Scholar Jeong has finally realized that King Lee is the cute little palace maid he met so long ago. It certainly took long enough for “The King’s Affection” to get to this point. Scholar Jeong already figured out ages ago that King Lee is a woman. Apparently he never thought it strange that, all those years ago, Crown Prince Lee went out of his way to relay a message from a palace maid to a juvenile well-wisher he’d never met before.
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There’s been plenty of distractions. One character, that obnoxious uncle character, discovered some misplaced placental evidence proving that Crown Prince Lee was a twin. But he’s dead now. Grandpa Han and Inspector Jeong together have killed just about anyone who could possibly know that. To what exact end, I still don’t know, since as far as I can tell Grandpa Han himself is the only serious existential threat to the monarchy.
Even King Lee’s own little brother is very demure as King Lee plots an exit strategy, since she’s not a very sustainable king on account of the fact that she can’t father children. There’s just no way to make sense of all the royal conspiracies. The problem is mainly that “The King’s Affection” doesn’t have any actual politics. There’s no factions aside from the one Grandpa Han runs. King Lee has neither allies nor enemies at court. What subordinates obey her commands under what circumstances hinges entirely on arcane interpretations of the rules.
I don’t know that anyone was ever really watching this show for logic. Aside from the beautiful set designs and costumes, there’s also just Park Eun-bin‘s performance as a woman who, through sheer force of immediate social pressure, accepts that she is a man. Park Eun-bin is entirely too convincing in the role, to the point that even people who know better don’t dare defy her aggressive force of will.
This is great for the genderbending approach “The King’s Affection” has to the entire idea of binary identities. But it works at total cross-purposes with the actual plot, with most obstacles to King Lee’s goals feeling very arbitrarily imposed. She finally catches Grandpa Han doing explicitly treasanous enough stuff that she can lock him up. And then he just…leaves, with no coherent plan but a very coherent army. So I’m sure we can expect a lot of fight scenes in the final episode.
Review by William Schwartz
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“The King’s Affection” is directed by Lee Hyun-suk, Song Hyeon-wook, written by Han Hee-jeong, and features Park Eun-bin, Rowoon, Nam Yoon-su, Choi Byung-chan, Bae Yoon-kyung, Jung Chae-yeon. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/10/11~Now airing, Mon, Tue 21:30 on KBS.
William Schwartz
Staff writer. Has been writing articles for HanCinema since 2012, having lived in South Korea since 2011. Started out in Gyeongju, then to Daegu, then to Ansan, then to Yeongju, then to Seoul, lived on the road for HanCinema’s travel diaries series in the summer of 2016, and is currently settled in Anyang. Has good tips for utilizing South Korea’s public bus system. William Schwartz can be contacted via william@hancinema.net. He also has a substack at williamschwartz.substack.com where he discusses the South Korean film industry in broader terms and takes suggestions for future movies to review.
[HanCinema’s Drama Review] “The King’s Affection” Episode 19 (2021/12/16)
Source: Laban Lang Philippines
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