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KINGDOM: LEGENDARY WAR [킹덤:레전더리워] EPISODE 4 & 5 FULL

INTRO - 0:00

SHOW START - 0:56

SF9 EXCERPT - 31:09

THE BOYZ EXCERPT - 57:18

IKON EXCERPT - 1:24:06

ATEEZ EXCERPT - 1:53:45

BTOB EXCERPT - 2:19:49

STRAY KIDZ EXCERPT - 2:44:32

PERSONAL RANKINGS - 3:05:19

OFFICIAL RANKINGS - 3:21:51

OUTRO - 3:35:43

KINGDOM: LEGENDARY WAR [킹덤:레전더리워] EPISODE 4 & 5 FULL

Comments

Its hella late here but just some quick thoughts: Thank you so much for appreciating Skz this episode, as I said before I truly dont understand, not even a second. 3rd would be 1 thing but 6th? In what universe? Ateez also did great but Skz takes the cake for me. My only explanation is some shadiness going on bts. The whole boy storyline has a very strong (imo) theory behind it that a lot of fans believe in. Basically the boy is representing Hyunjin. Hyunjin was on hiatus after ep 1 which the group certainly wasnt happy about (some rumors which were proven wrong) and everything about this performance screams Hyunjin too me. 1. The 8 (8!) rings they made, 1 was with the boy statue during the performance. They talk about the rings being about "someone precious" (aka Hyunjin while they cant say his name cause of reasons *sigh*). 2. The theme of the performance, its about someone they care about being taken away and how they'll move and destroy heaven and earth to bring him back. A threat to the company perhaps? "We dont care what we will have to do, we WILL get him back. There is no line we arent willing to cross". Maybe? Maybe a promise to the fans that they are fighting hard to get him back, but maybe a promise just to Hyunjin himself? 3. Interesting also that they choose to be dark for this performance, destroying "heaven", maybe showing they dont care about reputation or being the bad guys, they just want to get him back? 4. The missing person being represented by a little boy or should we say... a "stray kid"? Food for thought. 5. The lyrics speak volumes. If you try to imagine the situation they found themselves in in regards to Hyunjin, the lyrics couldnt fit it more. 6. Changbin says after the performance "I hope our prayer will be answered", it could be interpreted as just relating to getting first place but the way I know Changbin I think there might have been another meaning. In conclusion, imo who the performance is about could have only be made more obvious by literally painting his name on the statue and I dont know how JYP kept them from doing that, lmao, but id love to hear your thoughts.

Alice

I know right? Crazy that this happened and I personally wish Mnet was truly honest 100% of the time but I feel we only get around 30% on a good day.. Bless it

Jessica Holyfield

I only saw this show several years after it aired so I can’t speak to how it felt for the fans watching it at the time, but I heard there were rumors that MNET artificially scored Stray Kids that low to cause drama because if you noticed, they were first in the global scoring at the time. I think the rumors blew up because the experts and their scoring was very hush hush with only the final total score between all of them being revealed. I have now watched Kingdom 3 times with various reactors and I still don’t understand the scoring system. I will say the combined stages coming next with the rap, vocal, and dance teams will be a bit different in that we actually get to see the live reaction of the experts and some of their comments in real time, which I feel MNET might have done because this stage got so much outrage. But this is all just my speculation. I did wish that they had left I.N. alone because he was feeling so bad about his performance (even though his vocal cry felt appropriate to the song). It was especially heartrending with their low scoring because since before their debut I.N. has struggled with his vocal confidence even though he is one of their main vocalists

Le Petit Loup-Garou

Frustration at an all time high... I can't believe the scoring on this... It's such a disservice to literally all the groups and all the fans that watch.... I didn't know that San was injured at all! Great professionalism on his part!

Jessica Holyfield

MNET IS THE BIGGEST BOOOO I COULD GIVE I SWEAR.......... In the industry as small as Kpop its almost impossible for there not to be overlap with affiliations unless you go with people who have equivalent experience in a different niche of culture of pop music. I am glad that they adjust their mindset because I have had to do that on a number of occasions.... We will see how the rest of the episodes unfold!

Jessica Holyfield

I can 100% agree with you! Lyricism can play a VITAL role in how something comes across so I can definitely see that influencing my personal placement of their set!

Jessica Holyfield

THANK YOU FOR THIS PERSPECTIVE!!! I 1000000% agree with literally every point and I personally feel Mnet needs to just hire people like us so we can make sure these boys can be treated the way they need to be haha! I'm so happy to see them have joy soon.. I feel we ALL need that haha!

Jessica Holyfield

Honestly, it's super frustrating to see how this point system affected ALL the groups participating, and in the end it was worth nothing in comparison to having an establish and large fanbase, which was not ANY groups fault, but MNET's. And this affected all the groups at the end of the day, bcs it might make some people believe that the winning group, didn't achieve this by their efforts and talent, which is very unfair, because not matter what, I believe everybody did their best. So it's just very sad that groups like ATEEZ, at this point, although facing A LOT of backlash (which was super undeserved), were (I imagine) thinking that at least they were leading the competition, because that's what MNET wanted everybody to believe with this score system, so moving forward you will see that some groups start to understand how this show is truly gonna work, and you'll see how is really going to affect them, and change the way they'll approach the performances. Which isn't better or worse, just a different perspective. I do believe, tho, that it was a healthy change, at least for their mental and physical state. PS: I'm not sure when during the performance, but San hurt his leg, and 30 seconds into his focus video of this performance on YouTube, you can see him limping whenever the camera is not on him, but none really notices it, bcs he just dances normally whenever is his turn. Which is also why you can't see him afterward when they finish the presentation and are sitting again in the chairs 😞😞

Scarlet♡

the points and scores being the exact reason as to why i hated watching this show 😭 with rtk they already weren’t the most transparent/fair but it made enough sense, but this was ridiculous! i get the “experts” remaining anonymous but at the same time knowing mnet, they could very well have had anyone putting down those scores. also the experts could have had affiliations to any of the companies, which is why i couldn’t get behind this concept. watching the show as a deobi (and a stay) was so tiring 😭. deobis kinda just stopped caring what people said/what the scores said at some point and just enjoyed the performances & streamed/voted. eventually you see tbz also adapt the mindset of not caring as much and just enjoying themselves. mnet really just blows me because how much more criticism do you have to receive before you change? i just wish things were more transparent with voting and budgets. as well as, the critique given from the “experts” being more objective (and less focused on rtk specifically for tbz).

kali

For the ikon stage, I honestly think not knowing Korean takes away a lot of the magic. Because most of the lyrics were new and made the concept clear. It's one of the only performances that I honestly think need to be watched with lyrics on.

BaoziBang (Tali)

I started watching this season when they already had a few episodes out and at the time I was, and still am, a casual listener of all 6 groups. I remember seeing a lot of discourse online about the drama with the sets and budgeting and the rankings of certain challenges and of course mnet was to blame. I wish I could say it gets better but at one point I just stopped paying attention to the rankings and the discourse so that I could just enjoy their interactions and performances. I also definitely forgot Stray Kids scored so low in this challenge, in my mind they had stayed in the upper ranks the entire time and definitely deserved a higher ranking. My top three for this challenge would be SF9, Stray Kids, and The Boys/Ateez interchangeably. I was so proud of SF9 here and I was constantly going back to their full performance video to rewatch, they really showed how passionate they were for this. The frustrating part of these rankings is that they dont actually tell us the criteria of the challenges and we dont know what the experts are scoring on and what the groups themselves are taking into consideration when voting for the other groups. Not to mention with each section of the scores, they flip flop around so much, especially after the global voting. Also, the fact that they just gloss over the final ranking with the global and mv votes is so weird and frustrating and definitely makes them lose credibility. And thats not even getting into the "interesting" choices they made for some of the expert categories like the magazine/media experts. One of the worst things about these mnet survival shows is seeing how gutted people look, despite trying their best to look okay, when rankings are announced. Especially when sometimes, like this episode, you can clearly see how awkward the atmosphere gets and you end up with the 1st place group in this case feeling like they cant actually enjoy their win. Like this is what they love doing and its what they do for their livelihoods and I'm sure being in the lower ranks in a show like this is probably like a knife to the heart. You could tell, especially in the final episode, how drained and done everyone seemed to be. I almost wish they had no ranking in this show since they dont eliminate any groups either but alas. Its so painful to see how affected the groups and individuals get, not just with the ranking and not just in this show, but with all the pressure and physical and mental exhaustion that comes with doing a program like this. I will say in programs like this and as a former psychology major, its so fascinating to see how people and groups/crews come together to pull out the best theyve ever given on these shows and I love seeing how they grow and improve. However, at the end of the day, is the mental and physical strain worth it? I guess thats on them as individuals to decide as well. Thankfully in the next few episodes you get a lot more cute interactions between the groups and the performances are STELLAR! Honestly some of my favorite stages I've seen from any of the groups in general. Thank you again for your concise and knowledgable reaction, its always so interesting hearing your take on these. And yes! BTOB are such comedic relief and I love how unbothered they are throughout the majority of the show.

Gabi B.

I LOVED the excerpts of both SKZ and BTOB in this episode! SO HILARIOUS and organic!!! That was the HIGHLIGHT for me! and with ATEEZ's performance it was like NIGHT AND DAY from the full cam and the full version they showed in the show!

Jessica Holyfield

YES TO THIS.... I mean Mnet is a train wreck anyway so they just needed more fuel for their dumpster fire and this was at the groups expense unfortunately. I see many issues with how they formatted this show and I hope in the future if they choose to do something like this again that they LEARN and apply some form of integrity to these shows for the sake of who is participating!

Jessica Holyfield

That is devastating to hear... I will most likely notice that as the episodes continue but how disheartening! Part of me likes that fact the groups got to put on incredible performances but I'm not a fan of the confusing edits and ways they distributed the points.

Jessica Holyfield

I FEEL WE ALL NEED A WEEK OFF FROM THIS haha! It will be fun!

Jessica Holyfield

Thank you for also explaining Mingi's inclusion and Don't Stop! I don't believe I've seen that one but I'll have to go digging to find it!

Jessica Holyfield

Love that we got a whole WORLD out of this one! SO cool if you ask me! ANd I can see Django and Arriba match the world for sure! Placement within the concert also gave that impression!

Jessica Holyfield

I'm really glad that groups were able to become more popular domestically! But sometimes I wonder if the expense was worth it with some of the linger issues with the show if that makes sense. I can see that companies submitted production guidance which is good for those teams, but it will leave some groups floundering if they don't have a team behind them like that. I'm excited for the fun episode!! I feel we ALL need a week off from this mess haha

Jessica Holyfield

Yea they like briefly showed the viewers the rankings for views and global votes but we didn't get to see the teams react to the changes and distribution of the rest of the points. I think this added to the confusion and probably added to the fanwars because it made it difficult to tell who actually had the most points. Obviously at this point in the show it looks like ATEEZ is in the lead, but when you look at the points overall so far the rankings are actually very different. It was really sad to see everyone's expressions and hear how quiet it was when the ranks were revealed compared to the last episode. I wish I could say the results get better but they really don't. Teams do get recognized for their talent and hard work, but there are still mixed feelings (at least for me) with the results in general. It's not even that I feel ATEEZ should be the winner since I'm an ATINY, it's just that towards the end of the show you can kind of feel how emotionally drained some of the teams were and it just feels weird. I love the show for the awesome performances it gave us, but it can still be so frustrating to think about everything that happened even though I have rewatched it many times.

