[Drama 2020] The King: Eternal Monarch, 더 킹: 영원의 군주

[Umjicheok]

1 hour ago, Edgar Pordwed said:

Btw they focussed on Luna's shoes for a few seconds. Those who shared photos of the saviours' shoes earlier, do they match? 

That was my first thought too. The images were posted many pgs back and this thread moves with LTE speed.

 

Sorry chingus long post since I wanted to vent out everything at once

One word that comes to my mind with TKEM is 'rollercoaster'. One moment I feel it is slow then it is fast. In one scene there is murder and crime and next scene there is romance. 

 

Romantic scenes were so warm and sweet. Well our king must be happy that JTE crossed the line with LTE speed. I like how in today's episode she was initiating skinship and also took sweet revenge on behalf of Lee gon from the shop owner in that shooting game. 

 

I was also watching some random Goblin scenes and I could see some similarities like: 

1. The first kiss was similar in a sense that one person didn't react like in Goblin it was Goblin and here it was JTE

2. The tree was there in Goblin too which is shown here in the opening of every episode.

And along with these obvious things like writer, fantasy genre, evil vs good fight and lead actress, male lead living eternal life.

In Goblin the title had the ending itself 'the lonely'. In TKEM we have 'eternal monarch'

So now I wish that ending is not similar but at the same time I am unable to imagine how it can be happy ending 

 

Also today cafe owner opened my eyes that actually we are not seeing the bigger picture of how our couple can stay together.

Parallel universes cannot meet. Humans are selfish in nature, that is what Lee lim is using . Doppleganger who is less privileged will take advantage of his/her better counterpart even if they don't like it intially as seen in that HG Company's son murder scene. The other guy hesitated but still went through the plan. And either LG or JTE leaving their respective world doesn't seem feasible. They both have existing relationships.

 

Also I know the popular choice for LG'S saviour is LG himself BUT when the first time when that scene played out young LG would have died right? Then how would he grow into adult LG and go back to save himself? Since Lee lim would complete his task and come into power.  So someone who is either affected by king's death OR due to Lee Lim's evilness would have wanted to change the outcome which makes me think it is not LG who is man in mask.

 

When they showed JTE shooting ,here I was thinking whether we had a good look at LG savior's physique in first episode and then the next moment we are back to shin jae 

I was rewatching past episodes and am I the only one who is thinking that there was more than 1 person who came to save young LG?

 

Shin jae in the preview visited LG doppleganger's grave which makes me wonder whether the guess of him being ROK LG is true ( I think someone mentioned it in this thread)

And I don't know why it seems yeong is fighting with shin jae but he should know that JTE wouldn't take it lightly.  TE character is very protective about people surrounding her like for example Eun seop fainted, her reaction was so sad and angry .

This can actually lead to conflict btw leads.

 

If luna was in jail how come they didn't have her fingerprints in their database. Don't they store prisoner's fingerprints?!

 

 

 

 

[Keikokoko]

9 hours ago, ck1Oz said:

Yet the scenes feel disjointed between worlds. I can't work out if it's the writer. Or the director. The scene pacing is slow actually I feel it's a tad slow. It doesn't feel slick and moves between scenes and worlds fast enough.

 

I think it's the shooting style and budget issue. It requires higher budget and different style of shooting to have scenes flow smoothly. Actors have to prepare for longer scene each time and camera has to roll longer to capture more actions per minute.  It takes longer to prepare for both actors and production team. Think film making.  For 16 episode drama that airs weekly and on limited  shooting time and budget, it's probably more difficult to achieve number of scenes per minute. instead the drama production team uses different shooting angles from same scene to convey the characters' action and emotion. And we often feel like stillness of long shot moving into close-up for the same action/emotion scene.  This results in us feeling like staying on the same scene for longer than necessary but missing gaps between scenes. It's like listening to music note by note without smooth transition and phasing. 

 

I have learned to overlook this flaw and focus on story line, actors and beautiful scenery instead.  

[bebebisous33]

19 minutes ago, Dramafreak said:

Thank you thank you thank you...

 

Both for writing down ur thoughts so systematically and for tagging me such that I dont miss this.

 

Question: what is this golden calf story?

 

Also' i wonder how LG's vision of the dragon from east sea not being positive... will play out in the story!

To summarize the passage from the bible (Exodus):

After Israelistes left Egypt behind with Moses' help, the prophet climbed up the mount Sinai and waited there for a sign from God. He stayed there for a long time, until he received the 10 Commandments. During this time, people felt that God had abandoned them and decided to create an idol, a golden calf. It is a fake god and as such it is linked to false promises...

