When “King the Land” premiered on Netflix in June 2023 I was still relatively new to kdramas (having only really started to watch a few months prior) and the two leads were complete strangers to me. But the trailers looked cute, and I was in the mood for a rom-com, so I tuned in when the show premiered. Can I tell you that the level of enjoyment I had while watching this show has only been surpassed a handful of times since then. As this show progressed I waited with baited breath each week for new episodes to come out.
Recently I was talking with a friend of mine who wanted to give kdramas a try, and after asking a few questions about what she likes to watch I knew “King the Land” would fit the bill. Sure enough, the next day she texted me to say she was already up to episode 5 and thoroughly enjoying it. I’m already trying to figure out what I’ll recommend to her next!
As for me, from the first episode I was hooked. I enjoyed the introduction of our main characters circa 2015. We meet the plucky Sa-rang (Im Yoona) who wants to be a hotel concierge at the King Hotel but is forced start at the bottom with her one-month internship – literally (she works in the hotel gym mopping up the butt sweat of hotel patrons from the gym equipment). We also meet the entitled Gu Won (Lee Jun Ho) who opts to arrive by skydive to his internship at one of the many King offices only to get fired on the first day (fortunately, he is the son of the King companies’ CEO, so the firing is not too upsetting for him). We also meet Gu Won’s future sidekick and Sa-rang’s best friends, who all become beloved characters. They are all young, fun, and looking ahead to their future.
Unfortunately, Sa-rang, who is all smiles, has an unfortunate encounter with Gu Won (in the gym she mistakes him for the hotel patron that made inappropriate advances towards her). Gu Won takes an immediate dislike to her since he believes anyone who smiles is faking it. Their paths diverge for the next seven years and it is only in 2023 that their paths cross again – this time to Sa-rang’s horror (he catches her using the bathroom in his penthouse hotel suite). And her horror continues when she finds out that he’s not just a guest at the hotel, but the new head manager and CEO’s son.
From there our story unfolds, in this enemies to lovers tale. It is fun, frothy, adorable, and so worth the watch. This is rom/com escapism at its finest. There are certainly other storylines (Sa-rang’s two best friends get their own stories, and Gu Won has family power struggles when his father pits him against his half-sister for ownership of the King company conglomerate), but for the most part the first 11 episodes focus mostly on the unfolding love story between Sa-rang and Gu Won.
Im Yoona and Lee Jun Ho have tremendous chemistry together, and even now almost two years later people still ship them hard (“ship” means to imagine that the lead actors are in a relationship in real life). I think part of the reason people wish they were really dating is that many years ago when they first met on a reality/variety, Lee Jun Ho made it clear that he had a major crush on Im Yoona. Add that to the fact that they are so clearly enjoying working opposite each other in this show, and you can’t help but have a giant smile on your face during their scenes together – even when they are bickering.
As I said at the beginning of this write-up, at the time I initially watched this show I was very new to kdramas and not familiar with the leads. I now know that Lee Jun Ho is part of k-pop group 2PM, while Yoona is from an equally iconic girl k-pop group, Girl’s Generation. I also now know that Lee Jun Ho is one of the most naturally gifted actors not just in kdramas but in all dramas. He is just so, so good. After “King the Land” ended I went on a mission to watch more of his shows, and he is a powerhouse actor. He broke my heart in both “Just Between Lovers” and “The Red Sleeve.” He charmed me in “Wok of Love” and the movie “Homme Fatale.” There are other actors in the kdrama world that I wish would just get a few acting lessons from Lee Jun Ho – he’s that good. On the other hand, Yoona has starred in such iconic kdramas as “The K2” opposite Ji Chang Wook and the movie “Confidential Assignment” with co-star Hyun Bin and while she’s not done a lot to hone her craft, she was perfectly cast in “King the Land”.
What I also didn’t know then that I know now is that this show features many overplayed tropes. The show features cutesy sound effects in almost every episode which bothers some people (doesn’t bother me). It also has the rich guy/poor girl trope, the out of touch chaebol male lead with childhood trauma trope, and (my favorite) the “he fell first” trope. But despite the tropes and heavy-handed sound effects, I still thoroughly enjoyed the kdrama just as much the second time around as I did the first time.
In fact, upon the second watch I noticed a couple things I didn’t see in the first watch since I was new to kdramas. I did not know that Prince Samir was portrayed by Anupam Tripathi who was in Season 1 of Netflix’s “Squid Game.” So in Episode 7 when Sa-rang and Gu Won accompany the Prince to a historical palace I didn’t understand the nod to “Squid Game” as Prince Samir looked at possible costumes to wear for the fake wedding ceremony being planned. I also did not understand when Gu Won took a look around the palace courtyard and said something like, “This feels familiar.” Apparently the same location was used in his prior project “The Red Sleeve” in which he plays King Jeongjo. Lastly, in the small boutique hotel Sa-rang opens she paints a yellow and pink chair for the courtyard. It turns out that pink is the color for her kpop group, Girl’s Generation, while the yellow is the color to signify Lee Jun Ho’s fandom.
All kdramas feature some kind of conflict, and “King the Land” is no different. Gu Won, in addition to dealing with a heartless half-sister attempting to ruin him, is also on a mission to find out why his mother left him as a child. The bulk of this storyline is only briefly mentioned in the first 11 episodes, and then becomes a main focal point in the next few episodes. Leaving it to the last minute makes the plotline seem a bit forced or rushed, but that didn’t distract from my overall enjoyment of the show because at his side was the supportive Sa-rang. And that’s the key element of this show that made me appreciate it so much – through every single hardship that crosses their path, Gu Won and Sa-rang are united in dealing with it head on, maturely, and together. When the paparazzi outed their relationship – Gu Won was more concerned for her, while she was concerned for him. When Sa-rang told him her dream of owning a boutique hotel, rather than pout because she wouldn’t be with him, he encouraged her and praised her for going after her dreams. I loved that aspect of this show.
For me the only real miss of the entire show was the last minute Hail Mary attempt to justify the half-sister’s awful actions throughout the first 14 episodes. It rang false to me that suddenly she’d feel convicted about the vindictive behavior she displayed throughout the whole show and then do a 180 turn. Does that happen to people? Sure, but we got very little opportunity to see WHY she made this change other than a couple short conversations she had with Gu Won and Gu Won’s mother. But really, that’s a small quibble in an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable show.
Do I recommend this show? Absolutely. The comedy is top notch, the romance in top notch, the acting is top notch, and this show is one of my favorites. It’s also a great entry point for someone that wants to try watching a kdrama for the first time.
My rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars
