With Eyes East

Episodes 1-4

Original Broadcast: 23 August – 28 September 2025
Written by fGRD, Directed by Jang Tae-yoo
Starring Im Yoon-ah, Lee Chae-min, Kang Han-na

Finally. You know, Yoona’s an interesting case. I’ve previously discussed how she’s this deific figure in hallyu but often plays the most mundane characters in K-dramas (faring a bit better in film, by all appearances). She takes us behind the scenes of these shows on her YouTube channel and she’s so enthusiastic, and I wish I could be, too. I really do. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point where Yoona’s not a selling point anymore. On one hand, she’s drawn to these safe, relatively unchallenging roles, but on the other, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable with her unsafe, thrown into the deep end of Korean movies and TV. Take Lim Ji-yeon, for example, who’s had a five-star career and now everyone knows she’s a brilliant actress, but Christ, does she get her ass kicked. She plays an abused wife in Lies Hidden in My Garden and a runaway slave in The Tale of Lady Ok. Award-nominated performances, but it’s too much for me to handle. The price of being a badass, really. A badass woman, mind you; no price for guys. Oh, I’m so nervous for my sweet baby Shasha in Project Y. I’d much rather watch Yoona in a reality show like Hyori’s Homestay or any old Girls’ Generation content, where we also see her actual, though still guarded, personality.

It’s also gotten to the point where K-drama fans have drawn battle lines over Yoona, with one side criticizing her acting generally and the other vigorously defending it. So, imagine my surprise when the reviews started rolling in for her latest show, Bon Appétit, Your Majesty. The people, they love it – and they love Yoona. Now, you might have first heard about Bon Appétit as the drama that dropped lead actor Park Sung-hoon following his laughably microscopic “scandal” during Squid Game 2. Heartbreaking, as he’s a phenomenal actor – and daring, like Lim Ji-yeon – and also co-starred with SNSD alum Sooyoung in Not Others. Plus, he looks a lot like Yoona. They have the same face. So, maybe it’d be better if they played brother and sister, not love interests. Replacing him is an actor fifteen years his junior, Lee Chae-min, suddenly transforming this into a noona romance. But fear not, if you’re uncomfortable with age gaps and the power imbalance they suggest. No, I’m just kidding. Fear very, because Lee Chae-min plays Yi Heon, the tyrant king of Joseon last covered on this site for the ultra disturbing movie The Treacherous, starring Lim Ji-yeon (tee-hee).

Welcome to the deep end. As with countless others before her, including SNSD alum Yuri in Bossam: Steal the Fate, Yoona finds herself in the period dress, bound by rope and on her knees in the royal court. I’m sorry, because this is something I need to get over as an adult man, but that image is exactly the last thing I ever want to see. Alas, what can be expected when she’s been hurled through time and ends up in Joseon telling everyone she’s from the future? Right to jail. Yoona plays Yeon Ji-yeong, who in 2025 has won a cooking competition in Paris, and will be heading up a Michelin-starred kitchen. That is, until a solar eclipse and a magic book send her literally flying through time – to hilarious effect – dropping her straight onto the hunting path of the now boy-king. The only thing that saves her, aside from his “what are these unexpected” feelings, is her award-winning cooking skills, which Yoona performs like a natural. Ji-yeong is also a bit of a history buff, and knows that eventually, Yi Heon will be responsible for something called “literati purges,” which lead to his violent overthrow. The sinister palace politics are already underway as she’s forced into service as head of the royal kitchen.

A few years ago, there was a somewhat infamous movie entitled Babylon, which featured graphic sex and a three-hour runtime. Buried within all that was, however, one great sequence. The lead character – a silent film actress – shoots with sound for the first time, and we see what an awful, precarious production it is. The lights are hot, film’s a-wasting, and she simply cannot nail her lines or her marks. Take after take, the pressure increases, and it’s wonderfully suspenseful. Thinking back, there’s a little suspense in every gag reel, when the actor breaking stops being fun for the cast and crew. Oh, no, not another one! I thought it was quite inspired for the makers of Babylon to extract that suspense and blow it up to dramatic levels with the technical craft of the earlier Whiplash. Makes me think, where else might we find suspense in unusual places? What about in that tense window between the first bite and the reaction? Cooking shows, but of course, and those have enjoyed a comeback lately. On the Food Network, the tension is underscored with dramatic stock music. In Bon Appétit, it’s a matter of life and death!

