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Fair enough. The reason why I say it is cringey is because of the character that Jinyoung plays. He saves the girl during a demonstration, but then drops a cassette tape (like what?!). The girl falls in love with him at first sight. Secretively he likes her as well, but acts all tsundere and starts "hating" on her because she is rich. What a crock of bull... This is reverse discrimination... Then the girl follows him to a demonstration and she gets arrested. He feels bad for her and does a 180...

Also cringey is the kneeling scene.. The girl gets hit by her dad for listening to kpop. He goes to her home and goes down on his knees to ask her dad to treat the girl better. The dad walks away quietly, but then starts screwing him over...

Also, pure coincidence... JH runs in JS during a Leslie Cheung exhibition as he was hiding for the police after protesting.

To top it all off, his character spews verbal garbage as "the weak side is my side"...

What also makes it cringey is that the drama starts with a warning saying that some elements are exaggerated to create drama... But it goes too far in my book... Why on earth did they change the year that Love Letter came out to 1993?

This is what I meant with "forced" and "cringey", but these are just my two cents.

I started watching it because Lee Bo Young and Yoo Ji Tae normally pick good roles, so I am expecting something spectacularly good. But it is okay... I like the chill vibe, but that's about it.

But you cannot deny that he immersed in his role very well, right? He definitely has the aura of an actor. So his acting skills definitely compensated for his looks. I definitely do not think that a flower boy could do it any better. There are just not a lot of actors that have the maturity, acting skills and the looks to play the role. Also, kdramas screw up the human mind by casting so many actors only on their looks. He is by no means a model, but he is above-average good looking. Have you ever been to Korea and looked at the average Korean... Not the best looking people... My two cents though...

Geez... Another piece of pseudo-analysis. This time by captain obvious disguised as an expert. Whilst we at it, why do we not replace Lee Min Ho with Brad Pitt and Kim Go Eun with Angelina Jolie. I am sure that Koreans will massively tune in and the international crowd as well. Who does not want to see a divorced couple that had an ugly break up starring in a lovey-dovey drama?

Why can't these antis and these sasaengs not accept the fact that this story is not for everyone. It is like the color pink, some like it, some hate it and some are indifferent. You have to make choices. Either you cater to the international crowd or you cater to the Koreans, but it is difficult to cater to both. To suggest to change the color pink to blue is just too late and sheer impossible. Only a few times can you please both crowds such as with CLOY, Goblin, DOTS or Parasite... But these are considered masterpieces and won many prizes such as an Oscar for best movie... But if it was so easy to write an Oscar-winning script, then the writer of Parasite will win each year right? The most difficult thing in the world is to write a simple script that is appreciated by all of us...

Look, changing the direction, the editing and so on is easy to do, but to change the script completely whilst it was appreciated by at least one target group (the international crowd) is just a kamikaze attempt. With a little bit of bad luck, you also lose the Netflix crowd...

Who is going to make the meme of the coffee PPL in the King and replace the dialogue of LMH with this legendary gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o67MwYt6KiE&feature=youtu.be&t=23

What an incoherent story with pseudo-analysis... Especially the JTBC versus SBS diagram... Talking about how Hot Stove League had no competition, whilst our friends at TVN were broadcasting CLOY during the same period (and therefore shared Saturday in viewership). Add Itaewon Class in the mix, and Hot Stove League had brutal competition. But... Namkoong Min still performed... Which is extraordinary, because sports dramas are historically epic fails in terms of viewership ratings. In fact, all three performed. So this argument that there is no room for two successful dramas during the same period is bull. Although I must admit that Covid-19 actually also helped their viewership. But this is not a big enough excuse. Hyena, for example, recorded its highest viewership ratings in the later episodes when TWOTM started airing and taking dramaland by storm.

Based on this analysis, we should see The King do 20%+ next week, as JTBC decided not to air a new kdrama after TWOTM. TVN is also weak with When My Love Blooms... Let me tell you this in advance, it does not work like that.

It should not matter whether The King is doing well or not versus JTBC and TVN. In absolute terms, SBS is deeply unsatisfied. Remember also that The King opened with high viewership. So people gave it a chance, but were apparently not interested. You cannot blame JTBC for the public sentiment...

To real TKEM fans the criticism should not matter at all. You watch it, because you enjoy it and not because the general public watches it. It irks me to see that people are now using non-reputable sources as evidence to prove a case. The English used in the article... Yikes... It definitely does not do justice to TKEM... It looks almost autogenerated by Google translate

The younger couple should have set the tone for the present-day couple. Instead we see a very happy young couple and a very sad mature couple. The story should have been more linear ("a" leads to "b" leads to "c" -> past influences the present), but what we see here is more of a parallel world. Everything repeats itself, but the couple is now more sad and separated. You are essentially watching two different Kdramas, also in style. The younger story is almost a rom-com, whilst the older couple is acting in a melodrama.

The incoherency is further exacerbated by the fact that the young and older actors have zero physical similarities (not in looks, height or even the pitch of the voice and diction). Coincidentally sometimes both story link up. The majority of the time, however, we are watching completely different stories where accidentally a trope (such as a Leslie Cheung exhibition) from the past matches up with the present.

I applaud the writer for this ambitious way of story telling, but she definitely needs to go back to the drawing board.

I respectfully disagree. The younger couple is quite cringey. They have a lot of blank stares and the acting is forced. Not because they cannot act, but because the writing is so poor. One of the reasons why this drama is pretty average has to do with the fact that past story is very lacklustre. They should have used the younger couple's story to set the tone, but instead we only see a caricature of a melodrama. The younger story is more of a heartwarming rom-com, whilst the future story is meant to be bloody serious. The discrepancy between the two story lines in terms of mood is just too big. Having said that, Lee Bo Young and Yoo Ji Tae manage to alleviate the poor writing with their acting skills, whilst the younger couple is okayish

The character he plays won't though...

This is hilarious. Initially, almost all viewers found Lee Tae Oh (the actor Park Hae Joon) not the best looking guy. But as the series developed, many viewers changed their opinions and found him charismatic/ handsome, because of his acting skills. The actor will grow on you.

You are slightly confused about the popularity of Turkish Dizi amongst non-Turkish people. I am from Northern Europe and no-one (except for Turkish people) are watching Turkish series. Having said that, there are whole German, Dutch, Swedish cities filled with millions of Turkish people, who consume this form of entertainment. Just like Turkish football teams such as Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas have more supporters than some of the domestic teams, because of the sheer amount of Turkish people living in those cities. Or in the US with Telenovas, which are amongst the most watched shows domestically, but only amongst the Latinos...

Kdramas on the other hand are also watched by non-Koreans who think they are into Kdrama, but are not that fanatic as they think they are. They are mostly into rom-coms, fantasy and idol dramas. They do not really watch the more serious shows or the ones with veteran actors such as TWOTM, Sky Castle (before idols starting praising the show),Hyena or even the Fiery Priest (to name a few random shows). So I agree with Ganoush.

At least the quality of the chicken is consistent