The King's Affection: The King's Affection (all episodes)
December 15, 2021 6:45 PM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe

 
This 20-episode season just finished its Netflix streaming/Korean broadcast run this week.

Overall, I enjoyed this. Lavish costumes and a gorgeous cast, a nice mix of high drama angst and rom-com tropes.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:02 PM on December 15, 2021


I'm looking forward to watching this. Mainly because of Park Eun Bin but I also like Joseon royal family intrigue stories. Anyway, I haven't had time to catch the full episodes but it looks very engaging from the Instagram clips I've seen.
posted by plastic_animals at 7:42 PM on December 15, 2021


I think this was my first Park Eun Bin show (which is kind of a surprise considering how many shows are in her filmography and that she's been acting since she was 5, but I've only been watching kdramas for a couple of years now) but I liked her. And she and Rowoon were adorable together.

I feel like the very end was a little bit off or anticlimactic somehow, but that might be on me, in that I wasn't sure if I could trust in getting a satisfying finale and so held back my heart a bit. Pretty sure this was my first pure-sageuk; every other show I've seen with a Joseon Dynasty setting was only partially set there (via time travel like in 'Live Up To Your Name' or supernatural/reincarnation shenanigans like in 'Mystic Pop-Up Bar'), so I didn't know what kind of an ending to expect.
posted by oh yeah! at 3:35 PM on December 16, 2021


I’m halfway through the series, and it’s dragging... But do any of you know if there’s a Joseon-era kdrama tip sheet out there? I have so many questions in my brain as I watch this:
* What year is this supposed to be?
* Do the colors of the hat beads / robes / uniforms mean anything?
* How did they make those hats in the original era, and who gets to wear which kind of hat?
* What is the “left hand counselor” position?
* What are the exams that they keep mentioning?
* Is the king the only king in the realm, or are there other kings in different regions?
* Can you marry your cousin? Or are “cousins” more like distant cousins?

I can’t keep the old man characters straight, especially with the random flashbacks (like when did the grandpa king die, and which old man advisers are sided with whom?). But I like the love triangle characters, they are making it enjoyable overall.
posted by Maarika at 4:35 PM on December 31, 2021


I finished the series last night and am glad I pushed through - I think it had a lot of really lovely, romantic, angst-filled moments interspersed with cute comedy, but the political intrigue plot points were a real slog. I still have many questions about the era - I think I’ll try a time-travel Joseon Kdrama next!
posted by Maarika at 10:48 AM on January 16, 2022


I finally got around to watching this and found it enjoyable but uneven. There were indeed a lot of lovely moments but episodes 14ish to 18/19 just dragged for me. The plotting was pretty slapdash in places, like the two episode visit of the ridiculously angry Ming envoy, and I'm not sure we needed three fake deaths (and just how did Dam-yi survive her self-poisoning?).

I did enjoy the cast, especially Yoon Je-moon, who played Lord Sangheon, Dam-yi's power mad grandfather. Looking at his Wikipedia entry I saw that he's only 22 years older than Park Eun Bin.

Speaking of Park Eun Bin, I've been watching her current drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo (highly recommended so far!) and you wouldn't know she is playing Dam-yi here and Woo Young Woo in that series.
posted by plastic_animals at 4:11 PM on July 26, 2022


Yeah, I'm enjoying her in 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo', I expect I'll be posting a thread when it wraps up in August (along with 'Cafe Minamdang' and 'Alchemy of Souls').
posted by oh yeah! at 7:29 PM on July 26, 2022


Everyone in this drama needed to learn to have conversations behind closed doors and to check the hallways and closets before revealing sensitive information.
posted by Julnyes at 2:42 PM on January 2


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