I usually interpret this story like this:

In time of despair, people tend to seek an easy way out and to believe easily, when someone tells them that he has the solution to their problem, like f. ex. like German citizens after the economical crisis from 1929 believed in Hitler's fake promises that he will help them and the country.  You can be surprised by my comparison but fact is that national-socialism is actually considered as a pseudo-religion. That's the reason why the national-socialists had the swastika or hack cross, just like Christians have a cross for their religion. Furthermore, in some books, Hitler is often described as Messiah and his arrival was predestined.

And Lee Rim has a similar vision of the world: he appeals to weak people and lets them think that he will resolve their problem easily, while in reality he is just using them. See what happened to the heir of that huge company. He thought, he could become the future heir and get the succession. In fact, he had been tricked by Lee Rim.  

[mrsj3n]

45 minutes ago, scrawford said:

 

 

Also, did anybody see that Lee Sang Do still alive and now working in the Palace? he was one of the Stable worker. The Lee Sang do body in ROK is the Doppleganger from KOC.

 

 

 

Yes!!! That's one of the reason why I wish JTE shared more with LG.

 

And I'm honestly peeved that she did not mention uncle prince as well.

 

I mean girl..  we are a bit short of time here!

 

 

Tell him! Tell him!

 

@Umjicheok YES! Thanks for bringing that up.

If Luna was in jail, why wasn't her fingerprints in the system when the detective first search?

Something doesn't add up here!

 

And regarding the shoes.

Could it be Luna?

The one who saved our King 25 years ago?

 

[Ima04]

Reading most of the debatle comment talking about is it romance or not..

Since first reading the article of this drama, i thought it wasn't a romance at all. 

The highlight was "JtE who is from another door, helping LG to catch the devil and close the door that connected between the two world"

Since then, i never expected the romance will be packed with lovey dovey scenes. i'm not the only one right who think like that, right?!

Or anyone just expcting it will be full romance just by looking the cast and the writer?

I'm not even thinking The writer previous drama in the cable TV about US soldier was romance also LoL. 

Probably everyone have different definition what is romance drama..

 

I believe i miss herd the preview, it was miracle (기적) not universe (우주). So i came into conclusion that shin jae is switch from Corea to Korea. 

The recent scene showing he's waking up from something is starting point of the switching

And the security guard, the switch will be happen with the women that killed her friend. Her alibi during the convenient store probably covered by LR's guard.

Also the primiminister's mother probably also work with him, the stick/umbrella that left in the resto was his.

And the newspaper that sent by someone to jer mother, i'm curious if that intended to received by PM or by her mother

 

[koreaboooo]

There's so many suspicious people working near LG that the camera give us extra glances in ep 7, such as the person at the stable, the security lady,  Clearly can tell Lady Noh should do a whole refresh on all the palace help. But it'll be hard cause background check won't work here.

 

Another thing I wonder is when LR's helper was getting the money, he said "You can never be sure about people, though." That might actually become LR's downfall. LR is someone who likes to do things in advance. You can see he's trying to be God. He thinks he know human nature and he also mentioned to the pregnant lady before he would be surprised if she rejected his deal. So he is someone who thinks everything is going his way. What I feel is, while most people in in ROK and COR are living opposite lives, I believe the person's nature in general are different mostly due to nurture and upbringing. Ever thought they might've been the same people or people who are more of similar nature if they live in the same scenario? This can be shown from Nari and the reporter. They both grew up in middle class family and their nature is pretty similar to the point when Nari cut her hair, JTE felt the uncanniness. Poverty makes people desperate. Also it can be said human nature is generally greedy but there are always exceptions. This makes me wonder how some people think JY might be working for LR. If that's true, there's a chance he could betray LR and save LG in the end, so even if he is the traitor, I'm not too worried about it. I would just be a bit sad. 

 

Another thing I noticed is, we got to see more of Shin Jae's background. Maybe he was switched during that hospital scene, but why? What reason does LR have to switch 2 kids. Also the family was wealthy before, for what reason would they make a deal with LR? Is the deal to have a healthy son? Is original Shin Jae sickly so the mom made a deal with LR for a healthier son? But what does he get for helping her? A temporary place in ROK to hide? Maybe I should rewatch the scenes between mother and son. He does sometimes seem to be an indifferent son, but you can see he does care for her. 

[Deepakmahajan]

Loved the episode. But one thing,  I think where PD is lacking is first 15 minutes. Instead of showing crimes, they should focus more on  both leads scene to catch audience's interest , add some fantasy element and introduce crime scenes midway. Start is very important to engage people. That is why first half gets less praise. And feels disconnected.

