The King and I Vol. 3

The King and I is another of the Korean historical dramas of a soap opera nature. It well acted, directed and produced. It is very engaging, like "The Great Queen Seon Deok and "Jumong". Several of the actors from those series are in The King and I. I did not find it depressing, though there are some down and what were they thinking moments. These Korean dramas are high quality, and not the cheesy productions one might expect from the Asian stereotype. The English subtitles are excellent translations. Though there is some violence and allusion to sex, the violence is not graphic, nor is the sex or nudity shown.

I've watched dozens of Korean TV series dramas. Many were historical dramas. This was perhaps the least inspiring I've seen.The script was ho-hum. Basically, it centered about a clueless dummy who castrated himself to become a eunuch, so he could be near the woman he loved, while nominally serving the king, who made that woman his queen. He constantly exasperated people in the story, as well as viewers, acting like he knew what was up, but really didn't. Try rooting for him to come through, then time and time again he gives one more reason to assume he is hopelessly stupid.The scriptwriter was also very wasteful when it came to utilizing his characters. Often, when you expected something really unique to happen, you're disappointed with two-dimensional story developments.The high point I would say was the proficient acting skills of Jun Kwang Ryul, who played the head eunuch and sage adviser to the kings.Han Jung Soo provided great supporting acting to augment Jun Kwang Ryul's role. And Jun Hye Bin was fascinating as the always-scheming femme fatale.Oh Man Suk in the main role was so predictable as to be boring. And Koo Hye Sun, as the love of his life who became a queen, was often irritatingly repetitious. I fault more so the lackluster script they had to follow. But she was much better in "Mighty Chilwu" and "Boys Over Flowers." Both characters seemed to be retarded, having severe learning problems, time and time again failing to learn anything from their mistakes.Before buying this Korean TV series, I would strongly suggest buying something else... unless, like me, you've already seen just about every other Korean historical drama, and want to watch it simply because, like the man who told people who asked him why he must climb a mountain, "Because it's there.":)~