This review may contain spoilers
VERY Long Fever Dream.
I'm so mad that I don't even want to write a full review at that...In the beginning during episodes 1-5, I enjoyed the show. I was confused a little bit but still enjoyed! But somewhere in the middle just ticked me off. Like... what the hell is even happening?!
The story is basically about time traveling at this point. The female lead sucks a bit, the male lead is way too nice. No personality after that. The second female lead is just annoying. Woo Do hwan's character was the only one I enjoyed. In fact, he's on my new favorite actors list.
What's even happening in the story?? I have so many questions! How did so many people time travel?? How did it even work?? Why is Luna even involved??
The romance. Oh. My. IT SUCKED! When did they fall in love?! Didn't Tae Eul literally not like Lee Gon the first few episodes?! When did they start dating!? Like. What?
OH! And DONT let me talk about the villain or villains if their were more but, they SUCKED. THEY WERE SOOO BAD! Where they even a main??
The acting was average. Nothing made me feel emotional. Expect for that one scene with both of Woo Do Hwan's characters.
OST reminds me of Goblin but just way worse? It was alright though, nothing that made me die in the inside. I actually enjoyed 1 or 2 soundtracks
I am NEVER, repeating again, NEVER watching this again! Unless I wanna, 1, cringe, 2, change my score 3, just watch for my 3 favorite actors again, or 4, just for memories.
Finishing this show was like a chore. I won't lie, the endings did make me hooked for more even though I skipped basically 80% of the show.
This show is whole damn fever dream. it's like taking Benadryl one day and you dreamed about this. Then woke up and said "what the hell was that?"
Anyway, this show tried to be Goblin a bit, it failed. I don't recommend but if you are THAT much of a fan of any of the mains, check it out. Not even Lee Min Ho, Kim Go Eun or Woo Do Hwan could save this show.
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If you are looking for a simple love story or a plain science fiction, this one is not for you. This is like a brain game. Every single detail shouldn't be missed, well, of course, there are some scenes and dialogues that are so cheezy and quite long, but that's the downside of the story.
The writer was not able to justify bringing the two lovers in one world, but that's the exact reality of what might happen if there is really a parallel world. I love the story.
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You might have to watch a few episodes more than once to understand what the writers are trying to show us.
The main idea is pretty good and well thought even if sometimes the execution fails to make us understand what is going on.
However I enjoyed every minutes of it and was excited each week to discover a new episode.
The first 3 episodes have some boring moments but after that it’s hard not to get into this drama. despites a few plot holes (but which drama doesn’t have some???) this was very unpredictable and entertaining.
The music and the actors are pretty good. It was my second time seeing a drama with Woo Do Han after Mad Dog and I’m not disappointed.
I’m just sad to say goodbye and I can’t wait to watch another drama with these actors. I’m gonna miss this drama
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This review may contain spoilers
STORY: This drama had plenty of possibilities to be entertaining an unforgettable. But it did not lived up the expectations. It was too messy trying to handle too many characters and too many events including details some very important some completely useless. The writer spent the first part of the drama placing all these elements little by little like Lee Lim placing his pieces of chess where all this led? Nowhere. When the action arrived and the characters started to take place in the plot, the drama seemed to take its momentum but it kept being erratic and when the final had to be delivered, there was not enough time to properly wrap up. The writer just scribbled a terrible ending by sending everyone in a maelstrom of time travelling completely absurd but with happy ending for almost everyone. But everyone are not the same ones of course since everything changed. What a silly way of ending a drama. I don't even mention the romance totally forced and not natural. Them ending as time and space travelers until they get old is a joke. They are scientists? They try to correct events? The purpose is to go drink tea? Nonsense ending.
ACTING / CHARACTERS :
- Lee Gon was just too perfect to be sympathetic or credible. The guy could do every good thing (calculating, cooking, rowing, beating, shooting, riding...) or bad thing (order suicide, executing unarmed people, slaying people out of rage, beheading people) all this without being held accountable. How 2020 Lee Gon version 2 doesn't meet 2020 Lee Gon version 1 who came to save Lee Gon as kid? How he did not vanished if Nothing happened in ROK? The way LMH portrayed him was annoying, boring, usual LMH work.