Taylor

I KNOW RIGHT!! THAT RIGHT THERE with The Boyz and SKZ is the reason why things started getting SUPER sketch and not fun for ANYONE! I understand them not getting any votes (it happened to SF9) but bless it for them dropping as far as they did... Bless it.. And I 100% agree that they needed to make ALL of the scores matter.... I don't even think they SHOWED who got top spot for the first challenge right?? Goodness they needed to fix MANY things in this format

Jessica Holyfield

I'm glad I can take one for the team with this show haha! Hopefully I can help everyone cope with these weird choices of evaluations haha! ANd it doesn't shock me in the SLIGHTEST that everyone felt worse off at the end vs it being a great experience..... Mostly because of how the rankings happened it cause strife publicly and within the fandoms!! Not fair to anyone! Hopefully the next couple challenges are better for us all but WHO KNOWS! Thank you also for your encouraging words about me helping cope with this show! I'll continue to do my best haha!

Jessica Holyfield

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective. It always means a lot especially during videos like this one! Thank you also for the clarification regarding Hui's producing with Pentagon! I can definitely see how Mnet made him look so isolated! BOO Mnet! I 1000% agree that SKZ scoring so low probably made BTOB feel bad as well since it was there song (even though SKZ chose it themselves).. It makes it look like everyone just said nice things for the sake of it which I hate! I'm excited for episode 6 and seeing everyone have fun!

Jessica Holyfield

Even though I am ATEEZ bias and loved their Rhythm Ta performance, I think BTOB had the best performance of the night and the BTOB and Stray Kids interactions are the best. Probably because Peniel interacts with the Australian line of Stray Kids a lot.

Gaby Fukumura

the thing I hated about them showing the scoring after the 4th episode for the first challenge, was that we saw ranks based on each of the categories, but no points attached to that. and no final point total. so, you have no clue where the groups stand in the overall ranking, which I think hurts your credibility as a show, since you can make it look like whatever you want it to look. this will cause people to vote a certain way, which will heavily influence the upcoming scores

Rochella Duijs

Even though Stray Kids and The Boyz didn't have my favorite performances of the night, they absolutely did not deserve to be ranked in the bottom. Of course with the team voting it's always unsure since they can only vote for 3 teams, it's not unlikely that a team may not receive any votes. It also feels weird to me that they put so much emphasis and drama on the expert and team votes when the global vote often completely flipped the rankings but was barely mentioned in the episodes. Like they either should have made the global results dramatic as well or made the in person votes less suspenseful. This show could have been so positive and such an appreciation of talent, but mnet lives for the drama 🙄

Taylor

Also, to provide some levity from the heaviness of it all, I'm pretty sure next episode is the sports day so if you watch it at least you'll get a stress-free episode of them having fun together and being able to interact.

8makes1

Yes, so, a lot of Rhythm Ta became Guerrilla and the whole World era (Guerrilla, Bouncy, Crazy Form). The blimps, flyers, the big "eye in the skyn," masks, everything being prohibited, the recording that's playing, undercover operations, anarchy symbol, "open your eyes" and so on. All of that was stuff that back in 2021 we had no idea would become so important in 2022 with Guerrilla. I also think (this is just a theory though, no confirmation yet) that this performance now ties into the concert too with Arriba and Django. Both musically and conceptually, those stages feel very in-line with this one. I believe you didn't watch their Don't Stop mv, but they have a whole heist in that one where Mingi has been kidnapped (which may explain lore-wise his absence in both Fireworks and here in Rhythm Ta when he was actually on hiatus) and the others are trying to steal back their pirate ship. Unfortunately the MV belonged to the universe app, not KQ and the app no longer exists so the official video was deleted from YouTube, there's bootleg re-uploads though. I think they explained that mv as taking place in a different dimension, not the main ones (A and Z) kind of like Halazia being a spin-off world. But regardless, that MV feels like it was inspired by this Rhythm Ta performance quite heavily, too.

