King 2 Hearts

King 2 Hearts

5/10

King 2 Hearts

Genre:                        Episodes: 20                         Year: 2012

Romance

Action

Synopsis:

Set in a time when modern Korea is governed by a constitutional monarchy, Lee Jae Ha is a spoiled, arrogant Prince. His older brother, the King, sends him to joined military training between North and South Korea in hopes that Jae Ha’s rotten attitude will be fixed. During the military training, Jae Ha meets his team captain Kim Hang Ah, a female agent in the North Korean Special forces. When the leader of a powerful organisation, Club M, plans to breed animosity between the two sides of Korea, Jae Ha and Hang Ah must work together despite their differences to prevent their countries from becoming consumed by war.

Cast:

Lee Seung Gi (Lee Jae Ha)

Ha Ji Won (Kim Hang Ah)

Jo Jung Suk (Eun Shi Kyung)

Lee Yoon Ji (Lee Jae Shin)

Soon Je Moon (Kim Bong Gu)

Lee Sung Min (Lee Jae Kang)

General Thoughts:

You’d think a drama all about tension, prejudice and war would be exhilarating…but it’s kind of not. While the characters are filled to the brim with personality and heart, unfortunately the rather sloppy writing left much to be desired. I’m sure the series would have done a lot for me if I had been Korean, but as it is, my knowledge on the feelings and biases North and South Koreans hold towards each other is pretty limited. While I can appreciate how wonderful and heartwarming it was when all of Korea worked together, I feel I did miss out on the huge patriarchal swell of pride that the writers were aiming for.

North vs. South

Too much of the drama focused on the political reasoning before attacks and the whole ‘he-said, she-said’ idea. Huge amounts of tension were sapped from the drama as it was so plainly obvious that if North and South Korea simply communicated properly, more or less all their problems would be solved. It’s like any other K-Drama rom-com, except between countries. Rather than having our heroine chuck a hissy and not answer her phone because of a simple miscommunication, we have North Korea shutting off communication lines between the North and he South.

They took misunderstandings to an international level

It’s frustrating to say the least. At least the drama managed to give us a villain that spanned for the whole series. While Bong Gu is certainly not the most sensical villain to ever grace the small screen, at least he was consistent. The characters on our King’s side are a beautifully constructed bunch of people. All the soldiers that participate in the WOC and all members of Jae Ha and Hang Ah’s families. And of course Jae Ha and Hang Ah themselves. Jae Ha probably has the most drastic changes in a K-Drama hero I’ve ever seen, yet his progress is slow and consistent, so never feels forced. Jae Ha has enough moments where his past characteristics slip through and he weakens and wants to run away, that remind us that he wasn’t always a strong King who spoke for his people. While he started as a selfish Prince that believed the monarchy was nothing more than a pretty, empty shell with no power, by the end Jae Ha was truly believable as the determined King that the South needed. His progress was always helped along by both Hang Ah and Shi Kyung, who were constantly there to remind our King what kind of King he needed to be. Cue the feelings. While Hang Ah’s character didn’t get so much development alone, her development mostly took place as part of a pair with Jae Ha.

All that adorable couple development

Right from the start Hang Ah was strong and unyielding to injustice, and these traits remained throughout the series, helping to shape and support King Jae Ha. Shi Kyung is perfection. Dripping perfection. Of course no man like that exists, but we all wish he did. His love-line with the Princess hit all the right notes romance-wise and his support of the King was endearing and sweet. Though I do wish we’d had a few more bromantic moments. The whole royal family was just adorable and heartwarming, particularly big brother King Jae Kang. Whose death was horribly sad, but handled with such delicacy and was executed perfectly. Unlike that other death. Fume, fume, fume.

Waaahhhhhhhh

The soundtrack was enjoyable and complimented the series nicely, and the cinematography was definitely lovely. The only thing the drama really lacked was a momentum-filled plot. Which unfortunately counts for a lot. Bummer.

