This review may contain spoilers
Way Better Than Expected
I feel like I’d only ever heard bad things about King the Land, but I’m really glad I decided to give it a chance! If you are looking for a really fluffy romcom, this is a perfect choice.
I had only ever seen Jun Ho is Just Between Lovers, which is a show with a drastically different tone, so I knew he was an amazing actor. He took a character who could have been just irritating and made him really endearing and charming. The leads had great chemistry and a sweet romance. It felt like their romance developed really naturally.
There have been so many CEO and poor girl romances done already, but King the Land did stick out. It was an unexpected surprise that they spent a lot of time focusing on workers rights, unions, class inequality, and a lot of things that other CEO dramas would never touch on. While the female lead does have to point out a lot of his ignorance and incorrect assumptions at the beginning, it felt refreshing that he took a lot of initiative to fix those things and educate himself instead of expecting her to. He was also very charmingly down to earth and especially the scenes of him interacting with her grandma and friends were very sweet.
The friendships were a huge strength of the show. The core three female friends had a really fun and realistic friendship, and they were all great characters. It was also a lot of fun that they all formed one big friend group, which isn’t something that is often seen. The second romance was also great and the second male lead was so sweet that I wanted him to have more screen time! The only person whose storyline was really disappointing was the married friend. Her husband was such a loser who was so disrespectful to her, and she should have had a much better and empowering ending. His behavior also felt like it was played way too much for laughs when it was actually really upsetting what he was doing.
There were some other small disappointments, like not as much resolution or explanation of the male lead’s family as was needed. I think I would have rated this series very high if it had been 12 episodes, maybe even 14. For a fluffy romcom with minimal conflict 16 full length episodes just feels way too long. It got a little boring towards the end because they’d run out of story. I still think this drama is worth the watch and I can see it being a good comfort rewatch. The couple has such a healthy and sweet relationship. There are lots of swoonworthy moments and a lot of the best tropes.
I had only ever seen Jun Ho is Just Between Lovers, which is a show with a drastically different tone, so I knew he was an amazing actor. He took a character who could have been just irritating and made him really endearing and charming. The leads had great chemistry and a sweet romance. It felt like their romance developed really naturally.
There have been so many CEO and poor girl romances done already, but King the Land did stick out. It was an unexpected surprise that they spent a lot of time focusing on workers rights, unions, class inequality, and a lot of things that other CEO dramas would never touch on. While the female lead does have to point out a lot of his ignorance and incorrect assumptions at the beginning, it felt refreshing that he took a lot of initiative to fix those things and educate himself instead of expecting her to. He was also very charmingly down to earth and especially the scenes of him interacting with her grandma and friends were very sweet.
The friendships were a huge strength of the show. The core three female friends had a really fun and realistic friendship, and they were all great characters. It was also a lot of fun that they all formed one big friend group, which isn’t something that is often seen. The second romance was also great and the second male lead was so sweet that I wanted him to have more screen time! The only person whose storyline was really disappointing was the married friend. Her husband was such a loser who was so disrespectful to her, and she should have had a much better and empowering ending. His behavior also felt like it was played way too much for laughs when it was actually really upsetting what he was doing.
There were some other small disappointments, like not as much resolution or explanation of the male lead’s family as was needed. I think I would have rated this series very high if it had been 12 episodes, maybe even 14. For a fluffy romcom with minimal conflict 16 full length episodes just feels way too long. It got a little boring towards the end because they’d run out of story. I still think this drama is worth the watch and I can see it being a good comfort rewatch. The couple has such a healthy and sweet relationship. There are lots of swoonworthy moments and a lot of the best tropes.
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