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Most Overrated Korean Actor/Actress

lord_varvara

@redmists

"I'm shooketh that [Rowoon] 's friends with fellow Plank of Wood AHS and the superior LJW. Maybe those two should spend more time getting acting dvice from LJW. ==== "

Quoted for truth! 

And yes, quoting is really wonky for some reason. 

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Wish Upon A Star

Totally thrilled by the vibrant discussion.. or rather roasting of the "Most Overrated Korean Actor/Actress" at this forum. Saw some repeated names from the many posts from diverse MDL users, and thought it will be interesting to have a voting list. So, created two voting lists, for the Actor and Actress categories, with names populated from the posts on this forum from Sep 2021 to 3 Dec 2021. Do check out! :)

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Emperor

I think one of the issue with female actresses in Korea or other asian drama  is the "infantalization of female lead or other female characters " ..in order to act cute or baby like  , funny , many of the actresses end up doing over acting ..you can be innocent and bubbly as grown women too , but their acting seem like spirit of 5 year old girl enters into their body ...mostly female actresses has more burden to look beautiful ..means if you are not conventional attractive , you are out 

Even some male idols do the same ...

There this actor I can remember ...Park sung woong ...industry realised his potential only when he gets old ..mostly plays side roles ..I enjoyed his acting 

But whatever I prefer hams over trees 

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lord_varvara

I agree about infantilization but another problem is over-insistence on expressionless coldness. The latter issue is a standard approach some actresses have to "strong/badass" characters.  Revenge movies such as Kingdom: Ashin of the North and revenge dramas such as My Name have vendetta driven main characters who have no personality, no emotion, just completely wooden "I'm a vendetta incarnation" sleepwalk through a series of choreographed fights designed for size 0 actresses to laughably win against muscular actors 3 times their size.  That's flat out bad acting if you cannot present mental/character strength as anything but complete lack of emoting and personality. 

So yes, hams over trees. Drama's Revenge Angels are epitome of Trees and that's booooooring.

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Sukai
 Emperor:

I think one of the issue with female actresses in Korea or other asian drama  is the "infantalization of female lead or other female characters " ..in order to act cute or baby like  , funny , many of the actresses end up doing over acting ..you can be innocent and bubbly as grown women too , but their acting seem like spirit of 5 year old girl enters into their body ...mostly female actresses has more burden to look beautiful ..means if you are not conventional attractive , you are out 

Even some male idols do the same ...

There this actor I can remember ...Park sung woong ...industry realised his potential only when he gets old ..mostly plays side roles ..I enjoyed his acting 

But whatever I prefer hams over trees 

I like Park Sungwoong. He is good too but I can’t help but see Psy whenever I see him on screen. 

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Emperor
 lord_varvara:

I agree about infantilization but another problem is over-insistence on expressionless coldness. The latter issue is a standard approach some actresses have to "strong/badass" characters.  Revenge movies such as Kingdom: Ashin of the North and revenge dramas such as My Name have vendetta driven main characters who have no personality, no emotion, just completely wooden "I'm a vendetta incarnation" sleepwalk through a series of choreographed fights designed for size 0 actresses to laughably win against muscular actors 3 times their size.  That's flat out bad acting if you cannot present mental/character strength as anything but complete lack of emoting and personality. 

So yes, hams over trees. Drama's Revenge Angels are epitome of Trees and that's booooooring.

Emotional coldness is quite seen in male tsundre roles ...some male actors acts so wooden and frozen .,that I don't get what really is their character , cha eun woo , led min ho and many more came in this category ...so what these directors do is that to make female badass , they made female version of male tsundre ..and they act like stone which lack character depth and motivation 

As far as My name is concerned, you point out right and this is because underlying mysogyny  that is female character exist for male gaze like even if she is depressed , molested or fighter , she has to be beautiful and look beautiful  ..series like My name require some muscular female lead but you know at the end it is beauty that's priority for female actresses ..

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lord_varvara

@Emperor

Well said! Quoting fails me again but great post. Complete agreement. Act like stone, both men and women, is perfect summary of what happens. Next time they should just cast a stone and see if audience notices. They probably won't. I suggest, they put the stone in an idol group first for better marketability. :)

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Ferlyy99

In my case it's Park Shinhye and Lee Minho

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tilted-sun

Probably controversial but Ji Chang Wook

I think he is a fine actor but his choice in work lately has been so bad. He seems to take on these shows that just arent good and I don't know if thats by his choice or his management but it means i'm never excited when he is cast in shows

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Sukai
 tilted-sun:

Probably controversial but Ji Chang Wook

I think he is a fine actor but his choice in work lately has been so bad. He seems to take on these shows that just arent good and I don't know if thats by his choice or his management but it means i'm never excited when he is cast in shows

Same sentiments with JCW. He’s good especially he started as a theater actor so it was a given but his choice of dramas recently was really really bad. He doesn’t have a knack in choosing his projects.

