SBS Golden Earth, which had been expected to be the best-selling Drama in the first half of 2020, (The King - The Lord of Eternity) was quiet in the evaluation. In the last episode broadcast on the 12th, Lee Min-ho, who returned to the past, finished with a happy ending that finished Lee Jung-jin, a villain, and reunited with Kim Go-eun, completing a romance that crossed parallel World.
Based on the unique setting that Korean Empire and South Korea coexist in parallel World, I have expressed the 'Fantasy Romance' genre, which deals with the love story of Korean Empire Emperor Lee and South Korea criminal Jung Tae who cross the door of the dimension. Kim Eun-sook, the best romance Drama expert in Korea, and Lee Min-ho - Kim Go-eun, who played an active role as Kim Eun-sook's persona' in his previous work, collected a lot of topics before the airing.
However, the distinction of 'parallel World' from <The King> was an overly complicated and difficult setting for the concept itself to solve the story. Kim Eun-sook's previous works were also based on a minimally realistic consensus, such as chaebol II, soldier-doctor, and so on, although there were many comic or unrealistic settings, The King was a story closer to complete fantasy from Character to the World Pavilion, and its scale and setting became much larger and more complex.
Kim Eun-sook is excellent in describing the romance sensibility of the Characters, but he was not very good at solving various genres such as history and thriller, or building a detailed and dense narrative. In the end, viewers could not sympathize with the process of growing love across the complex parallel World, and the center of the story was constantly unbalanced between romance and political battle.
In fact, the 'romance' of the male and female protagonist, which is the core of Kim Eun-sook World, fell short of expectations. The Character of the southern heroine, who has to lead the story, has not been able to have any possibility since the beginning, and has become the main Character of the public who is making work and making work. I had to fall to the consensus on the fact that I had to fall in love with the abnormal South heroine.
Kim Eun-sook's unique dialogues, like a love confession that appears in an urgent situation or an unsuitable timing, have become a poison that reduces the immersion of the story in this work. In fact, except for the parallel World setting, the Character of the protagonists and the romance development pattern itself were more like the 'self-replication' of Kim Eun-sook World previous works. If anything has changed, viewers have become accustomed to the dialogue and setting of Kim Eun-sook Drama to some extent, and even though the romance sensitivity and trend of the public has changed a lot in two to three years, it is rather a boomerang that they tried to settle for the previous box office formula.
Lee Min-ho was the first return to The King since his military discharge. Considering the existing image that the public expects Lee Min-ho to actor, and the burden of the person on the blank period, it is understandable to choose to reduce the risk burden with the already proven Character and genre works rather than the unexpected transformation. As a result, however, the perfection of the work itself did not meet expectations, and Lee Min-ho also failed to show mature evolution that fits the age and career of his 30s as a practical 'one-top star actor' leading a work. Rather, the fact that Lee Jung-jin, who plays the villain, and the actors' performances were more prominent was also left for Lee Min-ho.
In addition, <The King> had to suffer from constant noise throughout the airing, from Kahaani to the controversy of the color, excessive PPL, the past affair of the performer, and the unexpected emergency. However, if the popularity and perfection of Drama itself was high, this controversy could have been passed on to a light happening. Battle Spirits Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero Zero lesson in The King is that the public eye level evolves much faster than the creators expect. The real reason why The King was ignored is that the complacency and arrogance of the 'success of the past', whether it is a writer or an actor, can always return to poison.
SBS Drama <The King - Lord of Eternity> A quiet exit in a series of bad news