Chinese Authorities Warn Against the Perils of Descendants of the Sun and Watching Too Many K-dramas

Every time something gets popular in China I feel like the authorities have knee jerk reactions to be sticks in the mud. After a spate of time-traveling dramas a few years ago the broadcast hammer came down on that genre, as if sane audiences would suddenly believe that could be possible and then get mired in fantasy delusions. The runaway success of You From Another Star led to a reminder that aliens are not real, and now breakout hit Descendants of the Sun has spurred the Chinese public welfare department to post a warning of the perils of women viewers becoming enamored or addicted to the show along with fangirling Song Joong Ki.

On top of that, the DotS warning post also highlight other dangers including married couple disputes when the wife dreams of K-drama male leads, men who want plastic surgery to look like flower boys, watching too many dramas leading to vision blindness, and a husband who slapped his wife around and then said he did it because he saw a lot of slapping in K-dramas. All I can say is that there are mentally unbalanced people out there with or without watching dramas, and to tie the misdeeds or mistakes of any person as correlated to K-drama watching is beyond a stretch other than as a convenient scapegoat.

I think it’s funny that the Chinese authorities get mad at certain K-dramas that are, by any measure, the most fantastical set ups. YFAS had an alien and the female lead was a top movie star, like that is the life resembling any average person. Now DotS is just a smidge more plausible than YFAS but still beyond the realm of anything that could possibly happen in real life. Song Joong Ki still looks like a cute flower boy cosplaying a special forces soldier, ferrsakes, how can anyone watching DotS get so enamored as to need a reminder that this is just a television show. So much weirdness out there.


Comments

Chinese Authorities Warn Against the Perils of Descendants of the Sun and Watching Too Many K-dramas — 41 Comments

  1. Yes, the whole thing is ridiculous. I do visit a site where there are people on the forum who seem to think that life in Korea is like a k-drama, back hugs and wrist grabs included, and seem very resistant when people mention that most of this is entertainment and not reality based. However, I think by the Chinese gov saying stuff like this, they are actually giving more publicity to this drama and k-drama in general.

  2. If perfectly grown up people in China are doing this stuff, I really don’t know what to say. It did get a facepalm reaction out of me though.

    • I see you’re obviously obsessed with DotS and just can’t get over all the buzzing talks about the drama. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept coming back to the relevant blogs and trash talked nonsense. LMAO. You’re free to go to the blogs about your favorite dramas or your bias actors/actresses. Just don’t waste your time bugging DotS fans here. LOL

      • Why do you care where I comment? It’s a blog and a free one lmfao, I never said it was a terrible drama ,just that it’s overrated af. Get off your high horse .

    • You should know better than to make even a slightly negative comment about a show with really high ratings. People will come out of the woodwork to attack you. And then, inevitably someone will call you ‘butthurt’ (lol) which is quite possibly the stupidest insult ever. I mean, how did anyone even get that started? Did someone complain about being anally raped and someone wanted to make fun of them? I can’t even comprehend how the minds of some people work. Oh wait, I’ve made a comment now, is someone going to say I’m ‘butthurt’ too? LOL!

      • LOL..you were self prophesying and you’re right about this. I see another butthurt troll. You surely got nothing better to say than inviting insult. LMAO. Eyes for eyes..Stupidity for stupidity. I usually also talk sh*t in return to nonsense. hahahahah that’s what you guys deserve.

  3. LOL…all these Asian public authorities including Chinese government and Thailand prime minister have been literally doing free promotion for DotS, as Kat mentioned above. I don’t think the warnings would really have effective impact to divert viewers attention from the hype around DotS. I’m so happy to see SJK’s comeback drama from military service has got so much buzz and is a huge success. I’m sure the attention that DotS has garnered will bring him more good projects and CFs. According to his manager, business inquires to collab with SJK have been flooding in every 3 minutes. If that’s true, SJK may take the place of Kim Soo Hyun and Lee Min Ho in terms of popularity and income.

  4. It is definitely free advertising not that the show needs any more advertising but I think it’s silly to think that people will be that affected by the drama or any drama. Actually it would be very scary to think… I hope no one takes dramas that seriously.

    Why would the govt give kdramas so much importance so as to call them out? I can’t believe that many people would think these dramas are anything like reality. Dramas are just that – very dramatized and sensationalized.

  5. Compare to YFAS buzz,this is probably a tip of the ice beg.even the chicken JJH ate sold like hot cake.KSH was on every tv stations in China.but I’m definately glad the drama is lifting SJK up to A-list.but all people ever talk about is how good looking SJK is or how beautiful SYK is.no one ever talks about the plot like they did with signal.everything is all about the couples looks.I was people would talk about the drama more other than thee beauties of the couples.it’s almost like there’s no plot to the story.

