SBS Delays Lee Young Ae’s Drama Saimdang to January 2017 After Not Getting Chinese Simulcast Approval
The fallout from the Chinese spat with South Korea over THAAD is clearly continuing even after news coverage has died down since the heated summer months. The next casualty is the highly publicized fully pre-produced sageuk drama Saimdang: Light’s Dairy, which was supposed to be famed K-actress Lee Young Ae‘s acting return in eleven years and drama return even longer than that with her last television appearance being Dae Jang Geum. SBS had scheduled Saimdang for next month in October as a weekend drama and Chinese streaming portal Youku snapped up the rights to simulcast. But the Chinese approval hasn’t come down yet so SBS has elected to push Saimdang into early January 2017, and with it move the drama to prime time in the Wed-Thurs time slot. SBS hopes that Chinese approval will be obtained by then but is readying to broadcast the drama solely in Korea if needs be.
Other than Saimdang being Lee Young Ae’s return there really isn’t any further buzz around it, even with the additional of boy toy male lead Song Seung Heon. Saimdang’s fate leaves the simulcast plans of KBS drama Hwarang: The Beginning also up in the air, so don’t be surprised if that drama also gets pushed back.
So will this mean the end of preproduction if the Chinese putz around like this? Because there can’t be much to censor. I love A Jewel in the Palace but the actress even nixed the one kiss that was written in so I doubt there is an issue.
Damn, I wouldn’t want my fav to do any pre-produced drama with all of these delays. So pointless. So what if it can’t air in China, they can wait for it to get approved. But I guess that defies the purpose of it being preproduced.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons never end well. This is a clear example.
SSH looks 100% ajhussi now, why boy toy? LOL
I think it’s based on age. not sure though