We are not big fans of being told when to laugh when we watch a comedy. A live studio audience is fine, but a blaring laugh track isn’t. But what grates us even more are music cues and sound effects that are big neon signs saying “FUNNY STUFF IS GOING ON!”. Many comedies from Korea, Taiwan and Japan suffer from this problem. A new Korean rom-com definitely has this issue, but a charming lead and some truly funny moments redeem it.
Opening Shot: A scene of the sparkling King Hotel.
The Gist: In 2015, a group of young go-getters are being interviewed for a one-month internship at the hotel. It’s a high-demand position, and the requirement is a four-year college degree. But applicant #511, Cheon Sa-rang (Lim Yoon-a), applied anyway. When questioned by Gu Hwa-ran (Kim Seon-young), who runs the hotel for her father, King Group chairman Gu Il-hoon (Son Byong-ho), she seems to have snappy answers. When asked to play a piano piece, an item on her resume, Sa-rang plays “Chopsticks,” admitting it’s a hobby, but not one she’s good at.
She goes out with her roommates, flight attendant Oh Pyung-hwa (Go Won-hee) and duty-free shop clerk Gang Da-eul (Kim Ga-eun) and gets dragged to their favorite club. She’s awakened from her hangover the next day to find out she got the internship.
We then see someone in an impeccable suit jump out of an airplane, land safely on a building roof… then find out that he was supposed to land at the King Hotel next door. Gu Won (Lee Jun-ho) is starting an internship of his own in the hotel’s offices, but no one knows he’s the chairman’s son. He comes to the defense of his fellow intern, Noh Sang-sik (Ahn Se-ha) as he’s being berated by their boss over an exploding toner cartridge, criticizing the boss and the company. He promptly gets fired… before the boss finds out who he is.
Won’s dad, Il-hoon is of course dissatisfied. He wanted Won to learn the business from the ground up, so one day he and Hwa-ran would vie to take over for him. Privately, Hwa-ran would rather her brother go back to the UK, where he had been living, and clear the way for her.
Sa-rang is taught to keep her 100-watt smile on the ready at all times; the trainer uses the name Hermès to indicate just what kind of smile she wants. She’s assigned to the hotel gym, told to wipe the “butt sweat” from the equipment. Despite her bitter manager telling her the smile is a waste of time, Sa-rang continues to flash the pearlies. She has a run in with Won, mistaking him for a guy who sent her his room key and a proposition, but also talks to Hwa-ran, who promotes her to the lobby with a year contract.
Won goes back to London, taking his now-assistant Sang-sik with him. Eight years go by; Sa-rang becomes a concierge who trains others, wins awards, and finally gets a salaried position. She and her buddies stop clubbing and start drinking beer at kids’ playplaces while watching Gang Da-eul’s daughter.
After Won gets a package with a resume of a woman named Han Mi-so (Nam Gi-ae), he goes back to Korea, determined to compete with his sister for the company. His dad installs him as the hotel’s general manager. But he keeps running into Sa-rang in the oddest of places.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s a bit of a coincidence that both this show and See You In My 19th Life involve the return of a hotel magnate’s scion to run that hotel, and that they were released at the same time. But King The Land is more purely comedic than 19th Life.
Our Take: King The Land, created by Cheon Sung-il and written by Choi Rom, has some funny moments that elicited somewhere between a chuckle and a guffaw, which is pretty good for this kind of series. There are a ton of romcom elements to it, and moments where people are just being goofy for goofy’s sake. And, as with most comedic shows from that region, sound effects and soundtrack cues are placed to make the goofy moments seem even goofier.
To be honest, we’re not that interested in the brooding Gu Won and his succession fight with his older sister; we just finished watching an excellent series (uh, Succession) about this. The dark, brooding male protagonist in Korean romcoms is a trope we’re tired of seeing.
But there is definitely a sitcom about Sa-rang making her way in the hotel business when it seems like everyone on the staff is against her. And there’s also a sitcom about Sa-rang and her buddies as still-young women dealing with getting older, partying less and raising kids. Perhaps there are shows in South Korea that are like Workin’ Moms, but we’ve never seen one on this side of the world, and it would be fun to watch. As it was, the interactions between Sang-ra and her besties were among the most entertaining parts of the first episode.
So are we just going to get Won colliding with Sang-ra in funny situations for episode after episode until they inevitably fall in love with each other? Or are we going to get a bit more of a look at the characters that are around them? It seemed like we got a glimpse of that when we saw scenes of Da-eul and Pyung-hwa get treated like crap at their respective jobs. But that could have also just been there to pad the runtime. We hope that the universe around the central couple is explored, just to keep things interesting.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Sang-ra is in the bathroom in Won’s suite because her stomach was cramping hard while she was there to retrieve his phone. She discovers that the glass around the toilet has a privacy feature. She plays with the remote for that when Won walks in. The look of incredulousness on her face when she sees Won is one of the best moments of the episode.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Go Won-hee and Kim Ga-eun as Sang-ra’s friends Pyung-hwa and Da-eul. We weren’t kidding when we said we wanted to see a sitcom about the three of them becoming grownups together.
Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a scene where an opera singer praises Sang-ra for playing a recording of the singer’s favorite aria for her wakeup call. It definitely seems like yet another scene that is there to pad runtime.
Our Call: STREAM IT. King The Land is funny enough, despite some of the same issues we have with most Korean romcoms. But we just wonder if the show’s writers missed an opportunity, storywise.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.