Okay, at the risk of eating my own words come summer this year when the drama premieres, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that I’m soooooo sold by the first teeny tiny teaser for upcoming KBS drama Arbitrarily Fond. Starring Kim Woo Bin and Suzy, I love him and like her, but am way more willing to stake my optimism on screenwriter Lee Hyung Hee in her first prime time drama since the amazing melodrama Nice Guy (Innocent Man). The first teaser premiered at the KBS year end drama awards and honestly stole my interest more than anything I’ve seen from the even more high profile KBS upcoming drama Descendants of the Sun. Suzy and Kim Woo Bin evidence actual chemistry staring at each other, and I trust Lee Kyung Hee on crafting a story of sacrifice, (Kim Woo Bin’s character says he’ll give anything to save Suzy’s character’s life, and everlasting love.
Teaser for Arbitrarily Fond:
Nice Guy > Heirs
ofcoz this also will be the same.. Arbitrarily Fond > Descendants of the Sun
as always Lee Kyung Hee > Kim Eun Suk
I think in that case Descendants of the sun would be fine. Cuz nobody watched Nice guy compared to heirs. it was sadly abandon ship. I also probably think that AF production team would trade there lives for Heirs viewership, hype and traffic.
lmao..Nobody watch Nice Guy??When it has high viewer ratings and exported to more than 15 countries??..ok..
But still as viewer and as a fan i will trade a good quality drama to that “viewership,hype and traffic”..
bored
I think so.
Second!
It’s romance melodrama?, Well doesnt help to think when their real life lovers are also famous. Not sold on the chemistry part. They should have remained single when they plan to do this romance drama. Besides, Suzy bores me forever with her aegyo unimproving acting. Sorry will skip this!
don’t know about the plot but i loved their chemistry! in the meantime, it looks better than that of song couple from DOTS. i think this drama will be more about characters while DOTS will focus in plot..
That s another drama tha I wanna watch desperly I love him I think he was the only good thing from Heirs
this is definitely way better than DOTS by first look.looking foward to it
I hope this turns out wrong, but someone said that chemistry-wise this gave them the same feeling as Heirs.
At least they are good-looking, I guess?
Lmfaoooooooo
I see there is already competition forming between Dots camp and AF camp. but I’m completely subjective on this.
Someone said nice guy but nobody wants to become the ”nice guy” drama level for both directors. they want to go big. every drama aims to become as Commercial success as Heirs who was the Apex of what a commercial success Tv-show should be like in the category of Megahit Blockbuster Tv-show. Example the only other Tv-show that was a Megahit Blockbuster is You who came from the stars and both Tv-shows aired right after each other. which also resulted in heavy competition on portals worldwide. In China You who came from the stars beat heirs slightly on the numbers but it lost out to heirs in South east asia and the west especially south and north america. people were getting hospitalized while watching You who came from the stars and Heirs beat that show soundly and safely on the commercial side of things.
doing another Heirs is unlikely for the time being but I won’t count out both dramas in the discussion but if I had to go with the one whos going to do the best is DOTS. it’s already bringing the burthurt and creating opinions. hardcore posters on Dramabeans or other websites dosen’t have an effect on anything since the viewers are mostly casuals who log on to portals watch and drop reviews while safely sitting at home. I could be completely wrong but I think Dots will beat AF fairly easy and it won’t be competitive
The reason for that is because Dots is the bigger budget show and KES uses the cash on her shows and you can see that this is a serious attempt of creating something watchable but on the other hand she lacks the star power this time compared to AF who has the bigger star power but still Song-Song are fairly popular themselves added with a budget show. they will beat AF easy
I disagree I think KWB could be the difference since he has already huge exposure amongst International K-drama viewers. I won’t count out AF but slightly Dots favorite but difficult to tell unless they come around
Lacks star power?
I disagree. I would say DOTS actually has more of an edge on that front. DOTS has SJK and SHK, they’ve both been able to deliver viewer ratings, carry the dramas they’ve been leads in, and also have proven that they are able to give solid performances.