 

And china scene was subtle about corean citizens visiting china's 661 cities without visa. Subtle because of hallyu ban of korean dramas. Lee min ho is huge star there and at one point endorsed over 20 plus brands there per year.  And kim eun sook dramas were megahits there as well. And king thanking china for allowing corean citizens!  SO It looked like a reference to hallyu ban lol.

[madmad min]

53 minutes ago, Umjicheok said:

Shin jae in the preview visited LG doppleganger's grave which makes me wonder whether the guess of him being ROK LG is true ( I think someone mentioned it in this thread

 

 

Isn't Kid Shin-Jae shown a different Kid than Ji-Hun in both episode 4(family frame maybe) and episode 7(and today's nightmare)...The aesthetics / continuity of storyline will get convulated if LG in ROK ie Lee Ji-Hun is shown as Present Day ROK Korea.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

[leeminhosny]

9 minutes ago, Deepakmahajan said:

Loved the episode. But one thing,  I think where PD is lacking is first 15 minutes. Instead of showing crimes, they should focus more on  both leads scene to catch audience's interest , add some fantasy element and introduce crime scenes midway. Start is very important to engage people. That is why first half gets less praise. And feels disconnected.

I think same and I think PD still couldn't understand us 

[Heretorant]

1 hour ago, scrawford said:

I too love the balance our couple has. They both need each other and as of now, the only who understand what is really going on (except for the culprit LR). which makes their bond strong. Cause we hear a lot of "JTE has more chemistry/history with Shin Jae" well.... this is the one thing no one can take away from our OTP. And i love how you pointed out LG trust in JTE. Thank God for "No Noble idiocy" and He is not giving up, He will find the beautiful solution. However i feel like it's a foretelling when Tae Eul was talking about how "things should be going exactly how it should in their respective world, and two world shouldn't collide" them... hello how about you and LG? how are you two going to end up? 

 

Regarding the ID, the show didn't tell us that JTE knew the ID went missing, but the scene where she was saying goodbye, LG gave her ID and said "Maybe i meant to give this to you all a long" to me it's saying that JTE knew it went missing.

 

LG in ROK remains mystery for me, Im not 100% that he died, but if he did, it wouldn't be a total shock. with his grave being showed in the drama once and more in the upcoming episode, to me, it's either to assured us (viewer) that he indeed died, or to misled us. Which led me to think that Either Shin jae is the savior or The show is trying to misled us. Why is my instinct telling me that the show is trying to misled us? idk. but if i'm proven wrong, it won't be shock.

 

Regarding the King is a bad shooter, why do i also think it's another misled, is because Lee Gon as a character didn't seem as someone who is showing off his fighting ability, aside from epi2 where JTE interrogate him and trying to get his fingerprint, and he told her that he is trained for taekwondo etc etc....he never really tried to show off. And the fighting scene in the alley, He did ended up helping, but that was out of necessity, he was letting JTE and Shin jae took care of it, until He saw that one guy was going to hurt shin jae with the knife. And he stepped in. Of course, he was kinda cocky that he get to show off a bit of his fighting ability to JTE, but without it being necessary, i think he wouldn't. and the comment about him being last in combat by the Navy captain and JY told him that he is better with sword than the king, i didn't buy it. I feel like it's part of his protection that his true fighting ability is not shown. we know that He has self defense ability, but i have this feeling he is way more skillful than what he is willing to let people know

 

Do you think he will die??

 

I too am enjoying J and ES meeting. and that Comment about how no one told him that He is Handsome. Also why do i have a feeling that JY parents or Dad is somehow switched?I have to rewatch again to confirm.

 

Also, did anybody see that Lee Sang Do still alive and now working in the Palace? he was one of the Stable worker. The Lee Sang do body in ROK is the Doppleganger from KOC.

 

My brain needs to rest and i have about 100 post to catch Up.heheheheheh

Wow, you brought up a lot of interesting points! 
 

1) I felt a little sad hearing JTE say that because at the end of the day, I know it’s true. All things should return to its place, only then can peace be restored. JTE hints at this and Nari does as well. The world needs balance. If we want to talk science then it’s equilibrium. 

2) Thank you clarifying. I think you are right!

 

3) Exactly! Lee Gon’s doppelgänger is a wild card right now. The drama is set up where either or will make sense. If he is dead, the show has been trying to tell us all along by showing us his grave. If he is not dead, the show has been telling us all along because 1) we never saw his body and 2) LG’s fingerprint didn’t match with anyone (could mean his doppelgänger is not on file or the dead boy they have on record is not Gon’s doppelgänger). My guess is the show will officially kill him off. I think we may learn soon as LG seems to be interested in knowing about his parallel counterpart. I also can’t see a reason behind why Lee Rim would keep him alive. But I must admit, the idea of him being alive is intriguing. 
 

