China’s Sohu Holds 2nd Golden Kimchee Awards with Moon Lovers and Uncontrollably Fond Picked as Worst K-dramas of 2016
China’s Sohu streaming portal, one of the largest and also the bidding winner in getting exclusive streaming rights to many of the high profile K-dramas of 2016, held a hilarious and pretty on point awards ceremony of its own this week. The portal released an awards video of the 2nd Annual Golden Kimchee Awards celebrating and chastising the best and worst K-dramas of last year. The winners of the Crappy Kimchee prize for worst K-dramas of 2016 were none other than the two K-dramas Sohu paid the most money to air – Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart: Ryeo got the ignominious crown followed by Uncontrollably Fond coming in second, with Cinderella and Four Knights rounding out the top three. Lol, clearly C-viewers felt burned too. On the flip side, the best K-dramas of the year were given to Signal and Dear My Friends, both tvN dramas and ones also lauded by K-viewers as top notch in quality. Check out the winners and winning losers of a few of the big categories below.
Crappy Kimchee Award of 2016 (worst):
1. Moon Lovers
2. Uncontrollably Fond
3. Cinderella and Four Knights
4. Cheese in the Trap
5. Descendants of the Sun
6. Lucky Romance
7. Moorim School
8. The K2, Incarnation of Jealousy
9. W, Entertainer, Doctors
SSSSSSSR Award of 2016 (top quality):
1. Signal
2. Dear My Friends
Complimenting Until Next Year Award of 2016 (lasting quality):
1. Incarnation of Jealousy
2. On the Way to the Airport
3. My Wife is Having an Affair this Week
4. Babysitter
5. Memory
2% Award of 2016 (good drama but for 2% suck):
1. Answer Me 1988
2. Six Flying Dragons
3. Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim
4. Age of Youth
5. Beautiful Mind
I agree about their pick as best drama even i don’t find signal as my favourite. There is drama with similar genre I find more addictive. wow they find UF bad drama? they must be have really high standard. UF has all around good acting and good directing {it’s park hyun suk}
good acting? are u sure? suzy’s acting was bad in UF. its notnher worst acting but still not good.
well Suzy is the only one in the main char that is struggle to act. it can’t be erased an overall fairly good acting for the rest of the cast. fot me a bad drama must bad at least in 2 category between acting directing and writing. UF far from it. I might be agree if this drama category as the most dissapointing because it’s not lift up to our high expectation.
Good acting? lol
I agree about Signal also. It’s most likely the best kdrama ever created to date in terms of sheer quality but that’s just my opinion. I still need to watch Jealousy Incarnate, Age Of Youth and Dear My Friends and can’t wait!! I’m actually confused as to why JI is on a best and worst list. How does that work?
Also, I’m surprised (and a bit amused) to see Dots was 5th worst. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either. I’m guessing they rated in comparison to the massive overhype and popularity it had.
The 2% award category is pretty funny.
Overall, I honestly think 2016 had the best kdrama catalogue in recent years, especially compared to 2014 and 2015 *shudders* Hopefully the trend in increased quality and creativity continues this year.
disagree so much with this statement. 2015 is also have alot of quality drama as much as 2016. my beautiful bride, heard it through the grapevine, angry mom, punch, last, assembly and there is more. it’s just agood drama in 2016 get more recognation from a mainstream audience it feels 2016 has alot more a gem drama. I agree DOTs on dots
You’re right, my memory was a bit fuzzy there. 2015 had good dramas but overall, I think 2016 was better. It’s 2013 and 2014 that were very bleak kdrama years for me with a few good dramas scattered in and then they started getting better in 2015.
all the winners under the 2% good drama catergory were all best drama of 2016 for me
what does 2% drama means?
i think it means 98% of the drama was really good, like 1988 most people loved it but didnt like the end otp so 2% percent of the drama sucked for them….
i swear i don’t get this logic lol
i agree. still haven’t watched the last 2 eps.
Omg!!! Are you serious?? Didnt SHR and UF go really well in China as compared to their own country? What a load of BS? Nevertheless this award system sucks how could they even contemplate having the worst drama category. How demeaning is that to all casts and crew in those dramas -that’s just too cruel. I guess their own ratings is just so low that they need something like this to boast their own network… Such a coward publicity stunt.
