King The Land is a 16-episode Korean series currently available on Netflix.
Among the protagonists we see the beautiful Lee Jun-Ho (coming from the world of K-Pop and more precisely from the 2PM group) recently returned from the success of the historical drama The Red Sleeve and Im Yoon-a member of the Girls’ Generation group and appreciated in the drama K2.
The story has as its backdrop the beautiful King The Land family hotel and the companies (flight and Duty Free) connected to it.
The plot of the story is a great classic of Korean Dramas: he is part of a Cheobol family, she is the middle-lower class employee who works in the hotel.
Even the sequences are similar, VIP mega locations, airplane flights, trips to seaside resorts, out of town in rural Korea, friendly drinking scenes, and Karaoke.
Obviously the two meet in the hotel, he manager and she concierge / employee and fall in love as expected in any story like “Cinderella”.
As just said, the similarity with other dramas is great, just to name two the very famous What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, and the most recent a Business Proposal yet the drama has some peculiarities that distinguish it …
Firstly, it is an insight into what the Korean world of work is like for women in particular.
The whole working life is pigeonholed, from the educational qualification to the age at which certain promotions must be achieved.
Being a divorced woman in Korea can lead to social and employment discrimination.
Companies are organized by objectives and the various employees appear almost grilled without ever getting the right reward.
The story is a repetition of the family drama experienced by the protagonist: that is, Gu Won lost his mother precisely because his father in his youth had fallen in love with a simple employee in a hotel but had not been able to protect her.
In fact, the child is abandoned in the King The Land Hotel without knowing what happened to his mother and begins to hate the false smiles that everyone gives him.
Also in this as in other dramas (e.g. Cloy and The Heirs) we witness the internal family struggle between the various illegitimate heirs such as between Gu Won and his sister, the daughter of his father’s first marriage.
Within the series there is also a beautiful parenthesis that sees the protagonists travel to Thailand.
Thus one has the opportunity to see the beautiful Thai temples (among other things there is a self-referential quote from Jun-Ho to the Red Sleeve at the beginning of the series when he passes in front of the royal palace).
The reference to Korean cuisine is always present in almost all the dramas, in this case we see the preparation of food by the protagonist even in a small family restaurant run by Cheon Sa-Rang’s grandmother.
Finally, applause for the ending where good feelings obviously triumph, but in this case I found the choice of having Cinderella/Sa-Rang free herself, without the need for the handsome prince, original.