4) I’m with you 100%! All the talk of LG coming in last place in combat, him not being able to shoot, and JY being more skilled than him at swordsmanship is deliberately placed there to trick us. Don’t ask me how exactly it happens but I’m sticking by the theory that Lee Gon is the savior himself. 
 

5) Nope, I don’t think Lee Gon will die. I guess I said the painting was foreshadowing death but I’m thinking now that it can just be foreshadowing danger and bloodshed. Of all people, I am 99% sure LG will not die. 1) The title says it all, 2) I just can’t help but fixate on his line, “I am who I am” which is said by god and 3) the reference to Kim So Wol’s poem and JTE calling him Kim So Wol. The writer didn’t just include these clues for no reason. He’s the most likely to survive character and that’s why I’m sold he is the savior. If Lee Gon does not end up dead then it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else but himself to go back and save young Gon. 

 

6) Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I knew something was up when LG left with the horse but I couldn’t decide who the guy was. Mind blown! 

[Nikaa]

1 hour ago, leeminhosny said:

I think same and I think PD still couldn't understand us 

Agree!   We have a new PD (hi bye mama, abyss). I really hope we can get some dramatic changes of quality in terms of direction. But what is mystery for me is how many episodes are left for filming? My hope is that the second half or the last 8 episodes will be directed by the new PD and the other one (Mr Sunshine). I like everything, the PDs should team up and finish this drama with a good note. We can do this!! Chickens are counted at the end of autumn. (I believe that we the changes of the PD, hard work of writer and the cast we will become a much more beautiful drama and find a beautiful solution for the equation of directing problem LOL). 

 

 The last scene of episode 7 reached 115,182    number of viewers in Naver in the last 7 hours and it is going up at a fast rate !! https://tv.naver.com/v/13717616 

[Ameera Ali]

I can’t wait to see more of Luna 

 

Jung Tae-eu

 

 

 

 

 

[Deepakmahajan]

I am half way through episode where evil uncle and his minion kills business man. That scene we need more of it next 4 weeks. such dark scenes will work great for the drama. It was exciting lol. And how 2 leads fight with the evil uncle. We need more of them. Please give us more of such stuff and more blood, more killings, some injuries to leads as well, then them tendering to each other . Yes i am sadistic. 

Infact i want episode to start with some killings, which makes viewers curious to watch whole episode instead of investigations going no where. 

 

[1ouise]

 

1 hour ago, Keikokoko said:

I am not sure if writer made him gay for comedy moment or to acknowledge rainbow community. I thought such subject is usually taboo in Asian countries. But I am pleasantly surprised by the inclusiveness if it's writer's intention.  

 

I think ES was teasing.

 

 

 

[ck1Oz]

Is anyone keep tracking of who in Korea is in Corea? Or vice versa. And their roles currently?

 

I am lost now. I only caught the 2 chaebol family plots. So the poor Corea stableman was killed so that the debt ridden gambler can be close to the King?

What other plots did I miss?

 

How many are actually dead? 3 in Korea from the King's family. 2 chaebol. 2 men and 1 woman?

 

Then Corea...  1 stable guy. I mean is that plot angle significant enough for me to start counting doppelgangers? What happened to Korea's version of the King's mother? Did she die or who was she eventually?

 

 

[CallieP]

I have a question, someone posted this "Emperor Erok" several pages ago, I meant to ask but forgot. What is Emperor Erok?

[Keikokoko]

57 minutes ago, mrsj3n said:

If Luna was in jail, why wasn't her fingerprints in the system when the detective first search?

Something doesn't add up here!

 

 

To me, this drama can be easily explained mathematically. And many Math principles used as metaphor for the events and characters are detected throughout episodes. But Luna is the outlier who puzzled me the most. I still believe she = JTE from different time loop or universe other than RoK. Look like we are going to learn more about her on ep 8. Exciting!!!! 

[Heretorant]

Delete.

[Keikokoko]

8 minutes ago, 1ouise said:

2 hours ago, Keikokoko said:

I am not sure if writer made him gay for comedy moment or to acknowledge rainbow community. I thought such subject is usually taboo in Asian countries. But I am pleasantly surprised by the inclusiveness if it's writer's intention.  

 

I think ES was teasing.

 

Good catch!! So the line was for comedy comment. That's a cheap shot for quick laugh then.  Somehow disappointed. Because it would tie it to JY's phone screensaver nicely. 

[rocher22]