SHR and UF were terrible
China netz is watching SHR in order to comapare it with the original. It turns out the original is waaaaay better then SHR. You should read koala post about SHR, she include a couple of Cnetz opinion about the drama and it’s not positive
Just because you disagree doesn’t mean that this award system is senseless. It actually made more sense than the Korean awards.
Most critics agree that Moon Lovers was a terrible drama. Some enlightened fans of the show agree too although they held on watching to the bitter end.
Awards like this and the Razzies aren’t uncommon. Don’t get overly dramatic about it being cruel to the casts and crew. It’s all in a day’s work for them.
SHR broke records on the Chinese streaming site with an impressive 2 billions views surely there gotta be some discrepancy with this award system? Perhaps you may argue that they watched it but it didnt mean they enjoyed the drama. Though why would you watch it to the bitter end if you’ve never enjoyed the show. A bit senseless dont you think?
Was I being dramatic over this award system? Perhaps, but it’s a matter of respect even if its just a days work for some. Im sure you wouldnt like to feel unappreciated with your work too let alone these casts and crew.
I honestly can’t understand how can anyone call Scarlet Heart a good drama??!! Even a non-kdrama fan can tell how terrible it is.
Lol same.i like ljk n khn,but dramawise its not good
Agreed
Lmao their pick is so accurate.even more accurate than kfans and esp i-fans who keep bragging why ML didn’t get more awards as it was very succesful in China (?). In fact c-netz respond towards ML were negative…..
Yup their picks are pretty spot on!
They are more discerning than k-fans/viewers I must say.
Thumbs up for Kimchee Awards!
Crappy Kimchee Award is better translated to Rotten Kimchee Award. This reminds me of Rottentomatoes, one of my sources for checking if a movie is worth watching. It’s a good thing to have both critics and audience ratings because they don’t always go in tandem.
This Chinese award doesn’t care about popularity or number of views. Even Dots made it to the Worst list at no. 5. I won’t say it’s bad but I was one of those who didn’t like it. Signal which was one of my favorites for 2016 is fast becoming a ‘fashionable’ critic’s choice although that’s not to take off any shine from the show. What’s more interesting is that Dear My Friends actually made it to Top Quality. This I wholeheartedly agree!
I am curious if they had opened to viewers’ votes, would the result be different?
Rottentomatoes ratings system is crappy itself. LOL…Those Maverick movies always got raved about. Any critiques can’t go beyond critics’ personal preference and subjectivity. I agree some of the lists like On the Way to Airport and Beautiful Mind are really good. But Dramas have to be entertaining. A lot of positively reviewed dramas in the list are like sleeping pills for me, e.g. Signal and 6 Flying Dragons. LOL. It’s all up to personal taste.
How is RT’s rating system crappy? It’s an aggregate site that collects reviews from various sources to give us an overall consensus about opinion on the movie quality. It seems it’s your own fault you don’t understand its binary rating method. A higher percentage doesn’t mean that one movie is better than the other, there are much more to a movie to judge than just a mere figure. The fresh/rotten percentage simply answers the question: is this movie worth watching? A 98% score means 98% of the reviewers decide that a movie is good enough to recommend other people to see. PLain and simple. And honestly that’s all your average cinema goer wants to know before spending their money. Besides, RT have other metrics available for you to consult, such as 10-point average rating which is right below the fresh/rotten % or the audience score. If you want more deep discussions about the movie quality, you have to read the whole reviews because there’s literally no rating system to be inclusive or accurate enough to judge a piece of art. It’s RT’s fault that people misconstrue their system.
*I mean it’s NOT RT’s fault
Surprisingly, this award is pretty much spot-on.
Yeah I laughed. First time I’ve agreed with a poll. It was spot on.
Well the thing about the Razzies is they are dissing their own countries movies so I wonder if they (the people who come up with these honors) do the same thing for their own dramas.
This is kind of a messy way to do it. I think they should just pick 5 best and 5 worst instead of having 12 or so in the worst column and Jealousy Incarnate making the worst and also “lasting quality” ??? That makes no sense. Anyway just throw the 98% ones in with the best for pete sake. No drama is perfect; not even Signal which I loved and raved about.
There were some pretty great Kdramas this year. But ugh yes I totally agree with that list, except W and Incarnation of Jealousy. I would put those in the 2% suck category. They had a great start and then my interest kinda just dwindled.
But MLSHR and UF aired on Youku exelusively. Did Sohu actually paid for them?