- Tael Eul was interesting at first when she was a cop and she was working on cases and then she become infatuated to the King God knows how and when or where. Then it is only about them missing each other and finding each other. She is a police officer but when Lee Gon slayed people with his sword for free she did not even blink an eye. Inconsistent writing. KGE did a decent job but no sparkles with her co star.
- Luna: what happens to her in the ROK? She just dies like that? She never happened? KGE was better in this role
- Lee Lim : He scarcely appeared, looked so mean but without clear motivations but ended up killed by his younger self in 1994 but he appears again anyway in 2020?? (terrible plot hole) . He vanishes in the twilight zone with his clothes but not his watch which turns counter clockwise because it looks nice this way... Lee Jung Jin wasted his time in this drama.
- Jo Young : No character development for him. He is just a bodyguard. If we assume he survived his travel in 1994 the Myung Seung Ah he meets back in KOC is not even the one he met at the beginning of the story. That scene in the corridor has no backstory.
- Eun Sub : a simple comic relief.
- Shin Jae: most complex and interesting character but what is the end for him? He hugs his mom and that's it? If He never happened in ROK, Lee Gon also never happened and Jo Yeoung as well. These two should have vanished like Lee Lim.
- Prime Minister: Starts a capable strong female who chases Lee Gon but she ends up a divorcee?? who falls from grace before her connections with Lee Lim are even explained.
- Nari / Myung Seung Ah : I am divided between "they were wasted" or "they were useless"
- The woman who is pregnant in KOC and gets swapped in ROK. For what? Just being beaten by her husband? Another plot hole and useless writing.
MUSIC:
I spent my time trying hard to find the logic of the events and characters so no time to notice the music. No song catched my attention.
REWATCH: Never.
OVERALL: This drama is a waste of talent and a waste of time. If you like beautiful and handsome actors showing their best side to the camera, you can try it. If you look for a good, well written and entertaining story, you shall pass. This drama tells you a draggy messy improbable story of some people and events and it ends up telling you "tricked! It never happened...". But how it never happened if it happened for it to never happen. Stupid writing. Stupid drama.
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I personally like this series mind you I had low expectations because of the reviews that I have read however I watched episode 1 to 9 from morning to night and I was surprise that it got me hooked. I finished the whole series in 2 days and I was on edge the whole time because I just couldn't predict what would happen or how the character would react to difficult moments.
If you want to watch this because of the romantic LMH that you have seen in other series don't expect that here. There are some very romantic scenes but not a lot. Its not your typical romcom. I like the way he expresses love here though it's more realistic lets say compared to his character in The Heirs or BOF. When I watched those shows I always say no such guy exists.
Main comment is Its a complicated tv series even the flow of the scene is not typical. It starts one scene and very subtly ends that scene and you will think that was it. However in the next episode it will show an in-depth view of the scene. This is where I would say a lot of people think it was messy. For me doing it that way gave me that "ahhh" or "gotcha" moment while watching the next ep. Had the director and writer done it the usual way of doing the whole scene in and then a cliffhanger could have change the viewers perception. I like the way they did it but its not everyone's cup of tea. Reminds me of the movie Inception wherein there were so many layers to the scene.
What I like about it was almost every episode there is a "twists" and that got me. Acting was superb, I think they all did a brilliant job I was crying in a lot of scenes but the best actor was the 2nd male lead. He showed a wider variety of characterisation.
What I didn't like -- the ending - i wasn't happy with that "compromise" but that's just me (can't say much w/out spoiling).. Secondly like any other time travel/parallel universe movie there will always be loopholes look at Avengers for instance.
So many negative comments about the sponsored ad have you seen Goblin and other TVN shows they have heaps of them especially with subway brand. This is how tv shows make money and almost every hollywood film does this too so I wasn't very bothered with it. I have seen more blatant advertising
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Then sometime before we even reached halfway, all of that went 'poof!' and I was left disillusioned, having just wasted over 16 hours of my life.