8makes1

Thankfully, I did not watch Kingdom while it was actually airing. Just based on general feel, I think there were three groups that Kingdom really gave a boost of success (Stray Kids, Ateez, BTOB). BTOB vocals brought people to the music plus a whole bunch of hosting, judging, and variety opportunities. The show helped Ateez gain some ground in Korea and really made them known for their performance ability. Stray Kids just kept getting better through the show and they came off really likable in the edit. I don't know about all the groups but some of the companies submitted really detailed camera demos to the production team. I think this really helped some groups because production didn't have to make the decisions. There is a fun episode coming with good vibes and bonding so you will have a break from the stress. Oh, and BTOB does some fake instrument playing in another performance. It's very obvious and very intentional.

Kayla Aupperlee

Truthfuly, seeing your reaction to this challenge I remember why I could not finish watching the show proper, and only looked at the performances from the groups. I have looked up the scores a number of times to get an idea of how everything went and was baffled just seeing the numbers, but I can never seem to remember the rankings due to how incongruent it all seemed with my opinion and perception of the stages. I feel awful for all the groups, you can tell how they shuttled past any real reactions to these scores and jumped right into everyone saying they'll do better next time. I totally believe there is a major issue with this scoring system all around. It was presented fine on paper, but hearing what categories the experts were split into feels like things are heavily weighed AGAINST the crux of the show, which is a performance showcase. When 5/6 challenges consist of groups essentially remixing an existing song, I do not understand how music critics get roughly the same weight as the performance directors, where there was no way to tell how many of them were experts in movement, staging, vocals, or concept. Having an entire category be essentially visual marketing media is also wild to me, since it feels like a recipe for controversy over resources. I can't believe after all this time, even with hindsight, that I am as shocked as you were here. It just doesn't make sense! And I like how you said that the lack of clear criteria makes the experts look bad too! What especially makes me sad, as you talked about the boyz slump after this show, was something else I've heard I believe Peniel from BtoB talk about where the groups were kept from interacting with one another as much as possible during filming. It went beyond COVID precautions, and was stated to be to get genuine reactions from the groups. However, I think you can tell theres a lot less community in the filming of this show than RTK! These groups have members who are friends with each other, and you can tell they so badly want to uplift one another and clearly respect each other, but they aren't given the space to have relationships with one another here. Those relationships impacted scoring in RTK, yes, but being so restrictive without taking away the self-evaluation coupled with the brutal expert scoring, it had to wear everybody down. I'm sorry I can't really say anything to warn you if it gets better or worse. My remnant opinion from what I looked at before is that there is still disappointing rankings from my perspective but I can't anticipate anything throwing me as hard as this challenge. Thank you for going through it all for us and for the groups! I wish everyone would have gotten a more positive exprience out of this, but at the very least they put on some dope stages! I so appreciate your analyses and how professional and thoughtful they are, because I feel like your perspective is much more in line with what these groups should have been hearing!

Shelby Moore

Firstly, thank you for sharing your thoughts in such a clear and concise manner, it's always nice to see your analysis even when the episodes are rough. Okay, now to do my duty as a Universe. Yes, Hui is Pentagon's genius producer. As exhibited by Mnet's questionable editing, he's an extremely hard worker but PTG is a little more similar to 3Racha then Mnet made it seem. Given that PTG's albums are usually a combined effort between Hui, the maknae line, and at least one other member (it alternates). Moving on, as both a Melody and a huge fan of I'll be your man (it's one of my top 5 BTOB songs). seeing Stray Kids score so low was really saddening. I watched that particular stage back in 2022, and then never again (until now) because I still find it frustrating. Then again, I'm a big fan of emotional/dark themes, so I'm a little biased. Although, I do find it amusing that they called it darker than the original because everyone sort of dies in it? They're both dark in their own ways. In that same vein, I really enjoyed the Beat's Back Door for reasons that have very little to do with Minhyuk's clothes losing habit, and more to do with how much effort they put into preparing for it. ie: Changsub started getting sick at this point, hence why he wasn't in the interviews and will be out for the next episodes. Which speaking, you asked if it gets better? I'm sure others will leave you long essays of explanation pertaining to their groups, but for me personally, episode 6 is my favorite of the show. Some of the events that occur during it and in the following round are directly responsible for forging friendships, which is always nice to see. Thank you!

Galysh


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