At least “dear my friend” is the best drama,and I agree for that. I love that drama.
Lol.im agree
The matter is scriptwriter.and noh hee kyung always make quality scripts
i feel bad for sjj,i like her previous drama but two world story is not my cup of tea(its not about brain :p)
I can agree with UF but the rest I disagree. I guess I’m one of those rare people that actually liked Scarlet heart! just didn’t like the ending.
I loved almost all the other drama’s that were on the crap list!
people should not be mad abt the list.different things for different people.some on the worst list are some of my favs dis year like dots,moon lovers and cheese in the trap.
more like the most dissapointing for me. several of them nowhere near bad.
Signal was a huge surprise hit. Great writing with great acting chops. K-version of Scarlet was a huge letdown, especially for fans of the original and book. Not going to lie, most kdrama remakes from other countries have done poorly to live up to the original. Original work is just more promising work in ktown so I’m not surprised with Scarlet. UF was just…lol…UF. KWB was able to hold up the show alone with Suzy out of the picture even till his character died.
not surprise moon lover UF get the worst award. they both sux bad.
the invister should demand their money back for how shit these two drama is.
Ha..ha.. This is such a fun read and I have to agree with everyone who says the awards are so aptly given. It seems like every one of the big budgeted, big buzzed dramas ends up on the crappy list. I am talking about UF, ML, DOTS, W, CIIT, K2, Doctors. My faith in the Chinese audience has been restored. LOL. But the icing on the cake for me personally is the underrated, low-buzzed gem My Wife is Having an Affair This Week making the “Lasting Quality” list. More people should watch that drama.
Doctors is big budgeted and big buzzed? Lol when???
Aside from park shin hye there isn’t anything buzz about it. Sbs didn’t even promote it properly
Absolutely agreed on the list. Moonlovers and Uncontrollably Fond, K2 all sucked bad. Only Jealousy Incarnate does not deserve the criticism, it was fun through and through.
Agreed
LOL. I have my hats off to China because their period dramas generally are grand and living up to expectation but sorry to say, China itself produced modern dramas that are generally suck. And I laughed so hard over the crappy list because China is the one country that is paying so much money for those craps. It’s like a slap on their own face and Korea is laughing all the way to the bank. LOL.
Lmao china modern drama is cringeworthy(some)
IMO most chinese dramas are crap, not all but most, some chinese drama I enjoyed were mostly from taiwan if you count them as chinese
Ha Ha. The moment I noticed JI appeared in both Worst and Complimenting List, I already know that this poll is equally crap. It cannot even be decisive on whether JI is crap or good. WTF. And you are so right that most of their modern dramas really are cringeworthy. And I say that Korea is doing good business, China paying for fine dining only to be served fast food on cold plates. LOL.
My guess it’s China’s way of getting back at Korea for making them pay so much for each ep and then the final product wasnt what they hoped esp in bringing them profits. HAHAHA!
Not all the C period dramas are good. I found some plots off-putting, repetitive, and dragging. But in general, the shooting settings of historical background are more realistic, diverse, and impressive than K sageuks.
I do not think that SHR was a bad drama. I think the acting was good and Wang So was priceless. I did not watch the old one nor did I read the book.the problem with SHR is the way the female character was written not acted, too much time with 8th prince romance with female lead when they shortened the show, the fact that they made Wang So so likeable, hae soo so unlikeable with the cheating at the beginning and irrational behavior at the end. If IU did not play her I would have disliked the character from beginning to end.overall it was a frustrating drama not a bad one.
Peformance,story,character are different things
Of course shr is not the worst drama.but worst drama in2016
For you maybe but she me dramas of 2016 I could not get passed the first six episodes. Dots and w. They were lackluster to me and I can usually stick with even a crazy one to the end
The first half was not that bad. But after episode 11, it was trainwreck. While I do enjoy the drama, there is no denying that it is considerably bad especially for a pre-produced drama with massive budget. The acting failed, the pacing was off, the editing was choppy and it was a mess. The only saving grace is Lee Jun Ki and a little bit of Kang Ha Neul. So, I do understand why you are so attached to this drama because mostly feel that way thanks to LJK. But him alone could not save the drama and tbf, without him, this drama would have been buried completely by MDBC. BTW, why is MDBC not anywhere in any of the list?
