by asmirasy - Xiao Fan, November 13, 2021
71

Hi guys! This is my first ever article on MDL, and I am both excited and nervous.
So for the first article, I will introduce the currently airing, still hot and trending, historical Korean drama:
The King's Affection! 

(Attention: when writing this article, the drama just aired its 6th episode, so I will write based on the already aired 6 episodes with minor spoilers.)

Drama Information:

The King's Affection is an ongoing Historical-Romance Korean drama,
airing on KBS2 and Netflix 
every Monday and Tuesday at 21:30 KST.

Set during Joseon Dynasty, the Crown Princess Consort gave birth to twins (a son and a daughter), which at that time was considered an ominous sign, and an order was sent out to kill the daughter, who later was secretly saved and sent out of the palace. A few years later, the twin son Lee Hwi dies, and to cover this up, the mother got the twin daughter Dam-i to stand in as Prince Lee Hwi. The story later continues in the present time when the daughter is now the Crown Prince Lee Hwi and needs to keep her real identity well hidden.

Cast:
Park Eun Bin
as Lee Hwi / Dam-i
Our beautiful and handsome female Crown Prince.
as Jung Ji-Un
Dam-i's first love and Crown Prince's teacher.
as Lee Hyun (Prince Ja-eun)
Lee Hwi's cousin.
as Shin So Eun
Her father is a minister
of Royal Court.
as Kim Ga On
Crown Prince Lee Hwi's 
bodyguard.
as Noh Ha Kyung
Her father is a minister
of Royal Court.
Supporting Cast (that are worth to be included here!):
as Court Lady Kim
Court Lady of 
Lee Hwi's mother.
as Eunuch Hong
Lee Hwi's eunuch
(aka. sidekick)
as (young) Lee Hwi / Dam-i
Child actor for
young Lee Hwi and Dam-i.
Story and Plot:
The story starts with us seeing the birth of the twins, and it's a movie-like opening with a suspense-thrilling-like cinematography-vibe. Seeing this, it seems to be a historical drama with quite a heavy plot as we can see the Crown Prince (the twin's father) is so pathetic and didn't care about his daughter when she was born. Also, with the Crown Princess Consort's father (the twin's maternal grandfather), which seems to be the main antagonist.
A few years later, we get introduced to a talented Crown Prince Lee Hwi (the twin son) and a young court maid Dam-i (the twin daughter). In between, young Dam-i meets with young Jung Ji-Un, and they develop feelings as each other's first love. But ya, things started to go wrong definitely! (I hope this is not considered a spoiler). Kudos to the child actor of young Lee Hwi / Dam-i. She really did a good job in playing both characters and delivered good acting to us! I really did wish she could have stayed a bit longer, but we needed to see our main female lead and male lead too! So, it is quite a ride in the first and second episodes of this drama. 
But wait! In the last 15 minutes of the second episode, we finally got to meet our main female lead, Park Eunbin – and WOW! They sure gave us a beautiful scene for our Crown Prince(ss) Lee Hwi! I was really stunned over Park Eunbin's beauty here. Her hair, and she in that white robe! But that's not the end, later we met her again in the hunting ground, and her hair got untied so perfectly! It was such a breath-taking scene, and I'm sure many of us have already seen that clip, right? 
Okay, back to the story (sorry guys, haha)... In the present time, we see that our main female lead, Crown Prince Lee Hwi, is a (nicknamed as) Cold Prince. And we meet Lee Hwi's uncle, who I guess will always bring trouble to Lee Hwi. In the third episode, we are informed that Lee Hwi's father dotted on another son, thus the people in the Royal Court are divided into two sides. I feel bad for Lee Hwi (I mean here, Dam-i) as she needs to pretend to be the real Lee Hwi and fight against her own family. 
But! Starting from episode 3 until 6 (as they currently aired), the drama is light and enjoyable to watch! We got tons of humor as well. And the visuals, scenes, cinematography, and even the background music/OSTs are pretty good and fine! Nothing serious happened (I guess yet to happen). The romance between our main FL and ML has not started yet, which I assumed may happen a bit later since our ML didn't know that the Crown Prince is actually a woman. But I think it is interesting to see the ML being confused if he likes a man. Well, I'm excited to see when the ML will know about it.
One last thing: our second ML, Lee Hyun (I guess this can be considered a spoiler) will be just another typical second male lead, who is always there for Lee Hwi (FL), protecting and supporting her. And in the end, we know he will never get her. But guys, Nam Yoon Su sure has some deep and sick dimples! He is so cute! I cannot believe that he is actually 2 years older than me. I feel like I am the one that is 2 years older than him. Poor me! 
Not to forget, we have a mysterious and handsome bodyguard, Kim Ga On! Not sure if he is a friend or foe but let's appreciate his character here. Definitely one of the must-characters, a mysterious person with literally zero lines, but we love it! (ps: hoping he will not harm our Crown Prince!) 
Meme-worthy gifs & Eye-pleasing scenes:
There are a lot of gifs and clips going around, and they are so cute! (and funny too). I'm surprised because I rarely get into historical Korean dramas, but this one drew me in and stuck me hard. Here, I share a few I chose that won't be spoilers: 
Nah. We got Jung Ji-Un (Rowoon) being confused as to why he keeps staring at Crown Prince Lee Hwi, 
a.k.a liking a man. But we understand, "he" is kinda cute and beautiful as a Crown Prince!
This parallel world of the man holding the flowers 
while the woman is holding a sword!
I crack up a lot watching this scene!
But dude! I mean girl!
How can a girl look so handsome! Park Eun Bin really kills and acts well as a man and Crown Prince!
I'm sorry, but I just love both Park Eunbin and Crown Prince Lee Hwi!
My Expectations:
A story of a female Crown Prince trying to hide her gender while fighting against the internal palace agenda and the Crown Prince's family affairs. It sounds heavy, but we got a lot of humor in between from all the characters, and this makes it a light watch for those who want to watch a historical Korean drama but are sick of the "palace war" and heavy plot. I'm looking forward to seeing how the story will unfold from this, as we expected to see the romance between the leads. So how will they start the relationship? How will Jung Ji-Un know about her real gender and identity, where and in what situation?

Then, as we know, the Crown Prince will get the throne as the King, but our Crown Prince is a woman. So, in the end, Lee Hwi (Dam-i) definitely won't get the throne, so what will happen? Who will be the future King? How will the story develop and evolve regarding this issue/topic? There are a lot of curiosity and things to expect, look out, and watch. So, what's up, guys? Go put this drama on your watch list!
Suggestion & Recommendation:
Before ending this article, I would like you guys to check out other great works from our main cast. So here I listed some which I enjoyed watching, and I would like you to give them a try:
Park Eun Bin: Age of Youth (2016), Age of Youth 2 (2017), Judge vs. Judge (2017),
 The Ghost Detective (2018), Hot Stove League (2019), Do You Like Brahms? (2020).
Rowoon: Extraordinary You (2019), She Would Never Know (2021).
Nam Yoon Su: Extracurricular (2020)
Choi Byung Chan: Live On (2020)

Until here, I hope you guys enjoyed reading my article.
Thank you for reading, and see you again on my next article (hopefully). 
PS: I want to make more friends here, so feel free to send a friend request and hit me on a message! <3

Credits: All the pictures and gifs used are from KBS Drama, Netflix, from the actor's company and my own screenshots; unless mentioned otherwise


Edited by:  Tine (1st editor) & Cookie (2nd editor)

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