s shy
but loyal and staunch personality. His quiet undemanding love for the beautiful, vulnerable and
impulsive princess (Lee Yoon Ji) is so endearing and sweet. Jo Jung Suk’s amazing performance is the
only really good thing the drama has to offer. If only more screen time and better dialogues would be
given to their story instead of the silly military tournament or the ridiculous antagonist. The couple’s
ending is a heavy blow and such an infuriatingly unnecessary drama for the sake of drama that my blood
still boils at the thought of it.
Now to the plot. It has little logic or sense. What is the reasoning behind marrying the only male heir of
the South Korean royal family to a random North Korean woman who is in the military on top of that? It
is never properly explained. And how dumb and careless the king can be to trespass into the North
Korea just to get his woman back after they had an argument? Or to make his engagement depend on
the success of the Korean team at the military tournament?
The antagonist is a joke and not threatening at all. What he is supposed to be with all his magical tricks
and sick humor? A Korean Joker or something? His “American” sidekicks are doubly cringe worthy. The
drama is evidently trying to show how an evil transnational corporation is gaining power over the
governments but it is done in extremely awkward and simplistic way.
I would hardly recommend the drama to anyone as it is mediocre in almost everything from script
to directing, even good acting (and good looks) of the cast can not redeem it.

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Uchronie qui remet un Roi sur le trône de Corée du Sud, avec une femme soldat de Corée du Nord.

J’ai été embarquée dans ce drama comme dans une traversée de tempête, comme quand le navire tangue et roule et menace à tout instant de couler !
Je m’y suis mise dans le cadre de ma nouvelle et violente addiction à Lee Seung Ki(et naturellement il y est génial, mais j’y reviendrai) mais c’est le drama lui-même qui m’a emballée au sens propre du terme.
D’abord l’idée excellente de ce royaume constitutionnel de Corée du Sud. Ce n’était pas inédit, mais justement le souvenir d’ennui profond et de larmoiements de « Goong » m’en avait tenue éloignée malgré de nombreux avis positifs croisés ça et là. Mais pas d’ennui ici ! Le reconstitution de ce royaume fictif est excellente, on s’y croit vraiment. De rebondissements en complots, de déclaration de guerre imminente en enlèvements et assassinats divers, on n’arrête jamais !
La relation amoureuse entre le Prince et l’Officier des forces spéciales (dit comme ça, ça fait bizarre ! ) est très bien menée, pas du tout évidente au début, puis de plus en plus profonde et forte. Le Roi donne parfaitement l’image de l’homme de bonne volonté qui se heurte aux obstacles politiques et économiques d’une dure réalité.
Tous les personnages sont passionnants, le Capitaine d’une fidélité à toute épreuve, le Secrétaire général au cœur partagé, la Princesse frivole et en même temps durement touchée, sans oublier l’horrible Homme de l’ombre, vrai machiavel démoniaque, qu’on a envie de tuer tout de suite… mais alors plus de drama, car il est quand même l’élément moteur essentiel de l’histoire.
Je rajoute une bande son magnifique, des musiques variées, parfaitement adaptées aux scènes, et même les chansons sont belles et parfaitement discrètes !
Donc ce drama est parfait ! Parfait ? Non, la perfection n’est pas de ce monde !
Les défauts : Le Méchant frôle parfois la caricature et la vraisemblance de son pouvoir est parfois limite.
Les Nord-coréens sont d’une grande bonne volonté (on aimerait voir Kim Jong Eun comme ça ! ) frisant parfois le bisounours, Une certaine tragédie aurait pu être évitée, elle n’ajoute rien, sauf une obligation de pleurer (et j’ai pleuré ! )
La façon de parler bizarrement « gamine » de l’Officier !
Mais j’ai réfléchi à ces défauts minimes parce que j’ai essayé d’être objective, après avoir fini, parce que pendant, on n’y pense pas ! On fonce !
Un mot quand même sur Lee Seung Ki : encore une fois son talent dans l’émotion éclate dans les scènes émouvantes, l’expressivité de son regard est incroyable ! Frappé d’un chagrin immense, les larmes lui jaillissent positivement des yeux ! Son investissement est total, sa sincérité et sa justesse aussi !! Bref, je l’adore ! Mais maintenant j’attends de lui un rôle où il ne serait pas odieux au début pour finir dans la perfection totale !!
En conclusion, ce drama est très très recommandable !

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