So, The King is getting a lot of bad press for its premiere week. Which, I won’t say isn’t warranted.

However, I realized quickly a third of the way through ep 1 that it was giving off a particular vibe. One that I’d felt before from a particular North American movie franchise. A vibe that made me realize that, in order to see it for its charms, I needed to watch it through a very particular lens.

Follow me into the comments if you want to learn The Secret.

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    The Secret, my fellow Beans, to getting through The King (if you’re game for a test of stamina), is to approach it like Twilight. Yes, Twilight. The tween vampire movie based on the terrible vampire book that should never have been published.

    The Twilight movie was a serious, urban fantasy YA “adventure” that, when watched in earnest, was absolutely, horrifyingly horrible in every way. BUT – when watched as a straight up comedy – it was possibly one of the funniest moves I’d seen that year.

    THIS! This… is the trick to The King. Because it’s an epically EXTRA dumpster fire of glorious WTF moments that, when you try and take them seriously as a normal show, just don’t compute. But when viewed as a parody of what it’s supposed to be – it’s actually kind of fun.

    Despite the directing, writing and a lot of the flunked story opportunities, there are some redeeming qualities (I think, anyway).

    Kim Go-eun is a fun, spunky FL. Woo Do-hwan is definitely being under-utilized, but he’s looking fiiiiiine in his bodyguard duds. I’m really digging the unintentional homoerotic subplot between LMH’s King and WDH’s Captain of the Royal Guard.

    The villain, Prince Lee Something-or-other, also has potential, though mostly because he’s actually scary. He’s a raging psychopath who will actually kill anyone in his path. No one is safe. Not his brother, not even children. Yes, he will kill children. Clearly, this bro is bad news bears for everyone – AND, he’s got a piece of magic flute so WATCH OUT!

    And LMH. Well. I’ve only ever seen BoF so I can’t speak from a place of connoisseurship, but he is killing it at the staring game. He can stare like nobody’s business. Dead stare, quasi-dead stare, almost but-not-quite-alive stare – he’s got it, it’s all there. So, yes, looking forward to more staring from him for sure.

    All in all, will I be tuning in next week? Abso-freaking-lutely! We live in strange and terrible times and I can always use a good laugh.

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      OMG @kudoran there’s a magical flute in this, too!!! But I doubt it will be better than “that guy wearing black and playing flute” 😉😉😉 Because no one— ABSOLUTELY NO ONE— will ever be a better magical flute player than the flute player who likes to wear black 😍😍😍😍😍

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      there is still a difference..
      Twilight promised to cater to teen romance fantasies.. and it did..

      King is not twilight, it is just so much worse..

      Heirs is closer to twilight..

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        Considering the amount of adults who also frothed at the mouth for Twilight… not sure the genre difference matters here. Besides, young LMH fans do “grow up”, at least in the literal sense, and their Comeback King fantasies are certainly being catered to.

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      It IS hilarious. Although, I would have believed Going Yoo a million times more.

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        Gong (autocorrect doesn’t recognize him anymore! He needs to do another drama!!! 😥)

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        If it were GY, and also not good, then it would be more disappointing. Though, for argument’s sake, if it were him… maybe it could be salvaged and wouldn’t need The Secret.

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          As much as I always like to love LMH and I the fact that I was surprised and find him not too bad in first episode, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that Gong Yoo would have made ANYTHING better.

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          this one is stronlgy director’s inexperience..

          script wise KES is doling out usual .. it would be funny and fairly decent..

          acting is also not wrong..

          really.. the direction.. her script needs grand choices.. and this director fails

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      I think it has Harry Potter elements. So it’s a Twilight and Harry Potter mashup. King Tan is Cedric Diggory and Vampire? Ahahaha.

      Why Harry Potter? I’m sure there’s time control gizmo somewhere. And King Tam went to save himself. But it went epically wrong 🙃.

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        So the magic flute doubles as time Turner and Marauder’s Map? Fascinating. I’ll accept the cross-over!

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      OMG i hated Twilight yet i kept watching when a new movie came out (not at the cinemas tho). I fully believe it’s all thanks to The Secret lens/outlook/theory.

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        Oh, you know it was. 😎

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        what is the relation between secret and twilight?

        assume by secret you are referring to the law of attraction in universe/wish fulfillment

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          Nope, no relation to that Secret. I explained this Secret in my comment.

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      I never watched any Twilight and I’m not planning to do it, but if I ever retake The King, I will follow this Secret Formula.

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