Park Seo Joon Tops the Actor/Actress Group in the 2021 Forbes Power Celebrity List for South Korea

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• It's definitely a "people talked about this" list rather than a measure of industry stature or success in terms of hard numbers (ratings/ticket sales), cause LMH last drama....the less said the better. Also I enjoy Han So Hee but no way is she currently more popular than Park Shin Hye, same with some other people and their positions on the list.

  • HSH is definitely more popular than PSH. She's more popular than most actresses in the 20s or early 30s. South Korea loves her and she trends for just breathing. Her endorsements are miles long and still growing. She sells out anything she touches. If anything I'm surprised she isn't much higher on the list.

    • Really? are you serious or is this a joke? Han so Hee is more popular than PSH. wake up girl. I may not like PSH but....

    • han so hee and her midas touch. I give this girl's career 2 years, the girl looks constipated when she acts.

    • I really don't follow both but i'm guessing yes HSH being more popular atm. U know how knetz work, if they like someone, they go all the way. For better or for worse. Lol
      But of course PSY is still the established actress.

  • I linked a tweet below..LMH ranked higher not because of his drama..it's cause he got high points in SNS and Income category..
    PSH was overall at no.40 but in SNS department she was within top 10 along with PSJ, LMH , Bae Suzy , Cha Eunwoo etc..Thus actors that don't have SNS are gravely affected in the final ranking ..For example Gong Yoo only ranked 24 in 2018..It doesn't makes sense cause Goblin was a massive hit in 2017. Similarly,i can see why Hyun Bin ranked at 21 overall but his Income is highest amongst all actors in 2020..

  • It’s not based on popularity, there are other criteria such as media exposure, SNS activity, and income.

• TKEM was 9th in the World on Netflix so I think the more said the better! Well done Minho.

• IU (Lee Ji Eun)ranks 13rd. She is both singer and actress.
  Thus, she should be 1st in the actor list.

  • Iu was considered as a singer for all the activities she did last year, she didn't have a drama last year, didn't have any movies released either, though she's a singer and an actress as well.

• This rank was based on 4 parameters , SNS, Media , broadcast and Income..
  Surprisingly Hyun Bin is the highest earner in the income department in 2020(he doesn't have a Sns account so his overall rank is low as expected) followed by Kim Soo Hyun and Lee Min Ho..
  I was confused for a while cause I thought Ksh was the highest paid be it cfs or acting fees..
  Any thoughts @Lydia??

  • Correction : HyunBin is the highest earner amongst ACTORS .
    Here is the distribution of ranks in the various categories.
    https://twitter.com/meanttoblink/status/1387036677697277964?s=19

    • He paid the most taxes thats for sure. Have you seen his domestic + asian endorsements? Im about to puke from his overexposure. Turn here, turn there... Hyun Bin's face greets you from everywhere.

    • Hyun Bin has a LOT more CFs than KSH. He also has international CFs because of how huge CLOY was. So it def makes sense that KSH is second to him as even if IOTNBO was very popular and even if he got paid highest for his job as an actor; compare CFs and IOTNBO is no CLOY. Not even close.

  • Hyun Bin’s fee is high too, if reports are to be believed, and CLoY broadcasted early in the year, so he probably accumulated more CFs throughout the year which brings his income up higher.

    • That's plausible..
      One more thing, cloy was aired only partially in 2020 unlike LMH and Ksh dramas ..Do you think Hyun Bin's entire fee from the drama was considered here??.. because i remember he was in this list in 2019 too?..

  • I don’t think we can determine who earn more just by this chart. Eg LSG didn’t even have a drama in 2020 he should be a singer for last year, not an actor.

    So is not just as simple as one glance from the chart. Just my guess.

• With or without his sns scores or how badly his last drama was received we all know lmh is the most influential and popular among the actors. His dramas from 10years ago is still among the most searched and watched till date.
  He most definitely deserved and earned to be on that list, His influence is no joke.

  • That i agree..he is one of the most famous korean celebrity in the world ..but if his drama did well i suppose he could have ranked higher than Park seo jun because LMH clearly beat psj in sns and income department..

• Park Seo Joon ????

• Oh boy somebody's kpop-stan type fans take things very personally...

• Koala You didn't include RAIN he is Number 36 :)

• South Korea has so many lists lol how do they even got to know the ranking for income? Isn’t that supposed to be confidential?

• It’s a Forbes list. I don’t think influential or power literally as the words. I think factors presence of people in different area of works, e.g.drama, films, advertisements, non-profit activities, variety shows and etc. Those activities have weighted percentages, e.g. films 10%, commercial advertisements-15% and so on.The scoring would have been a weighting of their participation in those different activities.

  By the way, who is Han Soo Hee. I am also surprised Lee Sueng Gi is not at the top, maybe he didn’t do films or cf which pull his scores down.

  • LSG and SJK don’t have any drama in 2020. In fact I am more surprised SJK is not in the top 40 list at all. I thought SJK did film last year.

    • SJK may have lost his CF deals, didn’t have variety appearances. His exposures were limited. I don’t think he would be included next year either with only 1 drama exposure.

    • LSG is everywhere in Australia. He has weekly variety shows and some other hosting activities.

    • I meant LSG is everywhere in Korea. I was reading about Zac Efron migrating to Australia and selling his LA home. Hahaha

    • @MistyEyes - but when that one drama is a smash hit that it feels like half of Korea is making memes about... and Netflix doesn't carry the same weight as ratings but it's got a healthy international audience too.

      Anyway, it's not just one drama - it's Vincenzo plus two movies, Space Sweepers is out on Nflix already and did well enough there. SJK isn't going anywhere, anyone who thought to write off either of the Songs after their divorce can eat their words!

    • Movies don’t make much unless it reaches at least 10million admissions. This is a Forbes list so income is one of the major criteria. Space Sweeper had difficulty getting out to distribution. They probably run out of fund as they resorted into crowd fund at some point. Lucky in the end they were able to sell it to Netflix.

    • Btw, with the income part, some personalities love to publicize their income as part of their promotion, which earn them point in this kind of rankings. You see it’s all big data these days and data analytics. The information could be true but there are probably other personalities who earn more but have kept their remunerations confidential.

    • Vincenzo is 2nd most watched kdrama on Netflix. It tops buzz, charts in South Korea. And not to forget space sweeper was no. 1 movie on Worldwide netlix for 6 consecutive days. he already have bagged two cf even though his drama hasn't ended yet. Though the list is fpr 2020 he surely going to come back in next year forbes list.