By the fourth episode, Ji-yeong is made to compete against the other cooks of the royal kitchen, outwardly to appease the ministers who balked at the time traveler’s appointment. Of course, it’s actually the doing of Consort Kang Mok-ju, a concubine with an agenda, played by Kang Han-na with a fiery, terrifying authority. She’d convinced the Grand Queen Dowager, Yi Heon’s grandmother, to arrange this contest by playing on existing suspicions about the strange woman who most people refer to as a supernatural creature, a gwinyeo. The price of failure for Ji-yeong is one of her arms. Bring out the straw cutter! Yi Heon arrives before the competition begins, furious that he’s being undermined, having already appointed Ji-yeong the royal chef. So, while he’s privately rooting for his girl, won over by her food several times, this is hardly a safety net. He’ll be disappointed if she loses, but he won’t keep her alive.

The competition is an amazing sequence; I was marveling at its complexity. There’s the technical know-how, with Ji-yeong’s deep knowledge of French cooking applied to period-Korean ingredients. There’s also culinary philosophy, as the competition’s theme is “filial piety,” so the three cooks come up with different interpretations of how that abstract concept applies to their dishes. Ji-yeong is not only very skilled but observant, too, and considers the audience of her food as much as the food itself. In this case, it’s Grand Queen Dowager Inju, whose last meal with her mother was savory for a reason which has eluded the royal kitchen for years. Inju is joined by Yi Heon and Mok-ju and several others on the judges panel, and they each have unique reactions to the unfolding contest. It’s a lot going on, and it’s paced evenly across these multiple perspectives, moving with lightning speed in and out of cooking montages and internal monologues.

The basic joy of the show is the setup and payoff of characters like Inju and Mok-ju underestimating Ji-yeong and then being blown away by her cooking. In the second episode, there’s even suspense before the first bite, when an adversarial taster refuses a dish for its strange appearance. Mok-ju can only concede that her new rival’s food is indeed good, but Inju is moved to tears, much as Ji-yeong’s cooking reminds Yi Heon of his late mother (making things a little oedipal). Usually, the show has shades of anime in the “Wow, this food is so good” moments, which showcase great face acting in addition to the silly graphics, but it’s more weighty with Inju. In Korea, with its strong culinary tradition (something dramatized beautifully in the first season of Pachinko), food is taken very seriously, and this cuts to the heart of the show. At least, so far, functioning more as a light thriller than a drama or even a romance.

An impressive tonal balance is struck in this brutal world where violence ever hangs over Ji-yeong and her adorable compatriot Gil-geum, but we’re only despairing as profoundly as a time traveler from a safer future who has to convince herself this is real. The first few episodes see Ji-yeong rolling her eyes under various states of bondage. One of the running jokes is that no matter how angry or antagonistic, the Joseon people will always adopt a flat, student affect in trying to pronounce Ji-yeong’s 2025 words. It’s fun, and crucially, so is Ji-yeong. She’s not a bland do-gooder but a fish out of water impatient with the ancient customs and manners. After proving herself to the other royal cooks – and saving their lives from the king’s wrath – she’s hardly gracious in victory, ordering one to fetch her some water with a pointed, petulant “I’m really thirsty.” As a modern woman, she’s already dealt with the sexism that’s a bit more embedded in 16th-century culture, making her confident and cool despite the near-constant indignities.

As much as I’ve been enjoying Bon Appétit, Your Majesty, I have spaced it out, and it’s for exactly the dumb-o reasons cited above. “Do I really want to see Yoona tied up again?” It’s also coming at an awkward time. As is popularly expressed online, this year’s been a K-drama drought, and I certainly haven’t finished anything since the bumpy Judge from Hell way back in January*. Now, all of a sudden, the release of Bon Appétit coincides with Tempest and Confidence Queen, meaning a three-way showdown between Yoona, Jun Ji-hyun, and Park Min-young. That’s so unfair. And yet, none of these are traditional K-dramas, as outlined in my reports on Love Next Door with Jung So-min. Tempest is more of a spy thriller, and it’s holding my attention mostly. But damn it if I’m not already seeing teasers for the next “traditional” K-drama, Would You Marry Me?, starring none other than Jung So-min – who I also can’t resist. You could’ve spaced these out, jerks.

*The last K-Drama Report was on Queen’s House, which I had to drop because it did get too stupid, even for me. Once they locked up Eunjung in the asylum, I was like “Nooooooo.”

I know she’s the bad guy and all, but I’m kind of obsessed with her. Off with my head!