Before I get into the drama's problems, I want to give it praise for what I feel it did right. The opening episodes were paced so well. They were interesting, they pulled me in, and I eagerly waited for this drama to unfold. The characters of Yeong and Eun Sup were amazing - by the end of it, I was solely watching for their scenes, especially their interactions with one another. Their roles have added Woo Do Hua to my list of actors to watch out for. And, at least to start, I did like the chemistry between the two leads. At the start. Remember that for later, because it's one of the keys to this drama's downfall. Most of the actors did a great job with what they were given and I commend them for it, because I can only imagine what kind of directions they were given when the script was such a mess, and yet they did it. They pulled it off. But I would say that they were the first sign that something was wrong - or Lee Min Ho was, specifically, when I noticed him giving no feeling to the character of Lee Gon. Having seen him act before, I knew he could do better. But I figured, maybe it was just because of the character he was playing. Maybe once the plot revved up, he would show some emotion on his face. With all the comedy towards the start of the drama, his flat tone added to the jokes, so I convinced myself that things would change when the stakes were raised, and I was content.
There is a problem when the side characters to a drama are better written and more immersive than the leads. That was the case for almost all of the characters in this drama, and that was the second bad omen.
It was obvious from episode one that time travel was going to be a factor later in the drama, so I expected it. I'm not someone who takes issue with time travel being included in dramas because so long as it's handled well, the unavoidable logical failings of it don't bother me. I understand that you can't make much sense out of it so provided that the addition of it adds to the story and they handle it carefully, I have no problem with it. Seeing as it was foreshadowed in the very first episode, I was sure that they must have thought it through well. They were confident enough to add it to the start of their drama. That's a LOT of confidence. They had to have given it careful consideration and dedicated a lot of time to mapping out their manipulation of it, surely.
I was wrong.
But the time travel was not my biggest gripe with the story. It's up there, but the worst part of the drama has to be the editing. Episodes jump around from past to future to past again, from one world to the next, and at first, they bothered to add a little note card at the bottom or in the corner to tell you where you were, but that didn't last and the jumps became so frequent that half the time I didn't know what I was looking at. It just got worse with time, not better, and made it very hard to understand the story. Usually, dramas that jump between times or worlds will at least provide some sort of visual or verbal buffer to ground you, something that lets it tell its story without confusing you. I've watched plenty of these dramas and they all do it in a different way. With time travel, they often use a filter or change the colour balance between times. Signal and Life on Mars both gave the past a sepia hue. Circle dedicated the first half of its episodes to the past, then at the halfway mark added a timecard. Between worlds, either both worlds will be different enough to know visually, or the jumps will be acknowledged by the characters so that you know where they are. TKEM decided to include both time travel and alternate realities to their story and yet could only rarely be bothered to give you any direction. I can't enjoy a drama if I can't follow it. I shouldn't have to look through every episode with a fine-toothed comb to figure out what's happening.
The next problem is the leads. I liked them in the beginning, but they quickly fell out of favour when the script stopped respecting them. Tae Eul is a police officer with martial arts experience who, at some points, becomes completely helpless and in need of rescue. There are several--yes, as it more than one, sometimes multiple in an episode--scenes of her sobbing uncontrollably whenever Lee Gon leaves her. When he's gone, either she's assisting with the mess of a plot or she's pining over him. She barely has any agency. And Lee Gon shows maybe three expressions throughout the whole story, all lukewarm. Even when he should be emoting, even when something should be happening inside of him, there's barely anything on his face. I don't know if LMH was directed to act like this, or if he just decided not to act, but his character felt less structured than wet cardboard.
