Aramintai

Would you believe it - ML's actor is 29 already. I'd bet he and teacher Lee (she's 39) probably use those famous Korean cosmetics on the regular, while those other guys do not 🤣

Exactly. People having strong will and discipline to train like that usually get results in other areas as well. It's also a very common trope in manga and Asian culture in general - through hard work and determination you'll achieve success even if you don't excel initially compared to others with natural talent. There's a whole cultivator subgenre about it in China even.

It's probably the fact that not only is he very dumb (while having smart looks), but he's in 10th grade but still doesn't even know how to study after all these years. And considering how determined he is, and that he attended all those auxillary private cram schools and lectures, it just creates a dissonace and makes it hard to believe that over the years he hasn't improved at all.
That he's very dense and can't read a room doesn't help his case either. Should have just gone to study how to become a pe teacher like people were telling him, it's only gonna go harder from there if he manages to get to college.

Eh, it's another one of those beat 'em ups with utterly ridiculous bullies akin to The Glory, Brave Citizen, Weak Hero Class 1. Somehow also reminds of Persona 5 video game. At least here they try to water it down with comedic stunts of an absolutely dense ML, and for once there's one good teacher who actually does her job. But violence and violations here are so prevalent and over the top that school would have been closed thrice over irl. It just looks very cartoonish, which is fine looking only in manga where this plot actually came from.

That it's only 10 episodes is especially worrysome. However, live kdramas changing original plots happen very often as well.

That's the thing, I've no patience for long winded, multiple season dramas lately. I hope they'll wrap this up in one season.

I'm hesitating to start this. Afaik this kdrama's source material manga has not ended yet, how will they finish this kdrama? Will they go to college? Or it just gonna end on some dumb cliffhanger with teased S2?

We already got a sequel to Kingdom series - it’s called Gyeongseong Creature. Same shit about some worms turning people into monsters.
And let’s be real here, after so many years season 3 ain’t coming.

You should put it under spoiler. And yea, I revisit some dramas pages frequently.
Also, when I said amnesia has a plot twist, I meant it's not all what it seems. You should watch until the end of episode 4 to see what it is and how it changes the whole plot they're going with here. If you just gonna end at 2 episodes you didn't even get to the point where the interesting and funny stuff starts. But suit yourself.

ML is 34 in the drama (35 by Korean system). But he's very popular and narcissistic in the drama as well. Fame has no doubt got into his head. Amnesia has plot twists.
SFL is around the same age as ML in the drama and irl. But Korean skincare is known to be the best in the world. And she's supposed to be very pretty here, while FL is supposed to be having dubious looks on purpose - to be compared to SFL and so that nobody would ever think ML would have something with her at work.
FL is 28 in the drama (29 by Korean system).

But then she overdids it and tables gonna turn 🤣.

A friend of mine watched it and said he felt bad for him in those episodes. I was like, what the hell, just because of what happened to him? But that doesn't excuse his actions from before. FL totally was in the right to mess with him then, he deserved everything 😅.

No triangles and a happy ending of course.

Another one of those very far removed from reality saeguks where bored court has nothing better to do but to plot against each other inside the palace. It's better filmed than some other of its kind and actors are ok for the most part, but there's nothing new here.

In this one we have a jealous, spiteful grandma, the queen dowager, as the main villain from the get go. She makes no mystery of it. She's playing the kingmaker behind the scenes for her grandsons, like she did for her son, the king, and is not beyond stooping very low against those whom she doesn't like. She hates the current queen, who is FL, for being of nobler birth than her and for not being obedient to her.

Then of course we have the evil minister, who's in cohoots with the grandma.

And last, but not least, a staple of many saeguks - a weak and powerless king, who not only has to obey the ministers lest he be deposed, but he can't even kick out his own scheming mother into fckn retirement to some back palace. His only prowess of note is spawning tons of children with his ever growing harem of concubines.

The concubines can be summed up to basically one character - your typical crazy Asian mother who wants to whip her child into becoming an overachiever and m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶to ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶r̶...to become a king.

And since the king is so prolific in the field of child making there are many male contenders to the throne, which is the crux of this whole drama - everybody wants to take FL's and her sons place. So through her tenacity and guile she has to protect them against all the schemers (which is basically everybody in the court here) lest they all get deposed and killed like what happened to the previous queen and her sons. That's about it. There's lots of intense drama over borderline makjang bs, so if you're worried about your blood pressure I wouldn't recommend watching this drama.

Ok, but those are really old ones and nothing like this drama. And are they even still considered a classic at this point, being this outdated? Nobody films s*it like that anymore.

Classic dramas are a 4/10 now? Well, that’s opinion, I guess.
Personally, I’d give many recent ones 4/10 for too much dumbassery and incompetent endings.

I’ve seen this before here, I even get the gist what exactly you’re complaining about in ep11. You should finish ep 12 to understand why ML was doing and saying those questionable things in ep 11. If you were not paying attention, you won’t get it until it is spelled outright. In ep11 it’s show, don’t tell, so it can get interpreted in bad light. And in previous episodes there were also things that put ML in a more favorable light only if you’re paying enough attention, but can go unnoticed, because they’re not spelled out or in your face.
And while you’re at it, you should finish the whole drama to see how ML’s progressing.
ML is far from perfect here, but some of the stuff some people were saying is completely unfounded and ridiculous, mostly due to not paying attention and not analyzing the plot.

Conglomerate heir, so of course he is.

That's what you get for being a chaebol nepobaby. A suit and a CEO position as soon as you leave adolescence 🤣. No further qualifications required.

You can be a CEO if you're a nepobaby, though that doesn't make this plot any more appealing.