King the Land (2023)

Disappointed. Even JunHo can't make up for the sloppy writing.

I'm sad that I didn't really enjoy King The Land. I've waited for weeks for it to finish airing so I could binge watch it, but after the first 6 or so episodes I was actually forcing my self to carry on.

THE GOOD:
- There is no doubt that Junho and Yoona are very pleasing to the eye, and put together they make the perfect eye candy. They've got good chemistry, and since the Red Sleeve Ive been ready to shout at the top of my lungs that Junho is a very good actor, he doesn't disappoint here either. Yoona was decent too, I have no complaints about the acting.

- The show has very nice aesthetic, it obviously had a very big budget and so it was very well shot.

- There were definitely many funny moments, I'll give the writers that.

THE BAD:
- The OST wasn't bad per day, but to me something was missing. I've seen clips of the show on Instagram with different music which just worked so much better with the show.

- JunHo's voice. There were times, were I could tell Junho was unnecessarily making his voice deeper, and adder this baritone to it. And it hit me so hard I could not ignore it, it was too distracting.

THE UGLY:
- The writing for King The Land was sloppy, it was even embarrassingly over the top at times, to the point where it had me cringing internally.

Now don't come at me, I love RomComs. I don't expect RomComs to have great plot points, but things didn't work out here. I've seen shows like Business Proposal, Romance is a bonus Book, Weightlifting Fairy, and more do these same tropes but do them well. Here it felt the writers threw a dart on a board of tropes and just depended on Junho's good looks to pull things off.

It hurts me to say this, but this just isn't that great of a show.

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Let King the Land take you on holiday prepare to laugh cry and enjoy superb.

I’ve just finished king the Land and I am a total mess. If your life isn’t great at the moment, if everything you do goes wrong. Just sit down relax and be pampered. Set in beautiful locations, it’s absolutely superb sets, the clothes, the tiniest details have not been missed. I’ll probably never ever get the chance to stay at such a grand hotel. However the drama opens the doors, takes you by the hand and says welcome. The drama brings you in to these peoples lives, you are wanting praying everything will work out. It keeps you centre stage with them. Clear story lines, brilliant wonderful chemistry between the whole cast. I would love for this to win awards. That would shut the haters up. Why can’t people be kind. The whole premise is to smile proper smiles. Thank you for letting us join in their lives just for awhile. Totally awesome. 10 out of 10 everyone concerned. I was laughing crying and clapping right at the end. I was not disappointed in anyway. Totally lifted my world. Thank you King the land. Best drama by far this year. Will be hard to top it.

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Cheesy to the point of tacky - unsure if it’s a parody drama of the mid to late 2000s?

I started the drama with my partner as it was hot topic and while his review is ‘not the best, but okay’, I was dying to finish it and get over and done with. We have a thing where we choose a drama and complete it together (bonding time) and this bonding time had me sighing and rolling my eyes too often!

While I understand that the show IS about the couple and it’s purely a romance drama, there are a million other dramas that have done this 3000 times better. Some Chinese dramas like You are my glory, Hidden Love. Korean dramas like Touch Your Heart (cheesy but not tacky).

I have no idea how to truly describe how tacky this drama is. Nothing was truly sorted out or explained. Supporting ‘evidence’ of why some people acted the way they did or did what they did are extremely weak (sister’s back story, mother’s departure and return, friend’s divorce story and more).

If the point was to make it a pure romance drama then there wasn’t really a need to include all that underlying stories and then deliver them so so weakly. Hidden Love did such an amazing job at just being what it was - romance. Touch your heart too.

I am disappointed that this was such a hype but delivered just tacky, slapstick comedy and cheesy lines. I even had a thought that maybe this was meant to be a parody on purpose! Of old Korean dramas. If this was the case, it’s acceptable but still has weak delivery of every other story aside from their romance.

Best trope and character? Chorong. You go girl.

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Cliche or not, plot or not ... King the Land slayed anyways!

No drama needs a sophisticated plot, to be good enough. And I think we should literally stop with the cliche comments, cause this wasn't a space movie after all.

Now I don't want to repeat what many have already said but, personally, this drama didn't need a lot of twists or drama or plot to make me absolutely love it. I looked forward to it every weekend cause it really felt like my happy hour and put me in such a good mood.

I wasn't here for the plot, I was here for the healing love stories, for the charming Gu Won and Ro Woon, for the green flags all the main characters were, for the life lessons, for the so amazingly strong chemistry between the leads, for the mind blowing kiss scenes (thank God they weren't cringe like most the dramas out there). I was here for the princess halmeoni that makes me cry in every drama in a way or another. I was here for the family Sarang, Pyung Hwa and Da Eul had built, for all the times Gu Won violently kicked No Sang Sik out of the office. I was here for the family Gu Won and Sarang found, and I felt part of all of this. And sorry if I didn't mind the plot or whatever you couldn't find in this drama.
I was here for the people and the feelings they intended to give to me as a watcher and guys, you did it beautifully.

Let's please thank all of the crew for their amazing job cause they might feel bad with the fans splitting into two opposite love-hate directions, let alone the offended watchers that pretty sure messed up the rating.

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Cliched.

Pros - pretty faces, aesthetically pleasing drama

Cons - Everything else. Everyone is talking about sizzling chemistry but I found it forced, predictable and cliched. If you have seen a couple of romcom kdramas there is nothing new to appreciate here. Even the secondary characters and plotlines were quite predictable - the usual granny, close best friends of the FL, one confidant of the ML, screwed up childhood dynamics of the ML with a sad/traumatic past. And so many product placements. Also so many close ups, slo-mo zoom ins and repeats of key moments which felt artificial and took me out of the drama and roll the eyes rather than enjoy it.

