Ha Yeon Seo and EXO’s Suho Offered Leading Roles in K-drama Remake of Rich Man, Poor Woman

Remaking a beloved J-dorama is a K-drama staple and to date the results remain mixed. There are too many to list one by one but currently airing This Life is Our First is clearly heavily inspired by hit rom-com We Married as a Job (Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu) and is a hit with viewers in ratings and critically praised. Production is readying now for the direct remake of 2012 J-dorama Rich Man, Poor Woman, still one of my all time favorites with leads Oguri Shun and Ishihara Satomi sparkling with so much chemistry and making this Cinderella tale feel fresh rather than putrid in the whole financial imbalance between the two leads. The K-version will air in early 2018 and casting offers are out to EXO‘s Suho and Ha Yeon Seo as the leads, not what I would have picked especially for the male lead since the J-version succeeded mainly due to the incredible acting and my recollection of Suho does not give me great comfort he can deliver. With that said, RMPW still has so much goodwill for me I’ll still check out the K-drama regardless of who is cast.



Comments

Ha Yeon Seo and EXO’s Suho Offered Leading Roles in K-drama Remake of Rich Man, Poor Woman — 27 Comments

  1. I can’t believe they went for an idol, shun oguri’s role here is my favorite of all his dramas. They clearly needed a much older and mature actor with lot of caliber for this role. It’s just pathetic and not acceptable.

  2. Based on the feedback that I’ve seen on Korean J-drama remakes, I imagine some/most of these J-dramas would be better off exported a la K-drama, but we know that won’t be happening anytime soon in Korea, despite how eager Korea is to market their own dramas to other countries like Japan.

  3. It’s so a bad idea ! First Korea is not really good for remake. They always add useless drama and don’t understand what was the meaning of the original drama or its essence.

    I have nothing against Suho, I never see him acting but for a first lead role he’s taking a big risk. He will necessarly be compared to Oguri Shun who is a great actor with a lot of presence on screen.

  4. I think its either a web drama or a daily drama.Looks like SM intends to get all the EXO boys into acting.We have D.O(who is credible and primarily in movies), Kai(he was or is doing a daily drama), Baekhyun and this guy.I dont know about the others..but the only idol from their group who I can see making a long term career in acting is D.O.But you never know..

  5. visually, he looks too soft for the role and ive seen his acting, its…….ok considering he acted in a webdrama it wasnt terrible but it wasnt that great either. this casting just screams MESS to me

  6. this has been the trend… when boys groups get older, agency will try to bank more by selling them to do dramas/movies. Those with acting talents will stay on to become actors after the mandatory MS… those cannot act may go to Variety Shows or may just fizzle out… Same for girls groups… It is a cruel world 🙁

  7. You can’t be an idol forever and he isn’t exactly young so he should move on to the next step, which is acting. Since K-remakes are always panned, they might as well make it with the lowest expectations. Better be controversial and create buzz then mediocre and forgettable. At least the many EXO fans will watch this.

  8. Already a PASS. I have tried few Korean jdrama remakes and the outcome is never impressing. I rewatch RMPW every other year so I guess I’ll have to rewatch it this year again. Sorry Korea.

  9. sigh…..RMPW is so dear to my heart I remember going into it thinking it’d be a usual cliche drama but it totally proved me wrong. Suho’s acting really cannot do justice at all to Oguri Shun. Sad.

  10. Seeing the casting of the two leads, I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed the story around because Suho doesn’t have a lot of range as an actor and both look younger then the leads in the jdrama version. Sucks that this has become a trend in casting where they give roles to inexperienced idols just because they can bring in an audience because of their fandom >.<

    • The thing is, I don’t think idols even bring in an actual audience for dramas, didn’t the k-remake of The Liar and his Lover get like below 1 percent ratings on tvN even with an SM idol in the female lead?

      I wish kdrama producers would get that through their skulls and stop willy-nilly hiring idols who can’t act, thinking that they’ll bring in at least X percent ratings. They poison the quality of their own dramas, and people are going to turn away eventually if they aren’t already.

      • I think the k-remake of Liar banked on Lee Hyun-woo, and went for Joy because she’s a singer (her role required singing skills). But the drama added so much manufactured angst that it was silly. The leads didn’t have chemistry or charisma, and Lee Hyun-woo was obviously no Sato Takeru.

        Never seen Suho act, but he looks too young to be in Oguri Shun’s role.

  11. HARD PASS on this one.

    Suho – a known not-good acting idol – in a role originally played by Oguri Shun? This is going to go down about as well as the k-version of Shun’s role as Hanazawa Rui in HYD.

    I find no fault with the female lead though. Ha Yeon Soo looks a lot like Ishihara Satomi.

  12. This remake is clearly not a good idea. This dorama is kind of kdrama made by japan on how much kdrama feels in it. But it exactly because of that if korea do this it will become just another kdrama, nothing special.
    May be after the success of BIOFL then they think IT guy hero will be a good trend. Anyway, at least it will be easy to put electronic PPL here. With an IT background, it’s normal to have the newest and shiniest device (hello, s*msung!), not only phone but include laptop, printer, even LCD monitor!

  13. I’ve never seen Suho act so I can’t even guess how he is going to fare,that too as the lead. A more established actor, even if it’s an idol-actor would have been better,IMO.

    As for the female lead….hmm..she just rubs me the wrong way. She is a decent actress but I just don’t find her appealing.

    • Yeah I wouldn’t feel so put off by an idol casting if it was someone like Yoon Doojoon, who actually looks mature/adult enough to pull off the role and has shown himself to be able to emote.

  14. I wish to see uri suho in a drama but literally not this one. Literally not from jdorama which i like. Ah… Suho yaaa… Go learn how to act well. I will always support you!

    For the actress, i think, she’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of her projects and she’s not that bad. Im more scared of suho’s acting. Lols

  15. Ow, come on!! I am a die hard fan of RMPW…Reaally love the story and the acting…I am not a die hard fan of Oguri Shun, but I cant deny how great he was in the character. Ow, man! Come on PD! I dont hate Suho, I dont know him actually but you’ve got to choose someone really good…

  16. I have nothing against Suho getting the role since to me he’s a good actor and have many potential to develop. What I hope is the remake isn’t going to ruin his acting career. I hope the scriptwriter doesn’t add anything useless to make it seems original.

    At times the fault could be on the scriptwriter, director and not the actor since seriously I have no complain against the cast for the remake since I love the Japanese version, but I won’t compare it. I wanna see how Suho bring the character with his own understanding.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.