The King: Eternal Monarch – Watching the Korean Drama
Watching the Korean Drama The King: Eternal Monarch on Netflix
This is a new Korean Parallel World TV show that I recently got hooked to called The King: Eternal Monarch on Netflix. For a bit of context, I have watched a decent number of Korean TV shows. These shows revolved around period pieces and I am a bit fan of shows based on historical settings. My favorite Korean TV shows include the Queen Seondeok and Chuno The Slave Hunters. These 2 shows pretty much took me to a path of more historical Korean Drama
The Great Queen Seondeok was one of the best Korean shows I watched, and in fact I was so hooked to watching that show that I ended up finishing the entire series of 62 episodes (1 hour each) in a week and a half. I barely slept, in fact – I would be up until 4 in the morning watching the show, then sleep and waking up around 10 to resume watching the show. I was disturbingly hooked to the show.
I have seen some of the shows of the main actor, Lee Min-ho – including one called the Heirs or the Inheritors. I don’t think I have seen any shows of Kim Go-eun before, but after I got to know her – I came across another show that I thought would be interesting to watch called Guardian: The Lonely and Great God. So now – in addition to watching The King: Eternal Monarch on Netflix, I am also watching Guarding: The Lonely and Great God but on Youtube with Subtitles.
Watch The King: Eternal Monarch on Netflix
This show is now available on Netflix (at least in Canada) and has aired.4 episodes so far. Latest episodes air on Friday and Saturday, so expect Episodes 5 & 6 this Friday and Saturday.
The Plot of The King: Eternal Monarch
There are 2 parallel worlds in this show. One world where there is a Kingdom of Corea and “ours” where there is the Republic of Korea. The Kingdom of Korea has both North Korea and South Korea united and are referred as Northern and Southern Regions as opposed to being separate countries.
The show revolves around a flute that was sent to an ancient Korean king in the Kingdom of Korea. The flute apparently has magical qualities and is not really used for its potential by the King of Corea which antagonized one of king’s cousin/step-brother Lee Rim. Lee Rim plots to overthrow the king and use the flute for his own ulterior motives (and I am assuming it is for world dominance). The plot only partially succeeds as he ends up killing the King but his young son manages the break the flute in 2. 1 piece of the flute ends up in the step-brother’s hand and the young crown-price has the another as the overthrow was stopped by a few mysterious individuals.
Traveling to the Parallel World
With half the flute in hand and escaping the palace after their failed coup, the step-brother ends up in a bamboo forest near the Palace and ends up getting transported to Republic of Korea in 1994. Fast-forward to the current time, the baby crown Prince is now all grown-up and is the King of Corea. He is still haunted by his past memories of the failed coup, and of the mysterious individual that saved his life. One thing to note, our young crown prince was able to get a badge from the mysterious person and has been looking for this person all his life unsuccessfully.
Our King Lee Gon (played by Lee Min-ho) comes across a mysterious character (girl dressed as rabbit?) and starts following her thinking that she is the person to whom the badge belonged and ends up in our side of the parallel world. Lee Gon is a mathematician and heart and comes to the conclusion that he is likely in a parallel world and also ends up meeting the other main lead Jung Tae-eul (played by Kim Go-eun). The rest of the few episodes follow his attempts to convince/woo her that he is the King of Corea in a parallel world and that he wishes her to be his queen. He also sees some characters from his world but with different names.
Episode 4 ends with King Lee Gon returning to his parallel world with Jung Tae-eul and it would be interesting to know how she reacts to realizing the fact that Lee Gon was telling her the truth about him being King from a parallel world. Also, the step-brother of the current’s king father Lee Rim is making parallel plans (guessing he wants the other half of the flute and resume his world domination plan). Further, Lee Rim guesses that his nephew Lee Gon likely knows about the parallel world as well as there have been few instances on the show that time stops (but, I don’t see how he could have connected the dots – lazy writing?).
The Show (King: Eternal Monarch) Itself
I was initially drawn to the show because of the parallel world story which seemed similar to the Man in the High Castle show on Amazon. The show has a heavier emphasis on romantic plot between King Lee Gon and Jung Tae-eul which I am not a big fan of and less emphasis on Lee Rim’s plot. Regardless, given I have already seen 4 episodes of the show – I am committed to finishing off the rest of the season.
Speaking of the rest of the season, this show is still airing and as a such you cannot binge watch and that is a huge negative. I have become used to watching the entire series back to back within a span of a few days. Unfortunately, that is not a luxury I have with this show as it hasn’t fully aired and it looks like the last episode will air in early June. Which means, quite a few frustrating weekends for new episodes. If you are the type of person who cannot wait for new episodes, I would recommend waiting until mid-June and then just binge-watching the show.
Finished Watching Tiger King on Netflix
A Little off-tangent, but I ended up watching all of the episodes of the Tiger King and am very surprised by the end of the show, specifically the new episode. The new episode was disappointment but was surprised by how almost everyone turned against the Tiger King aka Joe Exotic and pretty much everyone preferred him to stay in jail.