HI007

"She has yet issue an official apology herself" You're factually incorrect, her apology was posted on her IG recently. Anyways, I've done my reading and I respectfully disagree with you. I don't hold people accountable for actions that are far removed from them.

Unfortunately I doubt it, I was genuinely looking forward to her in more romance dramas. I was happy she got her first female lead role, this was gonna be her breakthrough and it comes to a halt before she could even finish promotions for it. The new promotional interviews for "Our Sticky Love" just has Jung Hae In participating 😔

Did you just arrive from Stupid Town? You could’ve simply carried on with your day, yet for some inexplicable reason, you felt compelled to stop and write this idiotic comment.

@lol9777

I understand why Koreans feel strongly about her great-grandfather, particularly given that he committed an act of treason, which is undeniably deplorable. What I find difficult to understand though, is why we're supposed to hold her accountable for the actions of someone who lived more than a century ago. Is her great-grandfather really relevant to her character today?

No reasonable person would expect someone to have an exhaustive understanding of their great-grandparents’ lives, let alone the life of a man who was born in the 19th century. Expecting her to have a clear and comprehensive knowledge of his actions simply because they share a family lineage is, honestly just baffling to me.

Man, I was really looking forward to seeing Ha Young in more romance dramas in the future. But it looks there's no chance of that anymore 😔

“Available online” is an absurdly low bar for determining what someone is reasonably expected to know. If your standard is that every public figure must investigate the political history of every ancestor because the information might exist somewhere in digitized archives or old newspapers, then you're imposing a completely unreasonable obligation on people.

The city of Anyang literally had a municipal blog post celebrating Ha Young's great-grandfather by name as a historic local figure, only removing and archiving it after this controversy brought his colonial ties to light. Ha Young didn't even mention his name in the interview. She simply repeated the family history she'd been told about his medical achievements. So an actual municipal government could publicly celebrate this man without apparently knowing about this part of his history, but Ha Young was somehow expected to dig through old newspapers and archives to uncover it herself? The fact that information exists somewhere online is not the same as someone having a reasonable basis to know it.

If South Koreans, including you, feel that this warrants cancelling her, that's entirely your prerogative. I'm simply pointing out that holding someone personally accountable for an obscure aspect of their great-grandfather's history that they apparently had no knowledge of is an extraordinarily unreasonable standard.

So I did a bit more research, and honestly, the more you look into this, the more comical the situation seems. The information about her great-grandfather's colonial ties was apparently obscure enough that even the city of Anyang was unaware of it. They actually had a municipal blog post celebrating Dr. Ahn Sang-ho as a historic local figure, only deleting and archiving the post after this controversy erupted and people pointed out that his name appeared on the 1916 collaborator list.

Think about how ridiculous that makes the situation. An actual municipal government had publicly celebrated this man by name, presumably after doing at least some research into his historical background, yet apparently wasn't aware of this part of his political history.

Meanwhile, Ha Young didn't even mention his name in the interview. She simply spoke about her family history, saying that her great-grandfather studied Western medicine in Japan, opened a Western-style clinic in Hanyang and even treated Emperor Gojong. She was talking about the family history that had been passed down to her. Then people identified who he was by digging through medical and municipal historical archives and uncovered a part of his history that even a local government apparently didn't know about.

So we're really going to hold Ha Young to a higher standard of historical research than an actual municipal government? Why would she have any reason to independently investigate the political history of her great-grandfather who lived a century ago, especially when her family had apparently only passed down his achievements as a doctor?

At some point, people have to be able to distinguish between knowingly praising someone's actions and simply being unaware of an obscure part of their history. Expecting her to somehow know what even local authorities apparently didn't know is an absurd standard, and cancelling her over it is definitely overkill.

It's not a red herring because I never brought it up as an argument against you. Ironically, I was actually complimenting South Korea on how effective its cancel culture can be, which is why I said I wish people had that same sentiment towards Israel.

But since we're talking about Ha Young, I highly doubt she knew much about her great-grandfather. I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to know the detailed biography of a relative who lived a century ago, especially when most people don't even know the full history of their own grandparents. More than likely, she only knew what her family had told her, which was that she came from a lineage of doctors and the accomplishments that had been passed down through the family.

Her own statement supports this. She specifically mentioned that her great grandfather studied Western medicine in Japan, opened the first Western style clinic in Hanyang, and even treated Emperor Gojong, the last king of Korea. That sounds like someone who had been told about her great-grandfather's accomplishments and was proud of that part of her Korean heritage. If she knew the full extent of his political activities, why would she specifically present treating Gojong as something worth mentioning?

And she's also a successful actress with an extremely demanding career. She's presumably spending her time working, preparing for roles, filming and promoting projects not researching the political history of relatives who lived generations before her. Most people wouldn't randomly investigate whether their great-grandfather had committed treason.

So I really don't see why she should be expected to know something that apparently wasn't part of the family history she was taught. Expecting someone to know the obscure political history of a great-grandfather who lived a century ago is an unreasonable standard.

