This drama falls in the much-loved chaebol subgenre of Korean romcoms — here it’s about a chaebol’s son (Junho) and a spunky employee (YoonA) working together at a luxury hotel.

Don’t be discouraged by the first bumbling episodes. It’s the script’s fault. Well-intentioned and in line with romcom tradition, the writer aims to portray the male lead’s character development – in this case starting from a traumatized, arrogant spoiled manchild who is transformed by the power of love and later becomes the ideal boyfriend. But the manchild version of the ML often acts so dumb (see e.g., the episode about the rescue mission) that the character comes across as inconsistent and completely “unrealistic,” even in context of the fictional realms of the dramaworld. Luckily, after falling in love the ML’s personality changes, the stupid features fall away and he makes a lot more sense.

Instead of offering its own original artistic vision to the audience, the drama feels like a response to a survey of romcom fans about what they would like to see. And this time, unlike a lot of older romcoms, the creative team indulges us and delivers what we want. Some of us want fluff, and fluff is what the show gives us.

King The Land is a true comfort show, the characters and the tropes are as familiar as old friends we missed seeing for a long time. Look, here’s the goofy assistant and the grumpy grandma, here is the umbrella-in-the-rain scene and, oh yes, here are the close-ups of the gorgeous leads. But we also have improvements over the tradition: more mature conversations, misunderstandings that get fixed in a jiffy instead of lingering for no good reason, and none of the overused tropes of love triangles, breakups, and childhood connections. And we get real hugs (no arms awkwardly dangling) and we get kisses – I mean real kisses, not the weird pecks of old.

So it’s all good? Mmh, not quite. What’s missing is a unique setup that gets things rolling like in Business Proposal with the mistaken identity of the female lead as the blind date or in Lie to Me with its secret marriage pretense. Without that bit of suspense, the show sometimes becomes a bit boring.

Aside from the small fumbles in the first episodes, the lack of a gripping story and PPP (plentiful product placements), the drama is fun and it’s pretty. And the leads have great chemistry. If you like stress-free, supersweet romcoms, check it out.

JTBC. Netflix. Written by Choi Rom.