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THE_KING_ETERNAL_MYSTERY
October 16, 2020
SPOILERS
The kdrama "The King: Eternal Monarch"
(2020) was much anticipated-- a
confluence of established talent with a The writer, Kim Eun-Sook, had
strong track record. Great things were been on long winning streak,
expected of this. The result is and this show featured the
puzzlingly Not Great in a many ways, female lead from one of the
though I think it manages to pull out KES hits, The Goblin (2016)--
of the dive right before impact. Kim Go-Eun, now a few years
older and ready to play a
What we have here is a parallel tough cop rather than a cute
world premise, one is something teenager. And the male lead
like modern day Korea, the other is played by Lee Min-Ho, a
is a variant of Korea ("Corea") popular teen heart-throb since
with a constitutional monarchy the 2008 "Meteor Garden".
or some sort.
This was not directed by by Lee
There have actually been a few Eung-Bok himself (who worked on
popular shows with that as an the recent streak of KES hits),
alternate history premise. When but one of his co-directors,
your average ignorant Westerner Baek Sang-Hoon, who worked on
to tries to watch these, it "Descendents of the Sun".
feels like they're playing head
games with you-- "wait, there's The co-director was Jung Ji-Hyun,
still a Korean royalty? Somehow who'd worked on the excellent
I'd *thought* they were more "Search: WWW" and "Mr.
like the US than Britain. Shows Sunshine (another recent KES hit).
you what I know."
We might wonder why nominally
enlightened citizens of Democratic
Republics feel such an affection
for the idea of royalty.
DOWN_WITH_ARISTOCRACY
There's an immediate problem with watching this
show: they repeatedly cut back and forth
between these two universes, and neglect to There are *some*
give the viewer any clear cues indicating the cues: in "C" the seat
change-- they're both more or less Modern. The of government has
"C" has got more royal pomp going on, but it's been moved to Busan;
not always on screen. You could play a game The royalty uses a
with a live audience and have them shout out five-pointed rosette
"K" of "C" at the beginning of each scene. as a symbol.
There's another related issue: many
characters have dopplegangers in the other
universe, so there are two seperate and
distinct characters running around with the
same face. The bad guys have been working
some nefarioius scheme involving recruiting
and substituting in these duplicates, and the This feature gives
makers of this series have forgotten that we them an excuse for
in the audience don't know in advance which actors to work double
character we're supposed to be looking at-- roles-- one of them
wait, was that *her*, or could it be it was has fun doing an
the alternate version pretending it was her? extreme personality
They evidently figured you would never wonder difference.
about that except when they want you to
wonder about it. Unfortunately, Kim
Go-Eun's alternate
Another issue develops-- common to much self (the nasty,
of KES's work, I think-- where it's not ruthless Luna)
at all clear that she's thought through doesn't get a lot
the fantastic premises at the outset. of play-- and I guess
She often just starts introducing new they figured Lee
elements when it's convenient. Min-Ho wasn't up to
it, his twin was
There are some major bits of fantastic supposedly killed
phenomena featured on stage that never at a young age--
entirely make sense--
One of the many
When people travel between the two evil nefarious
worlds *some* are afflicted with a actions of the
strange symptom: a painful bad guy that
lightning-bolt rash that flares up doesn't really
during thunder storms. But this doesn't make any sense.
seem to happen to *everyone*, e.g. the
female lead is immune, without any
explanation. There's a time freeze
phenomena that's understood
(*somehow*) to indicate
As the story "develops" (flails someone is traveling between
around trying to connect up to an worlds. Nothing much is
ending, I would say), some done with this-- it's just a
characters develop a remarkable nifty visual they mess with
degree of insight, somehow now and then.
instantly understanding what KES
wants them to with very little in
the way of evidence or reason. At the close, KES decides that the
King and the bad guy must cross over
at the same time to reproduce the
time travel effect...
The King somehow figures this out,
and is miraculously certain that he
has it right.
He somehow understands that he
can't just join the two halves of
And if you've got any head for the flute and use it to do whatever
strategy, you may find yourself he wants, despite the fact that the
playing the game of "but why bad guy keeps going on about how it
would they do *that* when it would make you all powerful.
would seem they could do *this*".
E.g. Our here is really and truly a
king. He could bring an army of
guards through the gate with him on
his final desperate mission-- instead
he's reluctant to bring even one.
E.g. There's a fear that after the
last time travel plot-fixup-orama
he and his and his main squeeze may KES in many places seems
be permanently separated, her memory to back-slide into the
may even be retconned out. So: traditional kdrama flaws:
why not take her with him? She's it's established the
a cop with a background in martial female lead is a badass
arts. She could be useful, and fighter, but at one point
that would solve the separation she stands still and lets
anxiety issue. a known dangerous
character stick a knife in
her side. They like the
*idea* of powerful women,
provided they don't
actually *do* anything
powerful...
But... once we get through the problematic
late-middle of the show, it actually *does*
go somewhere.
The fantastic premises start to take on some
weight, and the resolution has a certain
intuitive/poetic appeal to it...
Why are there just two parallel worlds available?
Because the flute was *damaged*, it's been cut
in half and is working in a degraded way.
Once the the flute is whole again, the entire
multiverse is opened up-- and then you have a
different problem, how do you navigate to just
one alternate worldline when there's a myriad of
them?
When it's time for the bad guy to get his, who
gives it to him? Through the magic of
alternate world-line time travel, both the
male and female lead get to kill the same bad
guy: they can both take credit.
And the final question: which of the two gives up
their old lives to move in with the other joining
them in their native realm? The answer is
neither-- they go back and live their lives in
their prospective worlds, and do interdimensional
travel on weekends, visiting the various
alternate universes.
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