I recently finished scarlet heart ryeo, it’s not as bad as some people make it to be, it’s just the pacing was kinda off, the time jumps bother me so much personally, and IU character was so weak and annoying, I hate damsel in distress with a passion, overall it’s a 7/10 drama.
I haven’t finished UF yet so I can’t judge that one, and I dropped Cinderella.
The 3 worst dramas in this list hahahahaha… Cant agree more. But wait, what? Citt? Dots? Hmm preference.
SIGNAL IS THE BEST. My fave dramas are signal and nirvana in fire.
Dr kim is such a great drama. Better than other medical dramas. Sorry beautiful mind, but the female lead didnt really rock it. All thanks to janghyuk!
Not really agree with the liat, but then.. Wonder, as much as i like age of youth but i couldnt stop comparing it to C-drama ode to joy. I enjoyed otj more than aoy. But aoy is much better than blue sea haha different genre but..since we’re talking about list, theres no difference in genre hehe
im suprised that moonlight is no where to be found.
and im curious. with korean ban in china, how china gonna view korean drama this year?
The ban is for certain platforms only e.g. television, printed ads, etc. Online platform seems to be unaffected – Goblin is pretty popular in China right now.
probably because it was well accepted, not bad, not really good but enjoyable enough,
I mean the story is pretty much abundance in historical drama, moonlight is popular because of the execution
Why they forget ‘Good wife’? That drama awesome too.
A more honest ceremony awards ! Even if i liked some dramas i can understand their choices.
I can’t believe people are getting worked up and sour for this poll.. It’s obviously made for fun and humor. Guess people just can’t take different opinions. As for the “but it’s impolite to disregard these production’s effort” comments.. There are loads of people who rate their own “Top 10” and “10 Worst” dramas or movies at the end of the year. These dramas are produced to be judged by their audience. So what’s the problem here? People can only love it, but not hate it?
For those who are implying that C-dramas are crap, and thus have no rights to rank K-dramas.. Uh you guys do know that C-media and C-netizens like to diss their own dramas the most right? Just a few days ago, the producer of Angelababy’s new drama (General and I) had to step forward to officially reply to all the criticism towards the drama, apologized for the drama’s quality and explained that they already did their best because AB was already pregnant during the filming. C-netizens and media are absolutely #1 when it comes to dissing C-dramas.
What was the criticism regarding General and I? Am watching this currently and didn’t notice any major faults except maybe Angela’s bland acting. (But, that’s nothing new, right?)
@Bwear Thanks for the info on C-media. I don’t care about C-netizens because I figure they are the same all over but was wondering about media critics in China.
I am watching General and I and like the other poster am wondering about what criticism it is getting. Sure I think the PD overdid the slow motion, but I’ve found it pretty entertaining thus far though I haven’t read the source material.
I love General and I, oops. It has all the elements of a good and enjoyable idol drama: good adapted script (so far), gorgeous actors, nice costumes, beautiful shots and serviceable acting. The plot is well-paced, entertaining and logical. The weakest link is Angelababy, of course, she is no talented actress but she’s not horrible either and she makes up for it with her superb visual and chemistry with Wallace Chung. But I agree, Cnets can be very brutal with their harsh criticisms. I would say that they are even more nitpicking than their Korean counterparts.
wow, dead to moon lovers,
it wasn’t like unwatchable, but just because people watch it doesn’t mean it’s good,
I am surprised that the list have dear my friend, age of youth, memory, this week my wife has an affair and many others, it’s good on their respective genre and this list put them,
Moon lovers and UF is a trainwreck, especially if you are not a big fans of any of the actor involve,
it kinds of the drama that when you see what is wrong, you’ll never escape it, the fans just too prideful to acknowledging how bad a drama they were
And these are the reason why China won’t be paying mega bucks to broadcast rubbish such as SHR and UF anymore. China needs to promote its own dramas more internationally.
actually UF is the most viewed kdrama in youku with 4 billion views, moon lover 2nd with 2.5 billion
here the rank http://list.youku.com/category/show/c_97_a_%E9%9F%A9%E5%9B%BD_s_1_d_4.html?spm=0.0.selectID.5!3~5~5!2~1~3!3~A.pGpTvj
Having the most viewed doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best. If the Chinese feel robbed by watching those dramas then they should have chosen more wisely. We all know clicks on-line can be rigged.
