“The King: Eternal Monarch” (더 킹: 영원의 군주)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
March 6, 2022

Lee Gon (played by Lee Min-Ho)
Jeong Tae-eul  (played by Kim Go-Eun)
Joe Yeong (played by Woo Do-Hwan)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“The King: Eternal Monarch” was Lee Min-Ho’s comeback drama after finishing his mandatory military service in 2019. Beautifully shot and well acted by the lead actors, the series nonetheless is a bit of a hot mess when it comes to the meandering plot.

The K-drama is set in two parallel universes where each person has a double. The Kingdom of Corea is a united country with its capitol located in Busan. The country is ruled by a monarch and a prime minister. The other universe is modern day South Korea.

As a child, Lee Gon witnessed his uncle kill his father, the King. Before his time-traveling uncle could kill the boy, he is rescued by someone not only from the future, but also a parallel universe.

It’s this incident that sends the now adult King Lee Gon on a mission to find his savior. But what he finds first is love with Tae-eul, a South Korean detective who is somehow tied to his childhood.

The series started off with great promise. But mid-way, I began to lose interest, because the storyline became repetitive. The overall series feels much longer than 16 episodes. I do think this could’ve worked better as a two-hour movie that cut out some of the superfluous minor characters.

Though Lee Min-Ho and Kim Go-Eun are wonderful as the couple that literally is separated across the universe, why didn’t they make better use of technology? Other time travelers carried two phones: one from their world, the other from the world they were traveling to. Why didn’t the King give Tae-eul a phone from his world so that they could talk to each other, even while separated?

Woo Do-Hwan added much needed levity in his dual role as the King’s fearless protector and a fraidy cat currently serving his mandatory military duty working for the police department. (I’m not clear how that works, to be honest.)

In order for the King and Tae-eul — who he has announced as his future Queen — to be together without death looming over their heads, his traitorous uncle has to be killed.

With “Descendants of the Sun,” “Mr. Sunshine” and “Goblin: The Lonely and Great God,” Kim Eun-sook has written some of the best K-dramas in recent years. (Lee starred in her 2013 series “The Heirs” as well.) Unfortunately, the actors could only do so much with “The King: Eternal Monarch,” which doesn’t live up to the promise of her earlier work.

Airdates: Sixteen episodes — ranging in the 75-minute range — aired on SBS from April 17 to June 12, 2020.

Spoiler Alert: Early on, the series implies that the young Lee Gon was saved from being killed by Luna, Tae-eul’s doppelgänger in the Kingdom of Corea. But he was saved by … his grown up self.

ETA: A reader said she and her boyfriend made a diagram of who’s who and what’s happening when. It’s actually very helpful in keeping track of the goings on.

© 2022 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved