Shout-out: for those who are interested in dramas featuring the historical Yeonsanggun (yes, the man who was considered the absolute worst tyrant in their history)

You may wanna pair your light timeslip romcom (Tyrant's Chef) with the excellent and weightier historical drama (Queen for 7 Days) featuring an angst-ridden love triangle, fidelity to historical details with an imagination to fill out the unspoken, and a very intense award-winning portrayal of Yeonsanggun by the smothering Lee Dong-gun.

Said drama was so excellent the DB site actually saw both founders writing long finale reviews and final comments for the last episode (which was very rare on DB). and I, despite knowing he was the worst tyrant, ended up rooting/shipping for him so badly cos the character was so well-written and so complex.

I think the angry teen vibes is *just* about right. Joseon kings get to be kings pretty young anyway lol. So tis a noona-romance brewing!

Hence all the jokes about her *already* being 27 are so hilarious (in this Joseon time-slip context)

I love her side-kick already! More comic shenanigans in the kitchen please!

Two random comic highlights for me:

1) when the king was finally rescued by his entourage and he hollered with outrage: "There is a rebel who humiliated me!" 🤣🤣 It's petty with a capital P

2) when the king, after having an out-of-body experience eating her sous vide beef, became very solicitous and started to ask our FL for her name, her age, whether she has a hubby, and why she wanted to cook. That scene was comic incongruity GOLD!

It was SO un-kingly and a tonal whiplash from the tyrant-mode-on. He suddenly transformed into this rather indulgent man with an avuncular interest. The LOL punch-line was when he asked for her age, and gasped that she is already 27! and NO husband yet! (it's so tonally off for a supposed tyrant it's hilarious!)

I think PSH had to drop out cos of a controversy issue so Chae-Min stepped in to fill the role

I thought LCM did well though, and I don't mind at all he feels like a young brat (Joseon days everyone is young! You get to be king even as a young kid)

Thanks for clearing up the confusion, as did @magajesj too!

So, I was half right. It was originally based on the historical Yeonsanggun, but drama changed his name WHILST still keeping in the script all the atrocities the real tyrant did in real life (hence the confusion for me)

As the female lead in the C drama Dream within a Dream says, ¨He has plot armor.¨

Should have added this to my previous reply –

Another reason I support the theory of Seongjae and Su-bin ending up together is because she took up for Jihyuk and admitted she wanted a life free of financial struggle.

Yeong-ra is supposed to be Seongjae's stepsister, right? I don't think we know what happened to Seongjae's birth mother yet, do we?

Has anyone else watched "Cinderella with Four Knights"? Is the Haneul name of BoA's father's company an Easter egg? I noticed they also used that as the baby name in "The Real Has Come!" with Ahn Jae-hyun from CwFK.

I keep thinking about Jihyuk's "fool" thoughts and his whole outlook on love. What does love even mean, on his terms?

I’ve started BENEATH THE UNDERTOW

I really liked The Knockout

Thank you for the recap

I am bit disappointed that Park Hyung Sik doesn't get to flex his muscles the first 2 episodes. Hopefully this will be rectified by the 8th minute of episode 3.

I am in general pleased that the fighting scenes are well-choreographed, and not long and drawn-out, a la John Wick style.....

Let's see how the remaining 6 episodes play out, especially when the episodes are less than an hour long.....seems not enough time for a complex storyline or much character development.....

"Longer term possible dramatic purpose: Seongjae has a deadline from his dad to get married" - same wavelength, Lawyer.

Ouch... Twelve got only 10 cast members and its characters instead of 12?! WTF is this?

The 10 real cast members... but I don't know if the final 2 cast members will be added. Maybe because Twelve only had 10 stars then later adding 2 more stars instead, not 12 stars. Maybe I got confused and worried about the missing final 2 cast members/characters in this Kdrama. I hope there will be 2 more stars/characters to complete its eponymous/titular number need to be added soon.

With all the moping around and general depression in Episode 6 I forgot to note the very cute moment when our 2ML has been called to meet Su-bin- who is begging him to model for her YouTube channel. She lays on the total cuteness but he is not buying it. Purpose of this scene: This is how 2ML finds out that her brother Ji-won is jobless again and thus available to protect his little sister Yeong-ra. Longer term possible dramatic purpose: Seongjae has a deadline from his dad to get married- maybe we are getting a foreshadowing of a moment in say about a year from now when a beautiful young wife is laying the aegyo on her handsome hubby?

Yes I know I was not exactly being original in raising this issue, in fact, I first learned of it in early discussions of the show before the episodes, and @vienibenmio notes it above.

But it personally struck me again in these two episodes--which I have to stress, again, that I enjoyed because the tone of the show really is fantasy sageuk rom com, and it was done well. But, if I think about it, the specificity of historical references suggest a serious critique-- which then is undermined by the rom-com part, because Yoona's character is so resourceful and a her chef abilities are well portrayed, and the king-abuser is good-looking, and after all he was just doing the chaehong for revenge and not because of less kdrama-respectable motives of royal domination, lust and thinking of women as only sexual objects to be used for his pleasure, the way it totally was in real life.

You make a good point that if the theme is how appropriate views of female equality would have really shaken up the Joseon patriarchy, and altered the course of Joseon events, maybe the historical connections are necessary, and politics will be key to illustrating how modern views would have changed things for the better. But I still would have enjoyed the rom-com part more if there wasn't this nightmare historical background as a key part of the show.

I really enjoyed the primer episodes! Lots of good food shots too. I find it refreshing that this is one of the few FL who time travels not through water ( like parks marriage contract, mr queen, etc) but in an air plane!! I hope we continue to get a good story’ and good food!

Otherwise, I hope Gil-Geum will have a longer life than Baek-Yi in The Tale of Lady Ok... I wondered where I heard this accent with this face as the loyal servant.

"But since they did establish it on this real life connection"

So many Beanies have now raised this issue. Per @jess they did change the name of the king from the the real tyrant Yi Yung/Yeonsan-gun to the fictional Yi Heon/Yeonhui-gun for... whatever... reasons. But I also wonder if there's a twist somewhere here.

Ji-yeong wonders herself if she prevented the "Literary Revolt" (or something like that) by disrupting the chaehong and banishing the governor's daughter instead of bringing her to the palace. She also ominously foreshadows the tragic but deserving end of the tyrant and mentions it to the governor's son. I found it peculiar the script emphasized it, like almost it will play a major role in the future. Her foresight might be either a disruptive force indeed or a tool used by a variety of players to advance their goals. This time around I actually find the palace politics rather intriguing.

These 2 episodes were enjoyable, and I’ve always been something of a fan of Yoona’s somewhat blandly cheery but tougher-than-she-seems acting persona. Lee Chae Min is also quite good so far.

But still I’m of two minds about this one after the first couple of episodes.

On the one hand, I always have trouble with sageuks, because I just don’t like Joseon society as it really existed. Even in its fantasy version, where slaves are always loving and loyal, where eunuchs are played for laughs, where many daughters and wives are able to rebel and be independent, and concubines are all power brokers, or coquettes who actually enjoy enticing men, rather than the sexual slaves, I just have trouble getting by the oppressive nature of the social order. Because of my dislike of this historical era, the elaborate palace politics which all sageuks revolve around and which require the viewer to root for one faction, I personally find a little boring, but even more, I don’t care, since my attitude is a plague on all Joseon royal houses.

On the other hand—I know these sagueks are just fantasy fiction, and there’s no reason I have to worry about the social issues involved, and I can just go ahead and watch to see the spectacularly beautiful Honey Lee beat up a evil ministerial guards, or enjoy the romances between the modern college student who is dropped into the Taecyon regime, or between the water dragon in human form and the Joseon optometrist-shaman.

This one, though, which fantasy-fictionalizes a monarch who is reputed to be one of the most horrible in Korean history, really crystallizes the sageuk conflict for me. If they hadn’t based it on a real king, then the “bad boy with mommy issues” take on his personality would have been easy to go along with, because, of course, they wouldn’t have even had to suggest that he was raping hundreds of women he commandeered for his sexual pleasure, or implied that he systematically dismembered the servants that displeased him.

But since they did establish it on this real life connection, are we supposed to root for this romance? Or be upset if the show follows history and shows him violently deposed and all his children poisoned? Or is there going to be a lesson that even a real life male sadist/rapist can be soothed by a beautiful woman cooking great food and otherwise satisfying all his sensual appetites? (Of course, I already know that the show will probably not have that the lesson.)

I’ll continue to watch this for now, all the while wondering why they decided it would be good to reference this particular real life tyrant, rather than just portray some entirely made up character whose reform would be believable. Does anyone know the answer as to why?

KYJ looks stunning!