Review of King the Land / 킹더랜드

I will admit, at first I had no interest in watching this drama when it appeared in my Netflix recommendations when the first few episodes dropped.

I didn’t want to watch it because it seemed like many other dramas I’ve watched throughout the years, and is just another reiteration of the poor girl meets rich boy trope that seemed to be everywhere throughout the late 2000s and 2010s in the drama world.

Some dramas do it well, but I simply had no interest in this show at all, especially since I didn’t care for Yoon-a or Jun-ho as actors. Sorry, I wasn’t a SNSD or 2PM fan when I was younger.

So what changed, you asked? I kept seeing things on my social media and news feed about the show, which made me cave in. I watched the first nine episodes which were out, then watched the remaining episodes as they slowly trickled out into the world.

And while I didn’t care for this drama in the end, I thought that, for some strange reason, it kept me watching. I think this one’s a little messy plot-wise though.

Let’s get into the review.

A girl follows her dreams and works at a prestigious hotel, but gets wrapped up with one of its heirs.

The beginning of this series serves as exposition to get the plot going. The main characters don’t formally meet until towards the end of episode one, as it shows a seven year gap when they do their thing.

Sa-rang, the female lead, doesn’t have a formal education slash college degree, but charms her way into landing a position at the prestigious King Hotel.

She’s first assigned to work in the gym, where she first encounters the male lead, Won, after chewing him out for something she finds in a bathroom. That’s technically their first meeting, but not one where they have a meaningful interaction. Seven years pass.

There’s some tropes involved with Sa-rang. She’s an orphan raised by her grandmother, who owns a restaurant. She also is working class, although I do commend her for working her way up to a more important position in the seven year gap. Won goes off and gets his MBA, then returns to a power struggle in the hotel’s heirs.

They meet again, and he roasts her for her fake smile, which everyone has praised Sa-rang for throughout the years.

Their dynamic in the beginning is that Won criticizes Sa-rang, and they keep ending up having to work together, especially after she gets moved to the elite suite under his management.

Because these two are grown adults, the drama moves pretty quickly on the romance aspect. By like episode seven they’re getting really touchy, and we get quite a few implied sex scenes towards the end of the drama. But this is where the plot starts getting really weird for me.

There’s this power struggle, but then too many subplots are brought into this show for me. There’s a huge subplot involving Won’s mother that doesn’t really make sense in the context of the show, there’s the power struggle, and then Sa-rang randomly gets exiled to a different hotel.

There’s also her friend group and like a random Thailand vacation and their personal drama, as one is divorced woman working at an airline and the other has a lazy husband.

To be honest, I’d watch an entire Korean drama about the friend who’s a flight attendant. Her story was much more interesting to me and wasn’t fleshed out, and we could’ve spent more time with her romance with the coworker. The other friend just kind of existed for me.

But one of the biggest problems for me is that the leads lack any chemistry. I think Jun-ho is a good actor, but Won was way too stoic for me.

There’s also a stiffness with their interactions that I got used to with time and I think wasn’t always there, but I wasn’t convinced they were a couple in the way other Korean dramas have done so.

I do feel like the drama was certainly trying to convince us of this though with the sheer amount of romance and sensual scenes packed into it, which is why I think I’m pushed even more in the unbelieving direction.

Overall Thoughts

It’s an okay drama. I don’t think it’s terrible, especially considering I kept watching all the way until the end. I just think that it was a tad too boring and scattered for me, as someone who prefers a good story and chemistry between the leads.

But always remember when reading reviews like this: taste is so subjective. I might not like it, but you might love it. Neither of us are wrong.

The production value on this one was quite nice, though, even if I don’t think I’ll ever bother rewatching.

Follow me on Instagram and Goodreads below for more content.