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The King 2 Hearts
My gift to you: A shiny toy bot. *sniff*
The King 2 Hearts… was a weird drama. In the end it may have left a stronger impression as a romance or even a fantasy-political-action hybrid, but that’s not at all what hooked me on the show. In fact, it was its weirdness that made me watch in the first place. It was just strange—the farcical North-South war rooms, the fisheye faces talking into the camera, the absurd humor of a war breaking out over girl group fandom… It was basically juuuuuust off-kilter enough to make me curious, and then before I knew it, I was the lunatic going: What is this strange new crack and can I have some more?
I’m still hard-pressed to pick a genre for this show, because I don’t know what it is. Is it a love story? A political thriller? A comedy? A melodrama? Is it the unholy lovechild of Dr. Strangelove, Shiri, and The Princess Bride? Or maybe it was none of those things, and it was just your basic Romeo who fell in love with Juliet the Communist Capulet. I don’t know. But whatever strange alchemy it was, made it addictive like none other. It wasn’t the best drama of the year, or the most sensical, but I laughed out loud, cursed at the screen, and bawled my eyes out watching this show more than any other this year. That might make me a crazy person, but that’s just the bus I’m on.
What this show did right were two crucial parts of the story that really carried everything else—the character development of a weak, whiny, pessimistic prince into a king worthy of his best soldiers, and a love story between two strong-willed equals who represented each part of the North-South political divide. Without either of those things, this drama would’ve fallen apart under the weight of all the plotular political warring. But when you have each side of your war represented by the two leads in your love story, it gives narrative meaning to every standoff. Badass fight: cool. Badass fight where our couple’s future hangs in the balance: gripping.
I guess none of that would’ve mattered if the couple weren’t one that we were rooting for, but they were my favorite couple of the year, hands down. At times petty and immature, other times dangerous (Some couples fight with words; others fight with guns and atomic needles.), they were the most contentious pair of people to meet in dramaland this year, but also the two who would overcome the most together, as a team.
This show had a really wide pendulum: it ranged from wacky to sweepingly romantic, from action-packed to tear-jerking, and from beautifully-shot (and perfectly-lit) to inducing cries of WTF, bad guys, no really, WTF. But it was ambitious, and idealistic, and it told a complete story from beginning to end, of turning a prince into a person before he could become a king who was his people. And it turns out, when your people are badasses, you can become a pretty awesome king.
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BEST BROMANCE
Lee Seung-gi & Jo Jung-seok, The King 2 Hearts
girlfriday: Bromance had a great run this year—the six-way kind (Shut Up: Flower Boy Band), the sad kind (Gaksital), the go-to-hell kind (Equator Man)—but there was no better odd-couple this year than the bromance between a humorless, earnest soldier and his witty, immature king. At times they shared an awkward drink or even more awkward dating advice, and sometimes one had to lead a country while the other stood on the front lines of his battle. They were always disagreeing, but always standing on the same side when it mattered, proving that a king really is only as good as his most faithful soldier… even one who never laughed at his jokes. A friendship built on mutual misunderstanding was never funnier, and an allegiance to one’s king never more inspirational.
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