lord_varvara

The primary goal may be to expand on Asian market but they are well aware how popular dramas are in the west. Hence a number of them getting season 2, 3 which is rare for domestic-made dramas.

The primary goal may be to expand on Asian market but they are well aware how popular dramas are in the west. Hence a number of them getting season 2, 3 which is rare for domestic-made dramas.

Hear hear! finally someone agrees that brother nonsense was nonsense. In fact, anything with the villain and chaebol was nonsense too. Ending up in NK illegally is dramatic enough, it really didn't need all that other additions. Also, they could have action cause trying to hide and then smuggle out an illegal SK provides plenty of opportunity. Oh well. I still enjoyed it very much.

hey now, Cha Eun Woo and Kwak Dong Yeon are comfort! :)

it has laughably abysmal ratings in Korea (cannot even crack 2%) so all the marketing didn't pay off. Perhaps is doing better with internationals.

No pure romance drama shouldn't run for more than 6 episodes (and by that I mean 40 min per episode tops each, not the infamous mini movies that K dramas favor with 1 hr 20 min or more running time). There's simply not enough material to sustain a prolonged romance-focused drama. Even something with an epic scope and lots of goings on like CLOY became a chore to sit through in the last stretch because the running time per episode was nearing 2 hours yet material didn't justify it.

I think that Netflix strength are fantasy dramas where Netflix budget and world-building and storyline creativity really shine (Kingdom, Sweet Home, Alice in Borderland).

will do as soon as I finish Mr Sunshine. I really like it so far except for the robotic ML. But two secondary MLs more than compensate. FLs are surprisingly great especially secondary FL.

SIG's face turns me off tbh. Bored and boring.

I love these actors. He's endearingly pathetic on Love Ft and always makes me laugh. She was endearingly dazed on MIDIGB. So I guess they are endearing. :)

all the best to him, he was the MVP of Vincenzo!

I spotted him first in My ID Is Gangnam Beauty and just knew he would blow up. Super talented, hot and adorable.

Monstrous sounds great, I hope it's more Train to Busan and not-at-all Dark Hole.

yeah dramas that skew teen receive more buzz always and get pirated.

oh if they came for me they would get a rebuttal they would never forget. :smug:

are they popular internationally where the studio distributes them or on platforms that don't factor in studio earnings? Like, I saw articles about (absolutely terrible) KTEM being a disappointment in Korea but a monster in other Asian countries and logging in 33M viewers on Netflix. Never found such numbers for standard romance fare that garners Knetz buzz (True Beauty, Doom).

ha ha yes they are iconic. modern spin on beauty and the beast who are grandmother and grandfather of the trope.

Those ratings are too low to be significantly lower with someone else ha ha.

Sponsorships for sure. Song Kang is a spokesman for gazillion things going by his Insta (a PR one duh not a genuine one).

see that's the thing. everything you said boils down to that they are passable and adequate so why are casting directors crazy about actors who are only that? Also, while I agree that content matters, and that they didn't pick the most attractive dramas or weren't offer them, I think that star power matters to a degree. And there's a pretense that they have it (hence becoming MLs fairly quickly).

Buffy/Spike (BtVS) is the benchmark.

"Fans drive up the ratings. If everything else fails, fans will keep watching just to support their idols."

That's my point - fans didn't drive up ratings cause their dramas had terrible ratings. That's why I was wondering aloud why they are cast as leads so much if they aren't clicking with audience or at least wider audience than their (obviously very limited) fandom. Nevertheless doesn't even reach 2% which is absolutely embarrassing. Only Dark Hole had worse ratings (under 1%). Sunbae had ratings in 2% range and Extraordinary You in 3% range. Navillera 2-3%. Doom started with 4% range but dropped to 2% range. That's terrible and doesn't justify their being casting director's favorites.

Song Kang's pouty android shtick worked in Sweet Home where she was supposed to be dazed and mostly catatonic but it didn't in Love Alarm and Navillera (and don't get me started on the fact that they should have cast an actor with ballet or contemporary dance background).

what really puzzles me is that their ability to draw audience (weak af) doesn't measure up to their popularity with casting directors. How many dramas they have to tank for casting directors to start looking elsewhere and find MLs who could have an actual audience pull? Nothing wrong with trying to raise new generation of Hyun Bins, LMHs, SJKs but these guys ain't it. Even lookwise I've seen better in dramas.

could be that. I know that dramas usually have mandated 16 episodes (some even more) and none justified that many. True Beauty least of all, save Navillera which should have been a 2 hr movie not a 12 episode filler-a-thon or NaFillera.