The King: Eternal Monarch: beautiful but not quite what I hoped for

Ah, it was the long awaited return of Lee Min-Ho! The King: Eternal Monarch is his first Kdrama after military service.

And was it everything we had hoped it would be?

Ehm... not for me.

The King: Eternal Monarch - story

The King: Eternal Monarch is a story about two simultaneous realities. On the one side we have the Republic of Korea, and on the other side there's The Kingdom of Korea. And it is here that Lee Min-Ho, excuse me Kwin Yool, rules his country.  He's good looking, charismatic and loved by his citizens.

But of course, all is not as perfect as it seems.

Kwin Yool was terribly hurt

Kwin Yool struggles with the trauma of seeing his father being murdered by his mean uncle, and getting seriously wounded himself. Luckily there was a mysterious hero who saved him just in time. This hero left behind a police badge. On it is Jung Tae Eul's picture. Kwin Yool is always thinking about the girl in the photo.

And then one day he finds himself in a parallel universe where he meets her!

In the meantime his terrible uncle is trying to become king, and is using andn murdering people whenever he sees fit.

Which is often.

So of course Kwin Yool and Jung Tae Eul feel like they have to stop him.

The King: Eternal Monarch: beautiful but mweh...

You can't fault how beautiful Eternal Monarch is. You can see they spend about 25 million USD to create this Kdrama. And of course, Lee Min Ho is beautiful.

But no matter how beautiful The King is, it just didn't do it for me.

I found this Kdrama very complicated, boring and with not enough believable romance.

Romance is unbelievable

For one thing, when the king and Jung Tea Eul first meet, she treats him with lots of contempt. Then,  I blinked for a second, and suddenly she's totally in love with him. I just didn't get it.

'When did thát happen?!' I asked my youngest daughter.

I found Jung Tea Eul's change in attitude towards the king unbelievable. Even though they're kind of sweet together, I just couldn't get past the fact I didn't understand when, or how Jung Tea Eul fell in love with the king.

The trouble with  Lee Min-Ho

There's nothing wrong with Lee Min-Ho. He's a good actor. But I just couldn't see him als the eternal monarch. I kept thinking:

'There's Lee Min-Ho acting like he's a king.' 

Official trailer of The King: Eternal Monarch

So, summing up

I think the problem for me, lies in the fact that the story of The King: Eternal Monarch didn't sweep me off my feet. I like to get lost in a Kdrama, but with this one, my feet stayed firmly on the ground.

The King: Eternal Monarch features great actors, and it's beautifully shot, but the story lacks heart.

The King: Eternal monarch was rated 8.1 on MyDramalist. I would rate it a 7.

Practical information op The King: Eternal monarch

You can watch The King: Eternal monarch on Netflix! Or kissasian.sh.

What did you think of Lee Min-ho's comeback and The King: Eternal monarch?