Yeonmo / The King's Affection (2021)

After Hometown Cha-cha-cha, my friend recommended Yeonmo/The King’s Affection, then still one of the top Netflix shows here. I’m usually fine with Chinese historical drama, but I’m not a sageuk fan as I find them too long and slow-moving. Not even Dae Jang Geum, global hit that it was, could hold my attention. 20 episodes of Yeonmo should be okay, so there I went!

Such photogenic actors, colours and composites of flowers, trees and pond/lake/river/sea for the setting. Rather unschooled in sageuk, it was only while watching Yeonmo that I realised how beautiful the traditional male hanbok looks. The textures are lovely, as are the pinks, purples, greys, blues… well, every colour they wear!

Leads Park Eun-bin and Rowoon (she much more so than he), and Choi Myung-bin, the teenage sweetie playing the young version of Dam-yi (Eun-bin) and her twin brother (although twins of different gender shouldn’t be identical, ha!), are solid. Lee Hwi’s (Eun-bin) eunuch is hilarious, too.

The plot is intriguing, and the dark opening scenes where the baby girl twin is supposed to be killed (because she cannot share the womb with the crown prince, hmrmph) make an exciting starter.

However, the story drags in the last few episodes, and there is much senseless battling and killing towards the end. Some plot holes and unanswered questions distracted me too, such as: how does Lee Hwi survive the poison tea, what exactly does the evil grandpa have in mind amassing all that power when he is his age, how is the bodyguard a top swordsman with his fringe always in his eyes and how does he survive the fall/jump off the cliff with the book still more or less intact (presumably he fell into the water rather than on the rocks since he is still alive), and why doesn’t the commander jump with him instead of standing there to be killed by the soldiers? Also, I thought the show could do without certain characters, such as the crook uncle and the minister’s daughter who wants to marry Ji-woon (Rowoon).

I’d still recommend this to anyone who likes K-drama, sageuk or rom-coms. It was also fun watching videos after that of Rowoon and the bodyguard (Choi Byung-chan) singing and dancing as the K-pop idols that they are! You can find it here: Yeonmo / The King's Affection

20 episodes, KBS

Congratulations to the Yeonmo team for winning an Emmy this year!

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