While I haven't seen Mister Sunshine, a lot of the problems with the leads remind me of Goblin, the writer's previous work. Even some of the songs remind me of the Goblin OST. I remember plenty of scenes where Kim Go Eun's character in Goblin would do the same sad sobbing that she had to do here, but I don't remember hating it quite as much there, and I think that has to do with their characterizations and the editing surrounding them. I've noticed the writer just likes to fill her romances with sappy sad pining and a lot of angst that is eventually covered up at the very end. But where Golbin focused mostly on the characters, TKEM started with a promise for a big, grand story and never delivered.
The story doesn't treat its viewers with any intelligence. It gives us rules for these worlds that it freely and consistently breaks, it forgets some things that happen and shoehorns in others, and by the end of it we're left with this lukewarm mishmash of unfinished ideas that don't really mean anything. Others have already gone over how insulting it is to its viewers so I won't go too into detail here. But what upsets me the most is that I watched it all. I finished it, hoping that it would get better, that it would pick itself up in the second half and return to the drama that it was in the first two episodes. But here I am. And my review is this long. And it's all negative.
I will admit there was one scene, one TINY moment in the last episode, that made me feel something. Two characters holding hands, and what it shows while they do. But even there, I was feeling something for the concept, not the characters they belonged to. In the last episode, I didn't care about them. Today I just finished Hyde, Jekyll, Me, a notoriously poorly written trashy drama that I watched during burnouts and I felt more for the characters in that mess than I did for what should have been my favourite story of the year, TKEM. And well, that says a lot. But I can say this.
If nothing else, thank you, Kim Eun Sook, for giving us Jo Eun Sup. I will treasure him always.
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A Tale of Lost Potential
One of the most anticipated dramas of the year, The King: Eternal Monarch promised a stellar cast and an intriguing, action-filled plot. Unfortunately, it fell short (way short).The idea of parallel universes had so much wasted potential. Not much happened in the first few episodes, which would have been fine, except that the writer chose to explain the two different worlds (and how traveling between them worked) through monologues from the main character, Yi Gon. It was all telling, and no showing. As the drama progressed, it also became clear that there were glaring plot holes and cliches. There were a lot of elements that were introduced to the story, including math formulas, time travel, and doppelgangers, but none of it was explained properly and much of it was forgotten later on.
The style in which the drama was produced/directed made the story even more confusing. In each episode, there were too much going on - the story would jump back and forth between characters, flashbacks, and side plots. Then, it would end on a cliff-hanger, which wouldn't be addressed until nearly halfway through the next episode; not only was this confusing, but this anticlimactic progression of the story made the plot twists less effective, less impactful, and all the more disappointing. And don't even get me started on the Product Placement! So many filler scenes (and lines!) were included just for the sake of promoting a variety of products - if anything, it made me NOT want to buy those products. The special effects, especially those related to the portals, were underwhelming and the OST was not memorable at all.
I also found that few of the character were developed or given proper backstories. The female lead, Jung Tae Eul, had an almost 180-degree change in character - she went from being very confident, strong, and independent to clingy and emotional just a few episodes later. As for the 'villain', his motivation was never clearly explained, and he actually got very little screentime compared to the other characters. The romance was also poorly developed and a lot of the romantic scenes/moments with the main couple reuniting seemed out of place or over the top.
There are some good elements about the drama. I think some of the supporting characters had more interesting and well-developed stories (including Jo Young /Jo Eun Sub, Kang Shin Jae, Goo Seo Ryung, etc). This is the first drama I've seen with Woo Do Hwan, and his acting in a double role was quite commendable. The cinematography, of course, was lovely.
Overall, TKEM had potential to be great, but poorly-developed characters, an abundance of plot holes, and an overemphasis on PPL turned this drama into a complete mess.
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The characters at the beginning shown they have potential character development to them, but as show went on, each character became dull , the main hero and heroine are only cliche romantics, while the other characters are just minions to promote their love story.
The main story and plot of the drama just became something to promote love story only.
Worst product placements, feels like whole drama is one big advertisement.
And Lee Min ho acting I personally felt poor, his ultra handsome face is the only saviour.