    • Yes, that’s why I haven’t even been tempted to watch it. All I ever see about it is the two romantic couples. Not enough to get me interested. I can see though why the Chinese govt. might be edgy about it. Brainwashed by Korean soaps!

    • Hi-five. I was so gaga over this drama but lost interest after a while. Now im leaning more to Marriage Contract and other family dramas. At the end of the day, touching family r/s and solid acting is what i reali love in a drama. This coming from a person who has watched k dramas for 16 yrs. DotS was shot nicely but i think most pple are drawn to the drama cos of the good looks of the cast. This is based on forums i have read. ”)

      • Marriage contract plot is b*llshit and crap, totally K drama cliche repeat. I’m watching it bcos the male lead and the female lead are awesome, specifically the actress who has been doing an amazing job and very convincing. Other than that, MC is nothing but typical K soap scum.

      • Leaning to Marriage Contract because of b*llshit and crap, classic. Great acting from Uee too, it’s a happy surprise.

    • well, signal is plot based mystery things, it’s gonna be weird to talk about visual, ofc people asked about what happen . . .
      DoTS is about the character, their interaction and how all of them handle every situation, not every one cup of tea but it can be enjoy by broader audience,
      then the visual is what everybody can agree, that’s why it’s the most talked things, even the haters talk about it’s only about the visual. People talked about the plot when the headline of article is about what happen, but there’s always a comment about their visual because let’s objectively see, they all looked good in any screenshot,
      DoTS is easy watch but still have humanity, it’s something people can watch leisurely after real life tired them.

    • DoTS doesn’t have a load of PPL, so it’s not going to get those trendy things like YFAS did. Other than MY, everyone wears brown camo. It’s not going to cause a rush for brown camo, though this drama is romanticizing military life.

      Get over Signal. Nobody cares.

  6. It’s a good sign the Chinese love DOTS cause I can’t seem to warm to it, it’s way too fantasy for my taste. I suppose the C-government is really scared because they don’t like this soft approach to brain-washing their people. The ppl of China has been behind closed doors for too long that they are clamouring over beauty rather than substance.

    • Not only the Chinese but the Koreans, the Thais, the Singaporeans… the drama is loved by many people all over the world.

  7. This makes me remember about those kids cartoon channels on television when at the beginning of the shows, you always hear” it’s unreal”. Should the Chinese television do the same?

  8. Really? First their stupid dramas censor system and now this…just goes to show that the Chinese communist government is really ignorant- beyond what a normal human being can think of. Still, I am not surprised by anything that they are saying anymore. On the plus side, free publicity for DOTS!

  9. If anyone is curious about the plot of the drama, it’s about “humanity”. Signals is about solving mysteries, whereas DOTS is about joining various sources together such as soldiers and doctors to save lives. The casts of DOTS deserves the attentions because they did a really good job bringing chemistry to the team and their characters. There are no unneeded or unwanted characters. They all served a purpose.

  10. yeah this is totally make me want to be a doctor cause somehow fate would make me meet someone as badass and beautiful as song jong ki then get volunteering in Urk,
    seems like pretty good goal, hahahaha
    this is ridiculous, no one watch drama for knowing how to do the character job perfectly in 1st hand experience

  11. The thing is DoTS characters are pretty nice and normal. Even the guys are respectful, which is pretty rare in Kdramas. It’s nothing too crazy to be warned about.

  12. Lol such ridiculous advisory. Coming from a government site.

    Anyway I think it’s good to remind everyone no need to bash other dramas. Like it or leave it. And those who troll comments to speak their dislike is fine too. Best not to respond to them. Will only feed them more fuel to reply something distasteful.

    • Agree with you. But sometimes stupid words really have certain evil power to get us all worked up. Think about all the nonsensical exchanges between fans of Lee Min Ho, Kim Soo Hyun, and Lee Jung Suk etc…Now thanks to the rising fame of Song Joong Ki, I see one more Hallyu star to be in the mud. Well, we can say we don’t like this and that. But how we use our words can make difference in the feedback we get. I think some negative opinions about DotS or the main leads are provocative in nature and it’s unavoidable to trigger unfriendly exchanges. For me personally, I don’t and won’t hesitate to return eye for eye if remarks sound offensive to my faves.

  13. Yeah whatever. If people can’t differentiate fiction from reality then they have a serious problem. Seems like the Chinese government has too much time on their hand to make this headline news. Maybe they’re feeling left out & just want a bit of attention from the Dots fans.

  14. Well, can’t they just not put the kdramas on TV then? If they’re so bad for you and all that. Then the only people corrupted would be the illegal downloaders.

  15. I can confirm that everything that happened to me medically over the last two years was caused by years of watching Korean dramas. 😛

    (And peanut butter intake.)

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