The King: Eternal Monarch

A very ambitious project, beautifully lit, wonderful color, with artistic imagery, whose shoulders buckle under ambitions it can't fulfill. The series is a bit like a trashy soap opera; at times it disrespects the viewer's intelligence, offering holes in the script like crazy, clichés it can't handle, and unnecessary characters, played by great actors but absolutely useless. It just sounds great – a parallel world, a king and a detective; a handsome guy who can't act, Lee Min-ho, and an actress who sometimes fits and sometimes doesn't, Kim Go-eun. It's just that the script killed it, not to mention that it's clear this show just wants to make money, nothing else, because I haven't seen such ridiculous product placement in a long time (Fried Chicken, anyone?). The only one who got the most out of the series was the actor Woo Do-hwan, his characters were really different, he played them brilliantly and actually he pretty much saved the day. Not the overabundance of romance that came out of nowhere. However, the heroine's crush seems to have only come the moment she found out that the hero is really a king and rich... you know what that smells like... I could actually go on and on about that. For a villain, he looked tough, but didn't really accomplish anything, just hung around, scowled, did something here and there, but basically a character with no depth or interest (although the actor is great). The plot was simple, it's just that the story is weirdly jumbled so as not to reveal how weak the script is at first glance. And so on, and so on (if anyone is interested, I'm willing to message them more stuff :-D). But what I liked about the series was the music, which really fit the scenes, even though it's not memorable and the OST is not rockin' with at least one memorable song; also the cinematography and lighting were great, they really won with that and for me both thumbs up. Every now and then a scene was okay, except when they were just shouting those horribly embarrassing things that an adult would be embarrassed to say; but those scenes are certainly not worth watching the whole thing. The effects were fine. In short: The cinematography, the lighting, and Woo Do-hwan are three reasons why the series didn't fall into the mud, but these guys are soaking in it. Lee Min-ho is still a looker, Kim Go-eun can act but there was nothing here, they were even pretty good together but no miracle. It's all romance, and somewhere in the background the rest is happening, which is up all the fans' asses anyway. The main thing is that the king and the detective love each other... A series ruined by a very weak script that didn't even know what it wanted to say or how to manage all the characters it invented. (2020-06-25)