Gong Yoo in Talks to Join Song Hye Kyo in Upcoming Period Drama by Writer Noh Hee Kyung About the Dawn of the K-ent Industry

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• Idk about this pairing. Both of them are somber looking when they act. They each deserve a partner that brightens their aura not dull them more.

  • I love the writer, but I doubt she would make a character where Gong Yoo would be lively like he was in Coffee Prince. Can he do a rom-com again after this?

  • Gong Yoo was somber looking in Goblin and Coffee Prince? Wut?

• My thoughts exactly! Same problem with her and Jo In Sung. But maybe they can pull off a melo vibe.

• The big break thru of K-Industry to the International audience came thru Boys over flowers. It was a Manga adapted series where the Director himself was not targetting international audience but for whatever reason it unexpectingly exploded Internationally..

  I recall the cast themselves didn't realize fully what happened and I remember a Young Lee Min-Ho making his first travel to Thailand right after BOF concluded airing like mere weeks after it and A whole major airport in Bangkok came litrtally to a halt and in this point of time K-dramas were niche in Thailand. so many crowds in the airport there was nowhere to stand and it was epic proportions chaos everywhere and nowhere to stand and you could see Lee Min-Ho just smiling in disbelief being covered by atleast multiple security personale to escort him out

  • I forgot to add this was 15 years ago and I almost feel old now but anyways it will have it's 20 year anniversary in 2029 that is just short 5 years from now. I think it would be awesome to make a series based on that series behind the scenes..

    It would be hilarious to see the reaction of the director, producer and staff that shxt has gone fuking global viral. Sometimes things happen without there being intention for it because the production team had no intention of that. It was suppose to be a local edgy teenage show for local consumption but not to start a K-content worldwide revolution it happened miraculously and the effect that it came on the back of Japanese Manga says that it was never intended just accidently this lead to Dramafever openning just based on the pirating that took place because BOF going Viral and after Dramafever, Hulu started to enter the market and then followed by Netflix and now Disney. K-content has been a main stable since

  • @ bol….Eh I think you severely discounting how huge the 4 seasons were like “winter sonata” legit remains an obsession with Japanese viewers till now. Bae Young Joon, Won Bin, etc were plastered everywhere on the magazines in my country. Not to mention other classics like “my name is Kim Sam soon” , etc

    • Winter Sonata was only a major hit in Japan.. K-dramas use to be on pirate sides before that for the rest of the english speaking world which Africa, western world, middle east, latin america and south east Asia. BOF broke that wall leading kdramas to become mainstream. Even China was not a thing for k-market before BOF.

      Also another thing note is BOF trended on social media when it was new both youtube (2006) and Facebook (2004) were young but bof was one of early things to trend on social media back then and go viral

    • I agree with you. I remember those heydays of BYJ. He's big in Japan and also Taiwan. BoF wasn't the breakout point for Hallyu. There was already a Taiwanese version of BoF, a predecessor of LMH's version, which swept SE Asia with F4.

  • @bol the OG Hallyu dramas were from the early-mid 2000s though. Dramas like Dae Jang Geum, Winter Sonata, Autumn in my Heart, Full House, Goong and Coffee Prince were all a huge success in Asia (btw three of the above starred either Gong Yoo or Song Hye Kyo, she is an OG Hallyu star), enough for actors to be doing fanmeeting tours.

    Rewriting this narrative to ignore those earlier dramas as being just 'niche' or moving the goalposts to say 'they were only popular in Japan' (the most profitable market) is wrong. Neither did BOF invent kdramas being popular in Chine - as far back as Dae Jang Geum (2003) the popularity of Korean dramas in China was enough for Jackie Chan and Zhang Guoli to be going "resist the Korean wave" and by the late 00s Korean programmes available in China were more than all other foreign language programming combined.

    • What @bol wrote isn't really wrong. BOF was really popular and huge in my country and this was before anybody ever knew about Kdramas. The first drama I ever watched was also BOF. We used to have BOF stickers. I never saw something like that for other dramas. I guess since that was a high school drama, it appealed a lot more to younger audience.

    • which country? what I mentioned were reported facts in media from that time, not "I think so"-type personal anecdotes presented as statements.

    • You always discrediting Lee min Ho. But he overheard second halkyu wave with bof. Bof was bigger than any drama ever before. Not even close those older ones were. Old haggg

    • @Adyinvader47...beloved, us being old hags is the reason why we can speak with a sense of authority that before BOF mania, there were tons of other Kdramas that were famous worldwide because we are old enough to have witness that firsthand along with the rise of second Hallyu wave.

    • dang, y'all summoned LMH's number 1 fangirl Ady from the grave lmaooo. It's been months since I've last seen her delulu takes, now we all have to suffer again 😭😭😭

    • It has nothing to do with discreditting others but majority of them were on pirating sides and none of them went viral on social medias outside of BOF which single handily lead to Dramafever opening followed by Hulu buying dramas after that.. The Actors in BOF had like millions of followers each post the drama whereas dramas like Full house didn't even get 100k.. BOF was one of the early social media phenomenon as it was one of the first things that went viral in the social media age.

      No Disrespect to these earlier dramas but they were mainly local consumption and never leaped beyond the pirating sites

    • @R - exactly.

