“King the Land” (킹더랜드)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
September 19, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Goo Won (played by Lee Jun-ho)
Cheon Sa-rang (played by Im Yoon-ah)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

You’ve seen the cold male chaebol/warm, hardworking female combo before in many popular K-dramas (including “Business Proposal” and “Oh My Venus“). But Im Yoon-ah and Lee Jun-ho are so charismatic and easy to watch in “King the Land” that they add a fresh touch to an old concept.

“King the Land” focuses on a woman whose dream is to work at a posh hotel in Seoul, and the righteous (but haughty) heir to one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates. It is no spoiler to say that these two will eventually fall in love. We all know this going in. Still, we are left clutching our hearts at times when life doesn’t appear to be going the way we hope for them.

Won’s biggest nemesis is his older half sister Hwa-ran (Kim Seon-young), who sabotages him at every turn. She pretends that she is looking out for him when their father is present, but tells Won to his face that he needs to get out of the family business or she will destroy him. Instead of retaliating or, at the very least, tattling to his father, he accepts it as part of his fate. Won seems to believe what he says when he repeatedly tells his sister that he doesn’t care about inheriting the business … until he does.

I don’t know. Hwa-ran may be older, but he is the son. He could’ve used the boy card with his chaebol father. To be fair, the father said he will leave his empire to whichever child does the best work and, gender aside, that person is Won. It’s not just because he views his employees as actual human beings, but because his business sense is on point. He’s able to raise profits without sacrificing people.

As an aside, the Korean word sarang means love. And Sa-rang is full of love and optimism. Even when her colleagues trash her because she only graduated from a 2-year college instead of a 4-year university, she bites her tongue … because she believes they are partially right. They tell her that they all graduated from universities in Seoul. How dare she assume she’s equal to them. Though Sa-rang is grateful to be employed, she knows her background on paper is lacking.

This school snobbery has to be acknowledged because it’s so ridiculous. There are 187 universities in Seoul and not of one of Sa-rang’s colleagues graduated from the three best SKY schools that the fancy people in South Korea care about: Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University. How do I know they didn’t graduate from one of these elite institutions? Because if they had, these are the type of people who would mention it immediately.

Personally, I’ve put fellow Korean American ajummas in their place when they point out that my Korean accent is a little off or some other niggling bit of information that they feel the need to passively aggressively share with me. How? They always get around to asking what school I went to and I tell them. And then they shut up and move along. (FWIW: I don’t care what school anyone graduated from. That degree isn’t a badge of intelligence. It just means you were fortunate to get into a school (whether through brains, athletic skills or legacy ties), paid for it and didn’t flunk out. Good for you. You’re still not better than anyone else.)

There are some odd moments in the series that are meant to be cute, but raise issues. For instance, in episode 9, Won gives Sa-rang and her two best friends (who all work for the King corporation) a trip for leading their respective teams to the No. 1 position. However, their team members — who also worked their butts off to make all of that happen — aren’t invited. This is clearly favoritism and not a good look for Won, who suggested this prize, or for the women who seem oblivious to the inequity.

There also are some aspects of the series that I didn’t understand. For instance, Sa-rang earns fame for being the best concierge in the business for multiple years. Other hotels try to poach her. But even before she dons this French maid outfit (pictured above) to serve food at Won’s father’s private events, her job is just weird.

She was promoted to work in King the Land — the hotel’s VIP high-roller lounge. But even there, her job primarily consisted of being a well-dressed server. She served coffee. She served meals. Very little about her job screamed I’m a concierge! Aside from pay, how is this a promotion? Why is this position so prestigious and coveted?

Her besties have their own subplots. One works at a retail store and has a bizarre marriage where she and her husband don’t even seem to like each other. The other friend is hiding a secret that in the U.S. would be no big deal. I honestly don’t think it would even be a big deal in South Korea. (I’ll talk about this a bit more in the Spoiler Alert below.)

As for the ending, it’s everything I had hoped for. Im looks beautiful in a wedding gown. And after the sad ending for her character in “Big Mouth,” it was so nice to see Sa-rang get her happily ever after. But most importantly, she followed her own path, even though that meant separating from Won for a while. Both of them were secure enough in their relationship to not try to tie the other one down. And isn’t that one of the most important things about love?

