I first saw Lee Seung-gi in Vagabond, that is why i also watched the king, and i was pleasantly surprised how good his acting was then (2012). He is an excellent actor, his facial and verbal expressions are absolutely spot on. He has however very overpowering personality and requires a very strong female lead or supporting act, neither of which was present in the king.. it could have worked though, the character of Kim Hang-ah started very well as a strong, confident and very competent military officer, but i felt like her script was written by 2 people with 2 different ideas of how she should develop throughout the episodes. Her confidence dissapeared as soon as they put her in south korean attire. As a trained special agent, she failed to recognise manipulation, not to mention hee poor handling of stressful situations.. i was disappointed, as a woman i expected a strong female lead that takes no s**t from anyone. She raised a little when she went on a mission to save him from the hostage situation, but again, fighting in a pencil skirt made the whole scene more humorous rather than dramatic. Nevertheless, she still did great with what she was given.
As to the rest, mixing it with bad english actors didnt quite work for me. But that seems to be the trend in kdramas, on one side we have A-listed korean actors and on the other, very poor english/foreign actors.
Overall, a very nice romcom, if you are Seung-gi's fan (or Jo Jung-sun's on that matter), it is so worth watching.
I just hope that next time when casting Seung-gi, the directors will carefully select his counterpart (Bae Suzy was excellent in Vagabond), otherwise they will do a great injustice to the other actors & actresses by completely overshadowing them.
Review of The King 2 Hearts
