[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The King's Affection" Episode 4

It's been long enough since I checked in on "The King's Affection" that I was caught a bit off-guard by the opening here where Doctor Jeong and his various assistants are being beaten by legal authorities for reasons not clearly explained. Then Inspector Jeong pops up to helpfully explain that no, neither Doctor Jeong nor his assistants are actually criminals. Apparently this is all just a convoluted threat designed to force Doctor Jeong to become Scholar Jeong, Crown Prince Lee's tutor.

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There are charms to this kind of borderline absurd plotting. On the other side of the plot Crown Prince Lee assumes, quite reasonably, that Scholar Jeong must be working as the agent of one of Grandpa Han's evil schemes. It naturally does not occur to her that this whole situation is just boring nepotism, and an attempt by Grandpa Han to reward one of his most loyal allies.

This makes for a reasonably interesting dramatic situation. Scholar Jeong doesn't want his new job at all, understanding it to be corrupt. But he can't really explain this to Crown Prince Lee, since among other things Crown Prince Lee is a complete jerk and unlikely to be moved by Scholar Jeong's plight. This all climaxes in a surprisingly rewarding royal examination, where Scholar Jeong discourses on ethics in a way that impresses the royalty while serving as an obvious jab to his own father.

This episode also marks the introduction of Ga-on (played by Choi Byung-chan), who's Crown Prince Lee's new bodyguard. There's not really much to his character just yet, "The King's Affection" just so deliberately goes out of its way to explain who he is, as well as comment on how pretty he is, that I felt compelled to make a note of it. "The King's Affection" is rather inconsistent with its exposition. Despite knowing exactly who Ga-on is, I'm still not sure who the guy is that introduces himself as Scholar Jeong's soulmate, despite the fact that I definitely remember seeing him in previous episodes.

There's times I'm almost tempted to go back and watch the older episodes and see if I missed anything- but I know full well it probably won't help much. "The King's Affection" is more about eye candy than it is narrative coherence. At least it's doing that much right- the costumes remain gorgeous as always. The performances likewise have gravitas with humor sprinkled throughout that well befits the setting.

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.