I can’t really say the same for KWB and SZ. In SZ’s case, she’s only been in two dramas (not counting Big) where she was the lead. Both those dramas did well, however I really wouldn’t say they did well because of her. Both Dream High and Gu Family Book had super strong ensemble casts, it’s not as if people tuned in strictly for SZ. Those shows would have done well with whoever was in the lead, to be quite honest.
She really has yet to prove herself as an actress who can carry a drama and have people tune in for. Plus, let’s no even start on the amount of acting controversies she’s been in, even with her latest film which did horribly at the box office.
As for KWB, he’s yet to have a lead drama role and has yet to prove he can carry a drama as the main, male lead. This drama will be make or break for KWB. He’s focused mainly on films and had some lead roles in those, however having a lead in a movie is VERY different than carrying a 20-episode drama on one’s shoulders.
At the end of the day though, the drama with content liked by the Korean public will win out, so I think it’s hard to predict. I mean OMV had SJS and SMA and yet has only been able to peek at 8 percent. whereas SWP had PSJ, HJE, and Siwon and hit 20 percent, even if those three were lesser stars compared to SJS and SMA.
If anything, these past couple years has shown it’s hard to predict viewer ratings.
China is massive, which portal are you talking about – youku or toudou that MLFTS beat Heirs?
They were on different portals. MLFTS was on Iqiyi while Heirs was on Youku and toudou but the overall numbers MLFTS topped heirs slightly. while both Tv-shows overacheived ridiculously in that region but that wasen’t that only place they overachieved South & North america and South east Asia but heirs topped my MLFTS in American and SEA while MLFTS didn’t do bad in these areas as well.
Does it have anything to do with the distribution of fans between LMH and KSH? What I am asking is you mention Heirs doing well in SEA and America but MLFTS did better in China so does that mean LMH is more world-widely accepted (due to his non-Korean looking face) but KSH is more popular in China? How does this compare to their previous TV dramas?
Here is the thing about Lee Min Ho and what people don’t realize. his actully ranked top 20 most popular actor worldwide on the fanpagelist which is only for facebook and twitter fans which means only less then 0.1% of hollywood has more fans and traffic then him online and star power not including his chinese fans which will balance the scale for him even more if added and could probably land him on the top 7 most fan-followed actor worldwide and he did it with local productions which is extremely difficult thing to gain such a high rate popularity with korean home grown productions. you check the list you have people like Jennifer lawrence, jonny deep, tom cruise etc etc below him without adding his chinese fans who are blocked from the worldwide SNS which means they can’t leave weibo.
He had 3 megahit blockbusters to arrive where his at today and dosen’t have a huge franchise like Jennifer Lawrence, johny deep or tom cruise etc etc if he gets his own American franchise movie he will be able to generate double or three times more because these big movie franchises are the best platform for popularity in the worldwide movieland and not the general american movies but the big budget franchises with marvel comics turned movies, fast and furious etc etc. they own the box office and the center of the entertainment worldwide. now that being said LMH has more fans due to his shows being commercially megahits example Boys over flowers did even great in the middle east and created huge nostalgia plus City Hunter also megahit blockbuster and to add that with Heirs. So it means he extremely over trending on three separate occasions while KSH has 2 popular drama + one megahit blockbuster. looking at it subjectively Lee Min Ho is legit worldstar and did it with home grown materiel which makes it even extra impressive
http://fanpagelist.com/category/actors/
But I’m not a fan of Lmh acting and him personally and much prefer Kim Soo Hyun as person and actor. I like him overall and seems down to earth individual and I also think that LMH is planning to retire he dosen’t seem like someone who wants to act anymore and hates watching himself. He didn’t strike as someone who likes his profession he should have become football or whatever. I just don’t see him as an actor thats all
please stop dragging lmh in here coming from a lmh fan. this is not ksh-lmh article.
