The Korean media has noted the similarity of recently premiered tvN’s Bride of the Water God with the network’s last big hit drama Goblin, namely on the trend of creating powerful male leads with godly abilities and good looks. OSEN recently wrote about how the cable network is leading the charge with what may become a trend in male leads that supplants the long running tendency to have chaebol or chaebol heir male leads, instead using magical ability in lieu of monetary wealth. Gong Yoo created such a memorable portrayal of an all power and all lonely immortal goblin that it’s quite big shoes for Nam Joo Hyuk to fill in trying to build up the character of the immortal Water God Habaek. So far audience reaction has been mixed and I’m fairly confused as well, he’s insanely easy on the eyes but if I focus on pure acting ability there isn’t enough heft there to elevate the portrayal. With that said, the godly male character is usually attractive enough with the fantasy elements much like a chaebol type that male leads will be hard pressed not to win hearts playing such a role. Only time will tell if this is indeed a new K-drama character trend.
Well, so far Habaek is a fatuous git with no powers on Earth, so . . . not too similar, at least not yet.
Koala just need to make comparison with everything Goblin and everything Gong Yoo and everything Kim Eun Sook. Goblin is not a great piece of work except that it is the first to feature a male lead with godly power. There is no need to compare when Habaek is portrayed here in a completely fish out of the water situation where he always turns out looking like a fool to create the humurous vibe and the genre is with high tendency to humour side whereas Goblin is more on the tragic sappy side.
That’s what I was gonna say. Goblin has large amount of historical scenes and all of its scenes are on earth.
The New one has other worlds, is in the present, has Gods born as Gods not humans turned to Gods.
They are 2 completely different drama.
same here, I think Koala should compare Goblin to Dracula or vampires, men who were cursed by the heavens bound to live longer for centuries or millenia on earth with extraordinary powers, lol. While Ha Baek, a god who came down to earth and lost his powers, should be compared to Jesus, well at least Jesus did many miracles, unlike Ha Baek who lives in plastic balloon houses, lol, just kidding. The point, I dont think both are same, but only similar concept of metaphysical, nothing different to Aliens or mermaids or ghost or Gumiho stories, many have done it in the past, no need to compare in order to bring down the new drama.
I totally agree with you guys… For me No need to compare!…
Lets just watch, support and embrace this new drama. I like
Gong Yoo & Nam Joo Hyuk. Cheers!.
One has an actor as the male lead, another has an “actor”.
One has southern potato salad with mustard, the other is a potato on the counter with a butter knife to peel it.
I honestly took this Haeb stuff to be a remake of the Chinese drama with the merman in it.
lol you are savage. But accurate!
This cracked me up. Such a perfect description!
I tried to erase that merman series from my memory…
What’s a merman?is it like a Mermaid but male version?
Gongyoo has enough depth to create a brooding yet likeable character in Goblin. NJH is only scratching the surface of the Haebaek character. He has no depth to carry this character. He is only playing the character but he has not truly become one. Not believable enough for me to follow his storyline. Needless to say, I give Haebaek a pass.
The issue with people is comparing two different dramas to each other when they are not remakes nor sequel.
I would hope Gong Yoo would be a better actor than Nam Joo Hyuk. He only has a decade and a lot of big screen and small screen experience in comparison to a rookie whose entire life was focused on being a model.
I mean I understand if how you would feel if you loved Goblin so much and looked forward to Habeak but seriously like what did you expect from a rookie who isn’t critically acclaimed to have good acting skills. If you watched his previous works don’t pretend you didn’t know how this drama was gonna be.
@rubyred, yes Feng Shao Feng did a ‘not as good as you thought’ drama some months ago where he has a merman and there was a descendant attendant, a prophecy and bad guy in black. Starry night, Starry Sea. I found it entertaining to a point, haven’t watched the ending episodes and have no desire to do so. I hear there’s a sequel coming.
I feel like I’m the only one who finds this boy very unattractive. And I’m talking about his looks, because there is no use talking about skills. He’d need to have some first to even touch the subject.