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redmists
 lord_varvara:

@Emperor

Well said! Quoting fails me again but great post. Complete agreement. Act like stone, both men and women, is perfect summary of what happens. Next time they should just cast a stone and see if audience notices. They probably won't. I suggest, they put the stone in an idol group first for better marketability. :)

Totally agree with the stone acting. Cold characters doesn't mean having no emotions or expressions, K-actors/actresses. So many of them don't understand what layered, nuanced acting means. Don't they teach these things in acting schools there? 

Oh wait. About 90% of them didn't even attend an acting school, although they act as a job. 

The infantalising seems to be a thing in a lot of East Asian productions, unfortunately. I see it in alot of C-dramas as well. I feel like it could be a cultural thing, I'm from Asia as well, but my culture doesn't see grown women acting like 5 yr old kids as "cute" or "attractive",  fortunately. 

 tilted-sun:

Probably controversial but Ji Chang Wook

I think he is a fine actor but his choice in work lately has been so bad. He seems to take on these shows that just arent good and I don't know if thats by his choice or his management but it means i'm never excited when he is cast in shows

Yes, the last production I really liked him in was Empress Ki - which was so long ago. I can never really connect with his characters in general and his post-military choices have been awful. I feel like he was on an up to A-list several years ago, but has completely missed the boat and doesn't get good scripts anymore because of his performances and choices. 

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lord_varvara

Speaking of infantilizing, bowl cuts, anyone? That's little boy's hair given to grown actors to look younger or something? No wonder half of drama 30somethings still play highschool students. 

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Peachietime
 Sukai:

So true! While there are a handful of idol actors act decently in some projects, majority still are a cringe fest. It is so annoying that idol actors get an express pass and take lead roles in an instant. Meanwhile, some very good actors only act as side characters and barely noticable and some took more than 10 years to get noticed. That’s how unfair the industry is. 

Honestly while I would agree that if an idol actor/actress is bad at acting they shouldn’t get lead roles at all, but I also need to be fair. These idols did work their ass off as idols and training as well, so it’s not like they just came out of nowhere and got so much commercial values. The good actors may take 10 years to get noticed (it’s sad), but these idols also did work many years and insane competition to get to where they are too. Many trainees couldn’t debut and many idol groups never get noticed so at least I can give them that (as in they also worked years before getting noticed/commercial value to be casted). But otherwise, if they are not talented as actors/actress they should either stay in their lane, or just start small and keep on practicing.

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Also saw some posts mentioning bad kissing - honestly thisis half acting and half directing. I know the directors decidehow these scenes should look like and I guess it’s the Asianculture where girls must be shy or not responsive to show their “pure-ness” or to show they were in shocked (most ofthese kiss scenes the writers wrote are surprise kisses). I thought it’s a bit outdated but oh well. Cherish those when we can see them kissing back like a person when they are in love lol

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Also sometimes you can’t blame them picking commercial values over quality. I have seen so many comments on average drama watchers - they really do not care about acting or plots. Many of them basically use their phones 50%+ of the time when watching a show or use 1.5x or 2x speed. I mean, I get it, some people really just want to watch some brainless entertainment after a full day of work. If the audiences are buying bad acting but eye candies, over acting cutesy, then they will only keep selling. I guess that’s why you usually find better acting in other genres. Thrillers, crime, mystery, slice of life, family, genre, etc. usually have much higher standard when the directors are casting.

Also, k-drama is where the money goes. They generally geta much much higher budget compared to k-films. The return in investment is also much greater. The K-film industry isn’t as prestige anymore because of a smaller budget and little box office/streaming licensing revenues. Many films cannot get the invested money so the government always needed to grant them $$ to keep the industry alive (or to get international recognition) - and therefore, these great actors have also started to do more dramas.

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I don’t mind actors or actresses doing some rom com or lighter romance projects but I just hope they don’t choose only these type of projects. Like Lee Dong Wook honestly acted so much better in Strangers From Hell than most of his rom com. I am glad he’s doing this new show (bad guy? Something like that) not as rom comlead again. 

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lord_varvara

But what does idol training in singing and dancing and aegyo fake-ness has to do with acting? why should they jump the line just because they trained for years at something unrelated to acting? By that logic, hard-working brick-layer should become a leading man cause of years of training and hard work.

idol trainees have their own entertainment industry branch which is music. But since that one is hyper competitive, jumping into acting has become an escape route for idols from semi-known groups because it's apparently easier to land a leading role than climb the music chart. Dramas have lower criteria which is why we have this thread about Bad Actors and Actresses where over 50% names that circulate are idols or former idols. 

Look, if a role requires a transferable skill from idiolship - singing and/or dancing - by all means audition idols too and if someone turns out to be an acting talent give them a job. It's better to have an actual dancer do the dancing than have embarrassment like Navillera where "headless" dance double was dancing for Song Kang who couldn't do a most basic thing himself. But there's no reason for Rowoon and the likes to poison dramas that don't require singing and dancing especially since there are idols who are apparently good actors. I haven't seen anything with Im Siwan but I'm hearing he's good and I'm not seeing his name circulate around here.  So not every idol is a dud but many are and the most in demand ones such as Rowoon certainly are.

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