On Topic: I think this drama is going to do good. I will support Suzy and KWB. Fighting AF
That’s why I brought this topic up because on a LMH vs KSH site where there are their die-hard fans you can’t discuss this rationally. Any how, KWB and SJK aren’t in their league so let’s see how AF does.
Sorry, forgot to mention Thanks anjeli for the eye-opener info!
> people were getting hospitalized while watching You who came from the stars
What does this mean?
Hmmm, maybe they couldn’t stop watching so collapsed from exhaustion due to lack of sleep? or developed lockjaw from over-practising trying to say Sawry just the way CSY does? or spazzed so much over DMJ that they got high blood pressure? or laughed too much over the hilarious scenes that they sprained their waist? or were too frightened by the crazy chaebol brother that they got heart attack? or cried so much when DMJ had to leave that they got dehydrated? Just kidding!
Why are people making this into a competition? Do you guys realize that DOTS and AF are both on KBS and won’t be airing at the same time slot LOL…I mean if you are talking about what show does better in general, I guess that makes sense, but they’re not competing for ratings since they won’t even be airing at the same time.
Anyway, back to the teaser, I’m really not going to judge based of off a 10 sec promo and will wait until the drama airs to have an opinion. Although it looks really makjang, which I’m usually not a fan of.
if u compare their last tv shows all lmh drama has been popular in north america even drama fever said they earn a lot of money because of the heirs
LMH is bad actor imo and never liked anything with him
stop being pressed. lmh-haters are the worst. another article we will debate not this one
Nice cinematography, and based on the teaser, this is definitely gonna be a melodrama.
It visually looks stunning and the couple look promising. I hope they can both perform well so far both of them are sort of okay where acting counts. Its a melodrama so lets see how it pans out. I’ll wait for the reviews first and watch later.
Don’t people know how to watch dramas anymore? If it’s good it’s good. Can’t even get a simple comment these days.Who cares about theie previous dramas? If they can act and the writing is good- and I like the plot then it’s all good.
I don’t understand why kdrama watchers always try to use ratings as a way to ‘prove’ the ‘quality’ of a drama. That’s not how it works. Anyway, If you like a drama then watch it. If you don’t, find something else. Who cares.
+1000
Saying ratings define the quality of a drama is like saying those makjang weekend dramas are the best of the best lol(sorrynotsorry).
I have no doubt that this drama will do good regardless of quality based on the cast (and may be the writer).. I’ll also watch it because my liking of KWB is more than my dislike for Suzy’s bland acting (hopefully she improved..)
KSH and LMH fasns are really something. The article never mention their name and yet they dragg their name out of nowhere and brag about who is better.???
Both dramas will be airing on kbs at different time dots in this early 2016 and af in mid 2016. I do really hope those two will be an exciting drama to watch
The chemistry is too amazing. Just by simply looking at each other in one second carried the hype… i jope this is going to be big…SUZY BAE STAN!SUZY AJA!
Ppl here already compared Arbitrarily Fond with Descendants of the Sun. I don’t see much relevance and don’t understand why make such a comparison. The writer of DotS, KES,is a hit or miss for me. Her early works “Love” trilogy were beautifully written/directed and those veteran cast did memorable jobs in their younger years. But her popular dramas Secret Garden or The Heirs never completely worked for me even I watched them through the end just to see my favorite actors/actress. Since I’m so fond of Song Joong Ki thanks to his impressive performance in Nice Guy, I definitely will watch DotS. He alone, imo, will save the drama even nothing much can be raved about the rest of the drama. That’s also how I felt about Nice Guy. The overall cast of Nice Guy are great in my opinion. But the plot really sucks and over the top. To this point, I won’t hold a high expectation over Arbitrarily Fond given that the OTP are not even my faves. For me, Kim Woo Bin and Suzy have yet to prove themselves worth watching. Suzy is bland in Gu Family Book and I hate Woo Bin’s looks as well as his character in the Heirs. OK, since ppl here started drawing competition between these two dramas first, so let’s just accept that we all have different opinions and personal preference. Please show courtesy when you respond to comments.