O-Ring

Stranger is very good. It is nothing really new, but the acting is very good

Haha, you edited your comment, but it is fine... Riverdale is also very popular outside the US. Perhaps you just have a very distinct taste? ;-)

Not necessarily... Good means good... Arthdal Chronicles will get a second season. Stranger was also not a massive hit, but will get a second season.

But liking Itaewon Class does not make Koreans strange. Outside Korea, it was also immensely popular. The international and Korean taste are more often aligned than not...

Thanks for the numbers... Totally irrelevant to the whole story, but the numbers you gave me show me how insignificant kdrama nowadays is in comparison to prior to the Hallyu ban in China. My Love From Another Star was streamed 14.5 billion times on iQiyi between December 2013 and February 2014.

How can people ever claim that dramas such as TKEM are LMH's and Kim Eun-sook's biggest international hits? Or that CLOY is bigger than DOTS and MLFAS? Crazy...

But even so, Koreans sometimes do have the superior taste than people outside Korea. For example, The King is considered by plenty of people a shit drama with plotholes, which was reflected in the TV-ratings... However, outside of Korea it was topping all the streaming records. Just because IONTBO does not score in its home country, does not mean that the people there have strange tastes...

Funny lad, which drama has 75,000 viewers on MDL? Which drama has skyrocketed LMH into pan-Asian stardom? BOF might be crap, but outside Korea it was equally as popular...

In fact the whole plot of the story is very similar to My Sassy Girl, a brilliant movie from 2001 with Jun Ji-hyun and Cha Tae-hyun. Backstreet Rookie is definitely not as good, but still very entertaining to watch...

The director actually put the drama cleverly together. There are so many references, but it still flows. Unfortunately many people do not know the references and find it silly...

Yes! Temptation of the Wolves! Classic!

But those are the recent ones that even non-Koreans will understand. These ones are for the true dedicated K-ent fans: https://youtu.be/oG305jpI6xE?t=741. This is freaking from 2001 and a movie that made Jang Dong-gun famous. The whole scene is the same, music is the same and even the band name is the same...

Next week will have the umbrella scene, which was popularized by Gang Dong-won

The whole drama is filled with parodies of other dramas and movies. I think 2-3 per episode. It is not even subtle, some scenes are straight copies, so a lot of the inside jokes are only understood by Koreans

But I am not disagreeing with you per say. If you think they are mocking black people, then it is fine. But you are not making facts up. For example, you are not saying that the Rastafari is wearing shackles or something like that. But many critics do make up things to justify a point. SB's age is the best one. She is clearly 19 at the start of the show, but people are forcing others to believe she is 16. When people correct them, they cite the webtoon. But the webtoon is not the drama. Some criticism is valid, but a lot of it isn't

It goes too far to say it is not racist. I think people that find it racist have a point.

However, non-Koreans are only a spectator of this show. JCW could give a rat's ass of what the West thinks. People like Fan Bing Bing make more than most Hollywood actors. So if JCW needs to push a somewhat controversial agenda and diss Africa or Jamaica to please the Chinese, Japanese and Korean viewers he happily will. I am only trying to make people aware that the world does not center around the West for people such as JCW and other Korean actors. So to me these comments talking about JCW and his PR-team are strange.

Look at the amount of Asian actors that are against the Hong Kong protest and pro-China. Do you really believe people such as Jackson Wang of Got7 and who hails from HK is pro-China? - No, his wallet is pro-China.

The fact is that we actually do not know whether he is mocking black people... We only know he is mocking Rastafaris. Are Rastafaris automatically black? Most of the time yes... However, Dal Shik is clearly saying that he is 100% Korean in the show, so the director made it clear that he is not black. Anyway, I digress.

It is fine to have the opinion that BR is mocking black people/Rastafaris, but one should not add more accusations that are untrue to justify a point. The Rastafari is a bit grey area, but saying that SB is a minor in the show is definitely bending the truth. Let the facts speak for itself.

My comment was not necessarily aimed at you, but more in general. So perhaps I responded to the wrong comment... Happens sometimes :-)

Cool story bruh... I am not going to say it is not controversial, culturally insensitive and what not. You have a point... But why would you care how Asians, Koreans, JCW or KYJ think about Africans and black people? What I am trying to say is that I rather have an actor that is openly condoning this type of behavior, then celebrities that all act prim and proper but are horndogs and racists in private.

One of the worst type of racism that one can experience is "latent racism" such as in Europe or the US. You are supposedly equal, but in reality you are not. I would rather have "open racism" such as in Asia. At least people are not two-faced and you will know who you can trust and who not. Now we know how Asians, Koreans, JCW and KYJ look at this topic. Or would you rather have more celebrities such as AOA's Jimin or Seungri, who act all nice, but are total scumbags in real life?

Some admit it ("I only watched until episode 2 or episode 4" followed by a random negative comment). Others make it blatantly obvious by writing about stuff that never happened in the drama. And if I see a gif of Kim Soo Hyun or Seo Ye Ji, then I understand why...

BTW, we are at episode 10, but episode 11-16 already have ratings below a 7... I do not know what type of people manipulates the ratings, but let's say it is pretty certain it is not a BR-fan ;-)

There are tiers though. There is a difference between blackface with dreads and solely dreads. With the first one, there is no discussion that it is racist. With the second one, there might be ignorance rather than racism at play. The first one is definitely worse than the second one. The statement hinting that DH is prowling on a minor is also not true.

Is this drama culturally insensitive and controversial? - Yes.

Is it as worse as critics say? - No, as there is no blackface nor pedophilia.

That is why I do not like a lot of these debates, as there is no nuance. They are straight up shouting matches of people who do not fact-check. It is like going to a naturally light-brown person and tell them that he darkened his skin. Or go to an adult and tell her that she is a minor. If you do that in real life, it is not done. But here it suddenly is.

Personally I do not mind the critics. Everyone has the right to criticize. What I really dislike, are those people with a gif of Kim Soo Hyun or Seo Ye Ji in their avatar and straight up shredding Backstreet Rookie to pieces without having watched the show. Why make it so obvious what your agenda is? At least, the critics of The King were neutral or made side-accounts to hide their agenda :-)

To be fair. This show's portrayal is racially insensitive, but the director does seem to have listened. I have noticed that Dal Shik does not wear the Jamaican colors anymore, although he is still wearing bright and colorful clothes