Here is the credential that does most of the convincing: The King’s Affection (์ฐ๋ชจ) is the first South Korean series ever to win an International Emmy, taking Best Telenovela in 2022. That is a strange and telling honor for a Joseon-era costume drama, and it points to what makes the show tick. Underneath the silk robes and palace intrigue is a tight, well-built secret-identity story: a princess forced to live, rule, and fall in love while pretending to be a man, with one wrong glance enough to cost her everything.
The premise
Twins are born to the crown prince, but court superstition holds that royal twins are cursed, so the infant girl, Dam-yi, is quietly spirited out of the palace. Years later, after her twin brother dies, she is pulled back in and made to take his place permanently, ruling as Crown Prince Lee Hwi with her true gender buried under court protocol. It is a life of constant calculation, and the show is smart about the small daily mechanics of the disguise rather than just the grand stakes.
The romance arrives when Jung Ji-woon, a scholar she knew long ago, returns as the prince’s royal tutor. He falls for someone he believes is his sovereign, a man, which is exactly the kind of impossible knot a good sageuk romance is built to tighten. The series stays spoiler-light here on purpose; the pleasure is watching how long the secret can hold.
Where to watch
The King’s Affection originally aired on KBS2 in South Korea from October to December 2021, running 20 episodes. It streamed worldwide on Netflix day-and-date with the Korean broadcast, and it remains on Netflix globally (title ID 81430282). Availability can shift over time and by region, so confirm it is in your catalog before you commit to a binge.
The cast
Park Eun-bin carries the whole thing as Dam-yi / Crown Prince Lee Hwi, and it is the kind of role that asks for two performances at once: the public ruler and the private person hiding inside that authority. If you know her chiefly from Extraordinary Attorney Woo, this is the earlier work that proved she could anchor a series of this scale.
Opposite her, Rowoon (of the group SF9) plays Jung Ji-woon, the tutor whose loyalty curdles into something far more complicated. The supporting bench is deep: Nam Yoon-su as Prince Jaeun / Lee Hyun, Choi Byung-chan (AB6IX) as the loyal guard Kim Ga-on, Bae Yoon-kyung as Shin So-eun, and Jung Chae-yeon as Noh Ha-kyung. The drama is adapted from Lee So-young’s webtoon Yeonmo and directed by Song Hyun-wook; some sources also credit Lee Hyun-suk as co-director.
Filming locations
The best-documented set is the Korean Folk Village (Minsok-chon) in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, a sprawling open-air heritage site whose thatched roofs, hanok courtyards, and dirt lanes stand in for the world outside the palace in countless period dramas. It is a real place you can visit, roughly an hour south of Seoul, and it is the location most reliably tied to this production.
Two other spots circulate in fan and travel write-ups: the Mungyeongsaejae Open Set in Mungyeong and parts of Andong, both in North Gyeongsang Province. Treat those as probable rather than confirmed; they come from secondary travel sources (Creatrip, Kpopmap) rather than an official production list, and I would not plan a trip around them without checking further. The Folk Village is the safe bet.
Worth your time?
If you like your sageuk with a real engine, a secret that genuinely threatens to come apart rather than a romance draped over a costume backdrop, this earns the watch. Park Eun-bin is the reason to start, and the Emmy is the reason to trust it past the first slow stretch of palace setup. It rewards viewers who enjoy slow-burn tension and don’t mind a 20-episode commitment. Newcomers to historical Korean drama could do a lot worse for a first sageuk; the disguise hook keeps the plot legible even if you are still learning the court hierarchy.
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