Shoe culture: One of the episodes depicted a scene where Sa-rang walks into a guest room that the head of housekeeping is cleaning. She has her shoes on and is reprimanded by the older woman, who says that she has disrespected the guest and their room by her discourteous action. I recently returned from a trip to Seoul and asked the front desk to send up a maintenance man to help me start the air conditioner. Don’t you know that the first thing he did when he entered my room was take his shoes off! I was so surprised. This never happens in any western hotel I’ve ever been in. And, oh, there was nothing wrong with the air conditioner. I was activating the thermostat for the floor heater (!!!) and not the air conditioner! To quote Taylor Swift: it’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me.

Airdates: Sixteen hour-ish episodes aired on JTBC from June 17 through August 6, 2023. I watched this on Netflix.

Spoiler Alert: At one point, Sa-rang decides she will help Won find his mother, whose disappearance he is still haunted by. We will learn later that she was basically chased out of her husband’s house, not by Won’s father, but by his parents who thought she wasn’t good enough for the family. But Won has already told Sa-rang that he no longer wants to find her and he’s fine the way he is. Regardless of Sa-rang’s good intentions, inserting herself into his private life — especially after he has said he doesn’t want to search for his mother anymore — isn’t something anyone should do. Being reunited with your mother is something very personal, and the ownership belongs to the child, not anyone else. It’s his story to finish, not hers.

Everything is tied up in the final episode. Sa-rang’s friend Da-eul (Kim Ga-eun) learns that her husband — who viewers are led to believe is cheating on her — actually quit his job, didn’t tell her, and spent all his severance pay on … himself. Never mind that they have a young child together. As for Da-eul, she spends more time with her friends than her family. This is not a good marriage, and their antagonistic relationship rubs off on their daughter, who sasses back to her father. It’s not precocious and it’s not cute. The little girl also judges people by their beauty and the adults just laugh it off.

When Sa-rang and Da-eul’s other friend, flight attendant Pyung-hwa (Go Won-hee), introduces the child to her male colleague Ro-woon (Kim Jae-won), the little girl says he looks like a prince because he’s handsome. But later, the kiddo implies that Won’s best friend and aide Sang-sik (Ahn Se-ha) isn’t a prince because he’s not attractive. And all the adults think it’s hysterical.

Pyung-hwa’s secret is that she is divorced. A callous former boyfriend — now the pilot on almost all her flights — registered their brief marriage without her consent when she was drunk. (How???) When he reveals her secret, no one judges him for also being divorced. But the other flight attendants treat her as if she’s a prostittute. Everyone except for Ro-woon, that is, who has fallen in love with Pyung-hwa. Their friendship and (finally) romance is one of the sweetest things about the show.

When Ro-woon unexpectedly takes her to meet his mother, she freaks out because she hadn’t prepared herself. He gently tells her she looks beautiful and that his mother will love her just the way she is. And then they arrive at his mom’s gravesite. This was a pivotal moment because he wanted the two most important women in his life to “meet.” And this was his way of honoring both.

Though Sa-rang’s grandmother initially gave Won a difficult time, she is pleased as punch that the two have committed to each other. She wants to make sure that no one looks down on her granddaughter for not coming from a wealthy family. The grandmother gives her several savings books that she had squirreled away for her. This act of love and sacrifice reminded me of my own parents, who gave back to me just about all the money I had given them. They wanted me to go into my marriage with my own money. (And they had invested it better than I ever could have.)

Anyhow, this seed money from her grandmother is just what Sa-rang needs to start up her own “hotel.” It’s really more of small pension with just one room to rent. How she’ll make a living with that is beyond me. But it’s lovely and makes her happy. And when she bought the property outside of Seoul, Won didn’t try to stop her.

And though I usually hate redemption arcs for evil characters, I was happy for Won’s nephew that Hwa-ran got a grip on what is truly important in life and didn’t export her son back to the United States. The boy needed a loving mother and it appeared that she finally was ready to become one.

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