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“Bon Appétit, Your Majesty” is an ongoing South Korean fantasy romantic drama blending historical intrigue, time travel, and culinary artistry.

The series follows Yeon Ji-yeong (Im Yoon-ah), a modern French cuisine chef who time-travels to the Joseon Dynasty during a solar eclipse. She encounters King Yi Heon (Lee Chae-min), a tyrannical monarch haunted by his mother’s death. Ji-yeong becomes his royal chef, using her modern cooking skills to navigate palace politics, soften the king’s heart, and survive deadly challenges .

-Source: Wikipedia

King Yeonsangun (1494–1506), a real Joseon ruler notorious for brutality. As some information about him calling the worst leader or fierced leader.

We won’t be diving deep into the history but will focus on the important parts of this review.

Visual and Cultural Feast

Costumes blend historical accuracy with subtle modern flair, particularly in Ji-yeong’s hybrid attire. Thus The drama’s production design is  very chef’s kiss.

You might be familiar with the shooting location and I believe it’s the same location used by the Joseon Era setting movie or tv series are in.

Typical K-drama??

Some are a bit predictable, for example the “life-or-death cooking challenge”  risks of  repetitiveness

Plus some subplots about power struggles, a king that is experiencing PTSD because of past experiences starts to hunt him down. There’s a lot more that you can find along the way which you can brush off if you want and continue watching the show.

What’s in it on this show?

King Yi Heon (The fictional side of King Yeonsangun )

In this whole series they are introducing a different POV of the tyrant to which people know a lot.

Instead of being an evil tyrant, he was portrayed as a king that had brokenness and trauma in his heart.

The best example of this scene is in the very first episode to which he was reminded by his deceased mother upon eating Ji-yeong’s meal

Best Episode so far??

Why because it somehow gives us an idea that they can present a heartwarming episode that also revolves around a cooking challenge and knocks the sense of Queen Dowager In Ju [Heon’s grandmother] to which she was reminded by her mother.

What does it lack!?

In the meantime, it felt a little bland to me as it needed to spice it up a notch by introducing a villain to be more assertive in the storyline or power struggle plot.

It needs a surprise factor in a way just to break its predictability thus having a comic relief to push more might help. 

I am excited to see that book as the time machine device to come into play into the storyline that might make or break the entire series.

Final Verdict

I honestly like the idea of the show but for some reason it’s repetitiveness is very present and we can’t deny that.

I do have high hopes for the show to give us a closure that their fans can be happy and make us want it more.

But I do understand how hard it is to balance what was written Based on the web novel “Yeonsankunui Chefro Salanamki” by Park Kuk-Jae (published October 5, 2022 – August 31, 2023 via Naver. And what’s the actual project is unfolding.