King The Land - Korean Drama Review / Synopsis

Supporting cast were all excellent, too, as always with Korean dramas. I particularly enjoyed the fun antics of Yoona's character's two best friends, who were thick as thieves with her, played by pretty Kim Ga Eun (I Hear Your Voice, Awl, Because This Is My First Life) and wise beyond her years Go Won Hee (The King's Face, Strongest Deliveryman). Scenes with all three ladies together sometimes even made me laugh out loud. They all had perfect feminine chemistry together. Sometimes silliness is the best therapy for life's troubles! :)

The Story:

Gu Won (Lee Junho) is the son of a chaebol family who own and run the King Group Corporation, which includes a giant luxury hotel in Seoul. Gu Won is intelligent, athletic, and stylish, and has a goal of eventually taking over his family's corporation upon his father, Chairman Gu Il Hun's (Son Byung Ho), eventual retirement. He does have a chief rival in this ambition: an older step-sister named Gu Hwa Ran (Kim Sun Young), who pours herself into her work at the hotel because she has an unhappy marriage to a frequently cheating spouse. She tries to hide her unhappiness from her father because she knows he would want to leave the corporation to the grown up child with the happiest, most stable home life. That's certainly not her at this point in her life, but then again it's certainly not Gu Won either, who has never dated anyone, much less married anyone!

Methinks he doth protest too much! :)

Gu Won starts to work at the hotel as a main administrator / manager, but step-sister Hwa Ran keeps coming up with secret ways to circumvent his success. Gu Won is not fooled by her jealousy. However, he is awkward and non-trusting toward women in general, since his own birth mother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances when he was a young boy, so he never made a strong connection with women in his foundational years.

Soon enough, though, he becomes intrigued with a certain glowing and bright young lady receptionist at work named Cheon Sa Rang (Yoona). Her constant smile both annoys and attracts him at the same time. When he declares it bothers him she lets it be known that she has no choice: employees of the hotel are told to always smile cheerfully because it gives the hotel a positive image with the public.

Sa Rang had worked hard to achieve her job at the hotel and doesn't want to risk losing it by alienating the chairman's son! She had had nice memories of the luxury King Hotel since her mother had taken her there as a child to create happy times for the both of them. But Gu Won can be exasperating towards her at times, however, so it takes all her effort to try and deal with him patiently. She also breaks up with her old boyfriend who takes her for granted in annoying ways.

Despite some misunderstandings at first, eventually Gu Won and Sa Rang grow closer, in a tentative friendly way, then slowly in a more romantic way. He even saves her life when she falls into danger in the countryside. Others at work and in their personal lives start to notice the changes in them. For Gu Won his closest male friend is his right hand man named No Sang Sik (An Se Ha, very funny performance!), and for Sa Rang it's her closest female friends, Oh Pyeong Hwa (Go Won Hee), a flight attendant, and Gang Da Eul (Kim Ga Eun) a retail manager. Both ladies have their own problems in life but when the girls get together it's like they are all carefree teenagers again.

As their relationship grows even stronger and more official there are still issues to be resolved, like the mystery of what happened to Gu Won's mother, or whether both of them will agree to marry and if so, will they both continue to work at the hotel together? What will happen about the tussle over who will take over the family business permanently?

King The Land is a pleasant, fun, though honestly a rather predictable drama, especially for the long time K-Drama fans. Still, it's breezy and light most of the time, and with so much stress in our world today, escapist fare like this sweet K-Drama definitely will cheer you up. It will definitely impress newbies to Korean dramas the most. I enjoyed reading comments from fans online who were discovering its two main stars for the first time. "How can anyone be as beautiful as Yoona?" and "Her looks are absolutely stunning!" and "My heart is stopping looking at Junho!" were frequent exclamations. (No surprise there, though, for long term fans of both stars such as myself). You can currently watch King The Land on Netflix. Hopefully it stays on there for a long time to come! Enjoy!

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