I understand where you're coming from. Yeah, when it comes to the FL, there were a few moments where her acting was genuinely phenomenal and her micro expressions were immaculate, which honestly made it even more frustrating because she clearly has the ability to deliver that level of performance. Yet somehow, whoever was responsible for directing her performance had her acting like an amateur for 90% of the show. The disappointment hits even harder because they had everything going for them, the cast, the Netflix backing, and all the hype surrounding it. You're just left wondering how they managed to fumble something with that much potential. It's like putting a body kit on a Lamborghini that looks like a five year old scribbled the design. Completely ruins what was already beautiful.

I don't think she was bragging about her great-grandfather's allegiance to Japan. There's no one in their right mind that would brag about a family member for their act of treason. I'm sure she was just proud of the medical achievements of her family spanning multiple generations. I feel bad for her though cause she finally got the main female role and now it's basically over for any future acting roles. I wish people had this level of response to Israel bombing babies and children, the world could learn a thing or two about cancel culture from Koreans in that sense.

Yeah, the problem definitely isn’t the actors, it’s the writing. The story is painfully weak, and the production somehow has the dated feel of a 2016 drama despite being shot in 4K. Jung Hae In is an incredible actor, if you’ve seen Deserter Pursuit, you already know he’s operating on a completely different level. Ha Young clearly has the talent too, but her character was written so excessively that she comes across as over the top and cringe far too often. It’s honestly impressive how much talent this drama managed to waste. The cast is pretty much the only reason I managed to get through it, because the story itself is an enormous disappointment.

I understand what you mean now and your English is great, don't worry about it 🙂

Yeah I went on her IG and saw her older pictures. She was very pretty back then too, I honestly think this is one of those cases where she lost weight and that slimmed her face down and she probably got surgery to enlarge her eyes a little bit but it's honestly tough to tell because I just saw her picture from August of 2019 and she looks like she just has a bit more fat to her face and I can't see her teeth but we know she has veneers on the top row now. Overall though I'm pleasantly surprised cause I usually see significant differences especially when it comes to Korean actresses and idols.

Yeah that's cool, I'm not gonna hold it against you. Jung Hae In is a phenomenal actor though, I think the way they did the drama just didn't do any justice for a gangster role considering a lot of scenes is more on the humorous side so having that serious role just really contradicted the overall theme of the drama.

Don't worry I relate with your sentiment completely about being coerced by Ha Young's immaculate face since I'm a guy as well 🤣. It's tough out here, I gave it an 8 but the story is a 6.5 at best. 😔

I don't know why Netflix does this full series release nowadays, honestly ruins the experience of enjoying a Kdrama for a couple of weeks. I personally think this drama hit well below expectations simply because they wasted such a top tier cast. I agree though, I hope Jung Hae In and Ha Young do a proper romance drama in the future, one that actually lives up to the hype.

Okay, I just realized that when I googled Ha Young in 'Lonely Enough to Love', for some reason I kept getting pictures of the female lead, Kim So Eun, instead. I don't know why there were barely any pictures of Ha Young, but I'm guessing it's because she had a smaller supporting role and was still an up and coming actress at the time.

So I have to retract my earlier comment about being shocked because I was literally comparing Ha Young to Kim So Eun this whole time without realizing they were two completely different actresses lol. With no disrespect to Kim So Eun, I personally think Ha Young is far more attractive, so when I saw the actual difference between their faces, I genuinely thought Ha Young had gotten some kind of full face surgery because I could barely recognize her. Which makes a lot more sense now that I know I was looking at a completely different person the entire time. Smh.

I just saw her cameo in Chocolate too, and Ha Young was still very pretty even back then. It seems like she mostly just got veneers and lost a pretty significant amount of weight, which is obviously still a noticeable change, but nowhere near as drastic as what I initially thought.

I don't think it's her acting that's the issue. Pretty sure this is how they wanted her to act, I've noticed that the acting was just poor throughout for a lot of scenes which made no sense considering Jung Hae In was the ML and his acting is genuinely lights out and they clearly wasted his talent unless they wanted them to act this way so it wouldn't be past them to waste Ha Young's talent as well.

It wasn't that bad, but I gotta say I was pretty disappointed. I expected significantly more from this drama, especially considering they had Jung Hae In as the ML. He's genuinely one of the best actors out there in my opinion, and what I really appreciate about him is that acting is actually his background. He's not a K-pop idol or someone from another profession who became famous and then decided to get into acting. He majored in acting, and I've even seen a clip of him visiting the US where an acting professor was impressed by how well he carried out a mock scene in a theatre class. So knowing that he's capable of that level of acting, it feels like such a waste to put him in a story of the caliber.

Then there's Ha Young, who in my opinion is just stupid pretty, and that honestly makes the whole thing feel like an even bigger waste of talent. They had a cast with far greater potential, but the story just didn't give them much to work with.

And I still can't get over the fact that Netflix produced this for 4K while the production quality somehow feels like a K-drama from 2016. If this were just some random K-drama release, I probably would've been more forgiving, but with a cast like this and Netflix behind the production, I was expecting a lot more for a 2026. It feels like they had all the right ingredients and somehow ended up making something that didn't live up to the talent involved. 😔

This completely escaped my mind. That makes it so much worse, smh.