Because China can only watch these 2 officially while not the rest of the dramas…
Agree i cant even force myself to watch a full one episode of these 2 drama , uf and shr, w i still like it,
I’ve been watching C dramas recently. In average, the production value of K drama still beats its’ counterpart C drama. Rarely have I watched a C drama like Nirvana in Fire with consistent top notch production quality from the very start through the end. Given more than 30 eps in each C drama, a lot of them started off with interesting storylines and then plots just went south midway through. I would like to see C critics or netizens rate their own drama production. In my opinion, even those picked as the worst category are still more worth watching and entertaining than 95% of the C dramas I’ve watched including popular ones. LOL
I tend to watch more of the Chinese historicals than contemporary, and I agree with you though I would say some have kicked it up a notch recently. Still with the contemporary C-Dramas – even ones people rave about – I find are really not on par with most middle of the road k-dramas imo. I was watching a 2015 contemporary c-drama and even things like the sound quality wasn’t done well, especially in the early episodes. I’m crossing my fingers for General and I.
Am watching Princess Weiyoung. It started really fun and interesting. I always like badass heroine and this one meets my expectation, perhaps the best performance from the lead actress. But dang, the storyline started to replay all the cliches. Every time when the emperor burst out “why is it you again,” I couldn’t help LOLing…hahaha..yeah why again?
I watched Princess WeiYoung and enjoyed it for the most part but after around the halfway point, it becomes very repetitive with the girl drama. I get we always have the obsessive 2nd female lead but ugh. I do think it is Tiffany Tang’s best performance I’ve seen. Never could get through Perfect Couple.
Scarlet Heart and UF got the biggest streaming in China because they were two of the few Kdramas that got simulcast for a huge fee. So they had the biggest coverage in China but the response was overwhelmingly negative. Other Kdramas were not simulcast and a much smaller audience was able to tune in by watching pirated versions on Kdrama sites. Goblin, Legend of the Blue Sea were not simulcast, and netizen discussions, though vigorous, are not on a comparable scale as UF or SH. DOTS, Hwarang and Entourage are the only other shows that got simulcast in China the last year. Saimdang made the mistake of selling the copyright to a TV station, and has waited over six months for a simulcast approval, all in vain. Not sure if the web streaming site simulcast for the future will be restricted too.
Thank you for this. I couldn’t figure out why Saimdang was getting delayed and Hwarang didn’t though I hear the airing company on Hwarang has pulled it.
Most Chinese dramas suck because the lead actors generally get about 70% of the production costs for their pay, leaving barely anything for script-writing, sets and props and special effects. What’s more is that these hefty-pay-earning actors are mostly zero-talent pretty faces/former idols who appear in multiple dramas/films/variety shows/commercial events all at the same time to grab the most money. So a lot of stunt actors are used to reduce the time they have to spend on each film/drama set. The problem is that the audience still reward these pretty faces with high ratings, so the vicious cycle goes on. There is no such a thing as over-exposure in China, it seems.
Chinese actors are among the highest paid actors in the world, second only to and often on a par with Hollywood. Especially for the top group of 20 or 30 actors/actresses whose faces you would see in almost all movies, dramas and variety shows all year around.
I wonder what is the bad 2% portion in SFD because the whole drama is fantastic for me from the beginning to the end.
I don’t agree with their Worst List at all. In Cinderella and Four Knights I thought Jung Il Woo and Park So Dam made such a cute couple. Their scenes together were awesome. How can Descendants of the Son be on that list.? I thought it was a very good drama and cast was excellent.. I don’t see how W was on there either. I thought W was very good.There were a few others that do not belong on the Worst column either.. They may not have been the best but they were far from worst.
Bashers and Haters of MLSHR and other dramas I felt it’s unfair to the billions of viewers who waited this drama episode by episode. I personally loved this drama, I’m one and ordinary viewer who watch this from the beginning till the end, I’m a part of 2 billions of viewers globally loved this Korean version, don’t you think I’m crazy to watch this drama until the end you all haters are so intelligent people to tell that this drama sucks, why the viewers requesting and make a petition globally for season2 who are you people to say it suck how you really judge a good drama to a worst drama…if viewers watching it and loving it they will tell it’s not a good drama…what kind of logic is that. I respect the whole story-plot of this drama all the hard working actors, actresses, staff,crew of this drama you can critized it but don’t remarks it just like a waste of work,time and effort of these people who makes the billion viewers cry and laugh to this drama.