Netizens Annoyed that Rookie Actress Hong Ye Ji Gets Female Lead in Back-to-Back Sageuk Dramas and Fails to Impress in Either

View Comments

• Not seen either drama but she looks like a cute girl, maybe not fitting the very narrow beauty standard but cute, coming for her looks is uncalled for.

  The bigger problem is if her acting is poor - no amount of good looks can cover up bad acting, whether male or female. Like the lead girl from Impossible Heir, she's so pretty but so bad at acting she's now a punchline, the same way others have been over the years.

  • I agree her acting is not that great but to say she doesn't look pretty is farfetched. She's not overly pretty like y'all expect but she does have a cute face and she's not bad to look at. They're wrong for coming for her face.

    And if she's getting opportunities, good for her as long she's not stopping others from getting one.

    • @Salmos - honestly, that's my problem with bad actors, and especially bad rookie actors - given the calibre of talent in Korean acting, there is a 110 percent certainty someone who's now stuck in supporting or 2nd lead roles could or would have done a better job and was denied the opportunity or even a shot at the role to make way for this. Can't even make the old chestnut argument of "but she's popular and might bring a fanbase" because she hasn't got one.

      Time for someone to go back to supporting roles and practice her acting for a bit, I guess.

    • I think noone says she's not pretty, they say she's not pretty enough to get a pass for her acting shortcomings like other actresses in the past.

    • @Nena exactly, not one person here called her ugly so I don't know why everyone's being so sensitive lol. It's like you can't even say someone isn't pretty objectively nowadays without someone yapping about how EvErYoNe Is BeAuTiFuL iN ThEiR oWn WaY, which we all know deep down is BS anyway. Even babies who haven't been brainwashed by societal beauty standards can recognize an objectively good-looking face (if y'all are interested, look up the studies done on this, babies stare at more symmetrical faces longer).

      The point is, it's confusing why this actress keeps getting cast when she has none of the things that make someone a leading lady or a star: Either top-notch acting skills, great beauty, or charisma/It factor. Literally none of those. That's the point of the comment on her looks, not that she's ugly, but that she's not beautiful enough to get lead roles without talent. Because let's be honest, actors will get cast either because of great acting skills or extreme beauty that will cover up for the bad acting, and she has neither. That's why people are confused.

      Y'all, it's not the end of the world to admit that someone is not that beautiful. Not everyone is beautiful and that's okay because beauty is not the most important thing in the world 🤷🏻‍♀️

  • I agree with Royal We - the remarks on her beauty is uncalled for. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me she does have charisma and I would call her looks wholesome, sweet and cute. Not like the anorexic, starved and plastic looks that most k-actresses are going for these days. I watched the very first drama she starred in, she appeared quite green, but she wasn't too bad. It would have been better for her to work her way up with smaller roles so she doesn't shoulder the entire burden of the production. But since she has been cast, I hope she can continue to improve.

    • No need to body-shame other women to uplift her 🙄
      Also, she looks skinny to me, just as skinny as the women you're putting down. She just has a chubby face, which makes you think she's not as skinny as the others when she totally is

  • to be fair to Koala, she's not dissing her look, but the sad fact pretty privilege is real. it's more prevalent in C-dramas (e.g. Angelababy), but also in K-dramas. In the past, "Nation's (something)" like Suzy, Song Hye Gyo, a gamut of idol actors, and more recently Go Youn Jung, got away with passable/ mediocre acting because they are considered very pretty, while someone like Jisoo, who everyone considers pretty but not quite god level pretty, will still get criticism for Snowdrop. It's not about whether they are pretty or not - it's about whether their prettiness make people don't care about their acting, and some actors do get away with it.

    • Isn't Jisoo considered gorgeous in Korea though? I heard that she is considered the most beautiful in her group.

    • I do see where people are going w/ her look, because she is on the low end of acting abilities w/out much backing (her look itself doesn't stand out either but should not be label as not pretty).
      Because the examples you gave: Suzy is Korean standard beauty and got a huge following from her idols age (she is if not worse than this actress at the start of her acting career); SongHyeGyo got one of the biggest hit (despite many negativities towards her acting); Jisoo (same status as Suzy but w/ little better acting); GoYounJung (also extremely beautiful for Korean standard, alreay w/ a huge following on IG but her acting one can't say she isn't good either & the better actress of all listed here for their starting roles).
      So I understand the commotion w/ her getting 2back2 back projects.

    • @dewed, Suzy, SHG, and GYJ perhaps caught some flak for their acting. But these three all have certain auras of their own to have strong on-screen presence. It's charisma and therefore they have had fans from the get-go of their acting career even others might not approve of their acting that much.

      I do think GYJ did pretty good jobs in both Moving and Alchemy of Souls II. I don't consider her acting in AoS II bad as many fans of AoS I claimed. At least, I was impressed by how she emoted and her stares as a badass assassin, not by her visuals. Some fans of AoS dinged GYJ mainly cos they liked Jung So-min so much they were disappointed JSM was replaced by GYJ in the sequel and these fans were pretty loud. Since I watched AoS I&II back to back without a gap, I could compare the acting of two FLs right away and more fairly. I wasn't familiar with either actress before. I couldn't even recognize GYJ was the girl with healing power in Moving. To that point, GYJ did a successful job playing different roles. She can act.

• I haven't yet seen her acting so can't judge but she is a pretty girl ngl.

• How old is Koala? Just asking?

  • Old enough to have watched 1990s dramas

• Her look should not be an issue because she clearly offers a diverse beauty to the gene pool of cosmetic work (which nothing is wrong w/) but the acting leads to people throwing shade to everything they get their hands on.

  She's definitely not an expressive actress (or charismatic) and attributed to her inexperience as leading. How did she and Hong SuZu(Impossible Heir) get leads w/ no experience. How did they get pass the audition process? Korean as of present has far more better young actress than in the past who also has the looks to back them up too.

  On the upside, i do see potential. If IU and Suzy can improve, the changes are there.

  • Is her wiki correct, she's only been in 2 dramas and for both she is the main female lead? Granted that the productions she's in are not as well known, but for a relative newbie to be female lead immediately.....I've only seen that with idols and for movie scripts with established directors (i.e. Kim Goeun's debut).

    • If this is the case, maybe she has heavy hitting "contacts" in the industry?

• koala, are you watching lovely runner? it's so so so good. a breath of fresh air with how awesome the first four episodes have been. it's good to have a new drama to buffer the wait for queen of tears.

  • Just from those pics she's not ugly but she doesn't have that FL pretty or innocent look that they usually go for.

  • Sorry, my comment was not meant for you.

• The last picture in white dress did her dirty but she is pretty girl ,and lets stop pretending that good acting that get you lead roles , that's a myth

• She looks okay to me. Cute and sweet. Reminds me of IU….

• I watched A Song for Illusion and this drama was really bad, the writing was so confusing. Park Ji-Hoon wasn't good at playing 2 different roles, I never could discern between his 2 characters. I didn't think she was bad as an actress but her character was written as a killer and she spent her time to heal people...

  Now, Missing Crown Prince looks like a big mess too. The differences of genre in the different posters and promotion material made me think they had no idea what kind of story they're telling.

  Suho is not a good actor neither, he's not charismatic enough to be a lead. So I'm surprised they came to the actress only.

• Yeah, that was a cheap shot. Do better.

• These Kpop idols including this gal and Suho who can't act got these leading roles as if K-ent were running out of acting talent. LOL.

  Love Song for Illusion was so BAD that I thought I was watching a C drama. LMAO. These rookies are gonna ruin Sageuk genre.