What Was Great:

Cast and Characters:

Everyone was brilliant and played their characters brilliantly. Hooray team! We all know that Lee Seung Gi has a talent for playing weirdly endearing assey characters who gradually learn how to stop being (such) an ass.

Oppaaaaaaaa

It’s what he does best, and it’s no exception for Jae Ha. Lee Seung Gi fills Jae Ha with so much life and heart and gives us a hero we can earnestly root for. I tend to find Ha Ji Won a little overhyped, but she delivered her character of Hang Ah well. Ha Ji Won was able to give Hang Ah a boldness and bravery about her, and was excellent in all tension-filled moments and action scenes. However, the romance scenes were mostly (if not all) Lee Seung Gi. There might actually be an actress who is worse at kissing than Park Shin Hye. Who would’ve thought? The North and South boys from the WOC were delightful and really drove home the message that North and South Koreans aren’t really that different. The friendships developed between the two groups of soldiers was definitely the true heart of the show, and any time these boys were on screen together it was either going to slap a smile on your face or leave you feeling completely torn to shreds when they found themselves on opposite sides of a war.

All kinds of cute

Jo Jung Suk did a wonderful job as the loveable, completely sincere soldier, Eun Shi Kyung- who I think rapidly became many people’s favourite character. His complete earnestness and devotion to the King was wonderful to watch, and Jo Jung Suk delivered these moments perfectly. There’s always a risk with these sorts of naive, innocent characters that they will come off as bland (or just plain dumb), but due to Jo Jung Suk’s dazzling performance, Shi Kyung was filled with heart.

Balanced Main Pairing:

The drama manages to give us one of the most enjoyable K-Drama pairings to watch develop. While their relationship does kick off lightning fast (they go from hate to love pretty darn quick), after you get over the initial whiplash, they have a beautifully steady progression.

Though the kissing scenes did leave something to be desired

Unlike many K-Drama’s, no one had the upper hand in the relationship. It wasn’t about one man winning the heart of his lady, protecting her from evil and saving her country. It was about two people who loved each other, and supported each other through the rough times, and provided brutal honest truths when they were needed. Surprisingly, there was never once where one of our main leads was filled with Noble Idiocy. Our main leads remained fairly un-idiotic throughout the whole drama, and after a few initial miscommunications, the two learned how to trust and depend on one another. Which makes for a much more loveable and interesting pairing than two people who doubt each other and think they know better than the other all the time.  

Powerlessness:

Frustrating as it was, the drama did do an excellent job at depicting the powerlessness of smaller countries such as Korea. The leaders of North and South Korea could never seem to do what they really wanted for fear of retaliation or losing support from other countries. As opposed to America, who can more or less do whatever it likes.

Though our heroine got to be pretty kick-ass

Similarly, the drama also showed the little amount of power those ‘in power’ in these smaller countries had. The King of South Korea often had to struggle and fight against his own country’s leaders to gain support for his actions, and was often left having to fight it out alone when none of his politicians stood with him. While I did find Korea’s huge amounts of powerlessness very frustrating plot-wise (as it meant we spent a lot of time sitting with politicians as they discussed all the things they couldn’t do), it was rather enlightening.

What Wasn’t:

Confused Writing:

The writers knew where they wanted this drama to go, I just don’t think they were 100% sure on how to get there. Because at times, the plot seemed to not know what it was doing. The initial stages of the drama were intriguing and interesting, with our characters being set up nicely with a clear goal in mind- they need Korea to compete in the WOC as one nation, but Club M doesn’t want that to happen. Then the King dies and it’s sad and heartbreaking in all the best kinds of K-Drama ways. But that’s when the writers start to struggle.

I know, let's just have our characters sit around and chat for a bunch of episodes! Sigh.