Woo do hwan is good with his acting, but his role became pointless. His screentime doesn't even last decent 5 minutes in an entire episode, even the other side characters have more individual screen time than him though he is one of the main characters. His character became like a background cameo. Woo do hwan has chosen a bad role this time.
You watch it if you are a lee min ho fan, and like him a lot or if you are kim go eun fan, but if you want to watch a good drama with good story, good character development, good acting, than this isn't for you.
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It was obvious from the start that the creators of this drama had high hopes for it. A stellar cast with some strong names of the Korean industry taking key roles, an ambitious story and some impressive cinematography were factors for success. Maybe that is why they had so many product placement offers, which, unfortunately, all took, and, as a result, we had so many unnecessary and quite frankly, unrelated scenes of the characters using them (that episode of Welcome to Waikiki 2 comes in mind). But that wasn't the only problem this drama had.
First of all, the romance was off from the start. There was no chemistry between the main characters, even from the start, and, worse, it never got better. Not that their dynamics, when they were fighting in the first episodes, weren't entertaining. But, as soon as the romance part was involved, things went downhill. But, that should have been expected, as the drama's first love confession came in the first episodes, when we didn't even know the characters (and, to be fair, neither did they). So, the romance was out of the blue and unconvincing.
Despite the weak love story, and even though the drama needed a strong one to keep it entertaining and intense, the momentum of the mystery with the evil uncle faded out too quickly too. His story with his grand plan of manipulating people and events in order to get what he wanted, was not only complicated but got tiring soon after the first episodes. Also, the whole thing was just confusing, and, in retrospect, it didn't have to be. So, investing in figuring out what the whole thing is about isn't really worth it.
On the bright side, there were some side characters that really offered this drama some entertainment value. From the depth of their characters, to their performances, the second leads did an amazing job. Too bad that the drama just kept adding people and leaving their stories half baked.
So, overall, three and a half out of ten.
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So I finished episode 16 full of hope that it would some how change my mind about this drama and make me like it. Unfortunately it did nothing of the kind. It was one hot mess. I watched it three times just to make sure I was not missing anything. Wow what a let down!
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Kim Kyung Nam was great in his role, too. I hadn't seen much of him before and it was nice to do it here, but again, his character was just plain.
The only saveable characters are Woo Do Hwan's. Jo Yeong and Eun Seop lightened up this show, the acting was killing and the writers still tried to take that away from us giving him so little screen time. I'd have liked to see his background story alone and not only his story with the king, but obviously, there really isn't any space to delve into the characters and they just rushed everything, again.
The rest of the characters, like the villian, aren't worth mentioning. So poorly written, no background story, just there to make the ML look heroic and to the FL look dumb.
The real mess comes with the plot, tho. We can endure some badly written characters if the plot is good, right? But this wasn't the case. It had so much potential but it was just wasted. While I was finishing the drama I started feeling like the writer just didn't know how to finish this and tried to fool us with a lot of emotions (most of them didn't work). A lot of things stopped making sense, things that were shown to us in previous episodes that were intriguing just weren't brought up anymore in the whole drama and we were left staring at the screen like fools- wondering where they went.
This happens with a lot of things like the doppelgangers (Luna, especially), the travelling consequences and some characters I won't name to avoid spoilers.
The romance on this drama is just superior and not in a good way. Tae-eul seems to hate Lee Gon, but after he proves her his world exists she's deeply in love with him. The same goes for him, wanting to make her his queen the second they meet. Boy, you didn't even know if she actually existed a few minutes ago, calm down. The kisses are good and I somehow managed to see some chemistry between them, but it wasn't enough. It felt really rushed.
In conclusion, I was entertained with this drama because I only had to watch 2 episodes a week and they ended the episodes in a cliffhanger of questions that were never answered, so I feel pretty fooled. Still, I laughed a lot with Eun Seop and even shed some tears in the ending episodes. Didn't really get to feel empathy towards most characters, though, apart from Woo Do Hwan's and maybe a little for Lady Noh, ignoring the leads.
Give it a try, you may like it, but don't get your hopes really high because then you'll end up really disappointed.
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