Stephanie Ly

The King has so much potential to be a great drama. From their promising cast, director, and interesting storyline, I had high hopes that this drama will do well. As I watched each episode, I waited and was hopeful that the next episode would be better. I thought maybe it's starting off slow because they're trying to slowly develop the characters and the depth of the story. At this point, I'm watching mostly for scenes of Yeong/Eun sup for some comic relief (favorite characters!) But as I approached episodes 7-8, which is enough time to build up the story and anticipation, I realized that it's just been poor storytelling, writing, and an overall lack of flow to this drama. I've been hearing many people say online that there's no chemistry between Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun, but I don't think that's necessarily true. I've watched interviews of them together and I think they do have a good and refreshing kind of chemistry (Lee Min Ho seems very attentive/engaged towards Kim Go Eun and he's interested in what she has to say). I believe people are mostly thinking they lack chemistry because of how underdeveloped their love story is. I honestly don't know how they even fell in love - there was no context, the writing in the scenes they have together were mostly boring and not all that interesting, and when they do have emotional scenes, there was nothing leading up to it to build that anticipation and make it worthwhile. Their emotional/romantic scenes just kinda pop out of nowhere and it just leaves me like ??? Both Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun are good actors and I know they'd have wonderful chemistry if only they had better story/writing for their scenes together. Instead of focusing on building their relationship, they spent too much time with product placement. I'm used to seeing product placement in k dramas and not once have I ever been annoyed by them. But with this drama, they over did it and it feels like a walking ad. I'm happy that episode 10 has finally been much more intriguing and exciting and I'm hoping that the remaining episodes can make up for the first half of this drama. Fingers crossed!