Bong Gu of Club M seems to have it out for Jae Ha for no adequately explored reason- apparently he’s just a crazy magician villain. The drama started spending far too much time on Bong Gu and all his minions and all their plans- and frankly, that was just plain uninteresting to watch. To go along with our rather mediocre villain, we have a less than mediocre henchman. To this day I have no clue what the deal was with Eun Shi Kyung’s father.

The most ridiculously vague henchman in K-Drama history

Had he been flat out evil it probably would have made for a more interesting development, as it would have meant that Jae Ha was truly betrayed by one of his people- who he said on countless occasions were the difference between himself and Bong Gu. As it was, the Chief Secretary was basically just a giant coward. He was simply trying to cover his tracks and hide his involvement in the late King’s murder. Which is significantly less emotional and less interesting to watch than flat-out betrayal. His meddling between Jae Ha and Hang Ah, and all the miscommunications he caused between them were not easily understandable, and made him more of a frustrating antagonist than a frightening one. If Chief Secretary’s motivation was simply covering up the part he played in Jae Kang’s murder, why was he breeding misunderstandings in the North and South engagement- which is something his beloved late King was so excited for? If indeed Chief Secretary was just a coward and not evil, he shouldn’t have been helping Bong Gu weaken the relationship between Hang Ah and Jae Ha. But he was. And yet he’s not supposed to be evil? I dunno. It wasn’t well written that’s for sure. And Bong Gu himself…wasn’t fantastic. He supposedly had all this power and influence, but as we never actually saw him exert his influence properly, I found myself struggling to understand why Korea was having such a difficult time with this guy.

You know what'll solve this? A wedding. Just like Jae Kang said 12 episodes ago. But we'll actually do it this time.

It seems ignoring him would have solved most of their issues. Even if you let that slide and just play along that he’s a bad, scary man with evil plans- he was still brought down far too easily. If all it took was North and South Korea throwing down their arms, holding hands and singing Kumbaya, why the hell didn’t they do that sooner? It was such an obvious solution, and yet it was so hard to get there. I suppose the difficulty in getting there is explained away by the North and South not trusting each other, but still. 

Dead for No Reason:

I wouldn’t be nearly as mad as I am about Eun Shi Kyung’s death if it had actually served a purpose. But no. He was basically killed off for no reason. It was as if the writers were just killing him off because they could, and they knew it would create some talk about the show.

Writers- you bunch of bastards

Had Shi Kyung’s death been handled as smoothly and delicately as Jae Kang’s, it would have added an extra emotional impact to the series. But it wasn’t, and it didn’t. It’s not even like he died throwing himself in front of a bullet to save his King. They’d won, Bong Gu’s people were dead, the foreigners had arrived to arrest him, victory was achieved for the good guys. And then Shi Kyung gets shot. Boo. A hundred times BOOOO. It still would have been deemed passable if Shi Kyung’s sacrifice had managed to lock Bong Gu up until he was proven guilty, but then our villain got out on bail. Which basically made everything Shi Kyung had done in the last couple of episodes absolutely worthless. Also, due to Shi Kyung's death occurring in the last couple of episodes, the show didn't have enough time for our characters to grieve for him properly like they did with Jae Kang. Our King's best buddy just died. I want to see him wrecked and weeping and ravaged by guilt. But nope- wedding not weeping. Sure, there were some emotional notes hit just right about Shi Kyung’s death after the time skip- when Jae Shin was pretending to talk to him and realising she couldn’t live her whole life mourning him, or the Korean WOC team commenting that they weren’t all there.

These sad moments were still overruled by anger at how irrelevant his death turned out to be

But I give credit for those emotional notes to Jo Jung Suk rather than the writing team. Because he killed me in that video letter. He killed me so badly with his little joke book and his little confession. His pointless death still annoys me.

Re-watch?

No. Fantastic as the cast was, the story just dragged too much, didn’t hold enough interest, and just became a tad frustrating. The characters are totally loveable- but the plot isn’t.

The most dragged out engagement I've ever witnessed