      Some people want to pretend no one in the west knew kdramas before 2009 or downplay those who did know but too bad for them, us 'hags' are old enough to remember the OGs and their impact!

      (all documented by actual media, no matter how much you people try explaining that away and going "well actually it was only pirate sites" "well actually no one in the west knew" - sure, no one in the west knew kdramas and that's how the biggest English language kdrama recap site was set up in....2007? which is before 2009 by the way)

  • I agree with everyone else. To completely discredit the dramas that come before BOF is ludicrous. As a person from the US, my first kdrama was Autumn in My Heart. Everyone in my school was watching Full House when it came out. Also, they obviously knew Hana Yori Dango was a beloved manga that had multiple successful live adaptations before they made their version in Korea.

    • exactly, if BOF is the "big break thru" of kdramas to international popularity then can these people please explain how English-language kdrama and k-media websites and blogs like soompi (1998), dramabeans(2007) and right here, koalasplayground itself....existed and were popular for years before BOF? lol

    • The first Kdrama I got obsessed with that piqued my interest to explore Kdrama further was Winter Sonata. When was that drama filmed? It looked pretty old vibe. But I watched it in the US around 2013. I never watched LMH's BoF although I liked his City Hunter and Faith. Therefore, attributing Hallyu to BoF alone is a bit overstatement.

  • whatever reason? The manga was a big success, the TW adaptation, Meteor Garden, was a big success, the JP adaptation, Hana Yori Dango, was a big success.

    It wasn't an original story. And they were lucky because it's still one the worst adaptation of the story...

    You can't forget the success of other Kdramas that helped this one to be famous outside Korea.

  • BOF wasn’t the big break for the K-ent but I think it (or more specifically the rise of Lee Minho’s popularity) was the turning point where it was recognised as the dominant entertainment industry in Asia, which also marked the decline of the j-ent industry. Just realised I’ve not watched any jdramas since that period (or can’t really remember if I have), only jmovies once in a while.

  • Lol, BOF was big, but full house was BIGGER. Winter sonata and autumn in my heart were also bigger. In japan, it was winter sonata, in my country, it was autumn in my heart and full house. Full house waaaaaasss crazily popular more than bof. People watched bof bcuz of meteor garden was hugely popular in mh country. Lee minho is popular but song hye kyo is legend. Not a fan of her but i just state the truth.

    • Come on let us not kid ourselves.. None of these dramas had any impact outside of Winter sonata and that was only in Japan..

      Just follow the social media reaction this will give you the indiction BOF was the first thing that ever went viral on Social media. The BOF actors had millions of followers just couple of months post BOF while the actors on the other shows like Full house didn't even have 100k followers.

      Boys over flowers was the big break thru for K-industry all the stats supports and even these at Dramafever open it because of BOF which helped Kdramas.

    • @nina…that’s not at all a fair comparison. There was no social media back then to go viral on for those earlier dramas so how can you use that as a yardstick of measurement?? And those dramas being less accessible (but not even so much because they were showing on legit channels in other countries) and yet, ppl in SEA countries/ Japan/ even america knew about them showed how powerful they were. Like the Full House song was blasted everywhere in my country.

• I am interested in this pairing, it would have been what could have been DOTS had Gong Yoo accepted that drama. And if (just if) they ended up together, that is really fate a tad late but meant to be. But the story about broadcasting, I'm not sure about that. It always fails when the story revolves around the media industry. Still hope it will be successful. However I won't believe this until it is inked in agreement. A lot these are just news that never pan out.

• If not mistaken, Gong Yoo was the original pick for leading man of DOTS but he turned down the offer.

  So it's basically that they were supposed to pair up years ago but didn't happened. So it would be interesting if they really get to work together this time around.

• This already sounds pretty epic!

• A 20-24 episode drama with long episodes in an era when people can hardly sit through 16 episodes? NHK is a good writer but nothing justifies 24 episodes especially not a period melodrama with 70-80 mins of runtime. NHK should seriously rethink this. Apart from that yes this is massive casting news and more surprising that they’ve never acted together in the last 20 years or so but GY is not suited for melodrama. He always looks worn out when he does this genre. Comedy, mystery, romcom or thriller all suit him much better. This drama needs a vibrant supporting cast to get us through all the melo and slow pacing.

• I'm not a big fan of SHK.

  I'm more excited by Gong Yoo next drama with Seo Hyun-Jin as his wife for 1 year.

  • @Sayaris..ooh I didn't know they're starring in a drama together! I do like SHK mainly cause I think she's pretty and seems sweet. I do recognize she's a limited actress ("Glory" was such an entertaining watch though so I love that she got a role that worked well for her) but am also looking forward to her pairing with Gong Yoo cause that's a lot of prettiness on my screen :D . On the other hand, I've always enjoyed Seo Hyun Jin's acting so that pairing is exciting!

    • It's a Netflix drama that will be released at the end of the year. I think the name was The Trunk and now it's just Trunk.

• The casting is interesting. But I'm not a fan of the writer or the PD. Not sure if this drama will be up my street.

• Doesn't seem interesting but I'll give it a try if GY is in it. Can't remember the last drama I watched of SHK...

  Googled her dramas and it was Full House. 😂 So long ago.