Also the leads get together relatively early and after that it kind of lost steam. There just wasn't enough emotional investment to keep watching it.

This drama may work for first time rom com kdramas watchers. For everyone else, a timepass eye candy drama with FF button coming in handy.

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Uneven Script and Direction

This series is being review bombed on Google and IMDB. I was one of the viewers who thought the early episodes were slow, but I hung in and glad I did. Regarding the controversy: I love the leads and will watch them every time. They and the rest of the cast worked hard, and they did have some good moments during the series. There were sweet love scenes and a wonderful scene between mother and son that brought tears. Junho nailed that emotional moment as he is an actor who knows how to be still and let his eyes speak for him. He can rise to the moment even with a weak script. But this drama was uneven from the beginning, even without the episode that offended many viewers and with a clumsy, dull ending. Those issues lie right at the feet of the writer and director. What a shame because the cast and audience deserved so much better.

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This drama insults viewer intelligence

This was such a mess I didn't even finish it and when I did watch it, I mostly skipped or fast forward because there is so much nonsense you can only enjoy it for the eye candy.

8+ hours of show are scenes created to advertise something and it's not subtle at all. When you think it can't get worse there is 1 whole episode made purely as AD for tourism. Rest of the time is stuff randomly happening because they need to so they can sell the money shots. Ofc plot needs to develop but not really, only to a point so it teases till next week and completly cop out and gets resolved in start of next week episode. Also make sure to create nice bait previews to make people stick.

Non exsistent plot and mess of a show makes sense when you see person who wrote this is a nobody doing something first time. Idk how they even got the job for something this monetary invested into.

The amount of flaws this mess that is packaged in nice wrapping paper has is so high I couldn't be bothered to write it because even just 1 episode would amount to too much effort.

I asume this was carried by actors popularity because otherwise idk how this got so overhyped and over rated.

Yes, I know it's a romcom and yes I know that it's suppose to be easy watch but come on met some basic expectations for continuity and some grounded baseline that follows something.

I am not even go into all the bad takes and messages this show had or write about plot.

Tbh I wouldn't even bother with this if it wasn't so overhyped and high viewership this got will only do damage for the future quality and expectations of kdrama.

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Boring.

I was actually giving this drama an 8/10 for the first four episodes, but the plot became tedious after that.

I can't be biased like some people. Just because I like Yoona from SNSD, I must give this drama a high rating? Why lol? I'm watching a drama (so the plot and story should be considered) and it's not solely about rating her or Junho. If you believe that people give a bad rating because they dislike the actors, then you are a freak. Don't be so triggered and aggressive just because people dislike what you like.

Oh about the chemistry between the two leads, it's alright. There are other romcoms that I find better than this, so if I gave this a higher rating than those romcoms, it would be a bit funny because I'm not really enjoying this drama. Besides, chemistry is NECESSARY. You can find other dramas, especially rom-coms, because king the land is a rom-com ((so should be compared with rom-coms)) where the actors have GOOD CHEMISTRY and the drama has a GOOD PLOT.

It can take me a few days to complete one episode, but not every episode is tough for me to watch. However, there are a few that are. This is how I feel especially after Episode 6/7. The first 4 episodes are quite okay, but after that a bit.... Oh my God, it's very difficult for me to finish just one episode.

Some people also said that King The Land is doing a good job of excruciating the romance even though there's no plot. Hmm, im not sure whether I can agree on that. Business Proposal and Love To Hate You are another example of kdramas that are very lighthearted, silly, and cringe-worthy, but surprisingly, I really enjoy those dramas but not this one, so if you're saying i'm not a person who can't watch lighthearted stories, maybe you're wrong, I do enjoy it if it's fun to watch. The comedic scenes in the "business proposal" and "love to hate you" were really funny and didn't feel forced, but man, King The Land is really bad at excruciating the comedic scenes, I feel awkward after I watch them. Well, after all, you can't lie about your feelings when watching it.

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Same old soup

Same old soup in Asian dramas romance : He's rich, she's poor, daddy doesn't want him to marry anyone than the one he chose, sister's a bitch. How boring
Nothing new but old same crap with actors who show no emotions.

At least the Koreans girls don't have that stupid childish voice like in Chinese dramas.

Yes I'm going to watch until the end. That's what I always do when I start a movie/serie, even if it's stupid, just to see how it'll end.

What a bore.

If you are not fed up to watch the same series with the same stories, go ahead.

I wish someone would have written this before so I don't end up writing it myself.

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Pretty people being pretty and rich

The ingredients to make a most boring, stupid romcom kdrama:

*AWFUL SCRIPT
*HORRIBLE DIALOGUES
*STUPID PROBLEMS
*LITTERLY PERFECT CHARACTERS
*ATTRACTIVE FACES
*JUNHO'S ADORABLE SMILE
*YOONA'S PRETTY
*OFFENSIVE SCENES

I'm going to cut to short.First of all this is a teen's modern fairy tail.All kdrama cliches meets slightly Wattpad fanfic but in more soft, cutesy way.I'm sick of 2 hours long gaze,sick of how they never have problem other than overdramatize everthing.

How about feel plot? hahah there is no plot.

Yoona's is so cute and Junho is hot.But sorry I see chemistry but it really shows that they're friend in real life because of the acting sometimes

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