Yoon Kyun Sang and Kim Ji Suk Contrast in First Stills of MBC Drama Rebel: The Thief Who Stole the People
Even without SBS drama Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim being a big ratings hit, MBC is still woefully bringing in negligible viewership for its Mon-Tues drama Night Light in the low single digits. There’s still another month to go before the arrival of a replacement quarterback in MBC’s stalwart genre the traditional sageuk. Formerly known as Rebel Hong Gil Dong or Traitor Hong Gil Dong, the drama now has the mouthy title Rebel: The Thief Who Stole the People without reference to the famous folk hero name that would immediately increase awareness of what the drama is about. So weird on that. The first stills are out of male leads Yoon Kyun Sang as yet another take on Hong Gil Dong with Kim Ji Suk as his royal antagonist the King. Chae Soo Bin upgrades to leading lady this time from her last sageuk role in Moonlight Drawn by Clouds while Honey Lee lends her dimpled charisma as the second female lead.
Rebel is by the PD of Kill Me Heal Me and written by the screenwriter of King’s Daughter Soo Baek Hyang.
The low ratings for Night Light are both understandable and happily irrelevant. Understandable because the Drama is ALL about the two FEMALE leads, they are the actual OTP, and a Drama built around the complex bond between two strong women was never going to be hit with the oppar-obsessed K audience. Irrelevant, because the fact that the Drama’s already been sold to Netflix and is airing in at least one Netflix market means it’s safe from the meddling. A very well-written and VERY well acted Drama telling a story that no Big 3 network has tried before, afaik, protected and liberated from ratings angst. A big thank you to MBC for making it, and Netflix for buying it. Easily one of the very best Dramas of the year, hooray for its refusal to pander to the shallow aesthetics of the mainstream audience.
This drama is honestly boring. I know the korean audience is oppar obsessed but sometimes we i-fans like to feel pretentious and feel like we are better or our tastes more refined etcetra. The OTP being the 2 women as you say imo as nothing to do with this. Dropped after 5 episodes, only one of the leads is doing a good job, story is not strong. Definitely not one of the best dramas of the year
I agree, I don’t even think it’s a good drama. It isn’t as smart as it wants to be. Fancy dialogues and all, but the story and plot isn’t complicated. And it isn’t engaging too. Plus, the relationship between the female and male leads was very poorly developed. I didn’t feel the romance when they were in Japan at all which made those scenes pretty much redundant. Jin Gu’s character is so useless, I’d rather they not bother with all his flashback scenes.
I also differ on the point that there are “two strong women” in the drama. Pretty sure Lee Yo-won is the only strong woman in the drama. UEE’s character didn’t grow as I’d have liked. She isn’t smart and she isn’t strong as it was implied in the drama. I would have preferred a real battle of the wits, but it’s all Lee Yo-won right now.
However, I do think that there’s a gender bias. If two male leads had the same relationship, the Korean audience will be lapping up the so called bromance. But I’ve seen comments saying that the drama is strangely disturbing.
you’re working for Netflix, dude? understable. IMHO, Night Light is so bad, maybe worse than Oh My Venus and Hyde Jekyll, Me.
Pls guys I need to understand, Wat is d meaning of OTP?
It stands for One True Pairing huhu
Or in other words, the pairing that the audience think fits each other the best.