Byun Woo Seok’s Breakout Compared to Kim Soo Hyun and Kang Dong Won by K-reporter Calling it a Every 10 Years Phenomenon

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• Lol. His management company working hard I see.

  • I thought this news came from c dramaland lol
    Definitely working hard on putting out draft

  • His fan meeting waiting line is in the 800,00 range. His agency doesn’t have to pretend his popularity he actually is that popular. The Ryu Sung Jae craze has Korea on a chokehold. They can’t get enough of him. Just go to any Korean forum and you’ll see how mad they are for him. His popularity on Weverse is equivalent to that of BTS and Blackpink. This is all happening in real time and the fans want more.

    • I think that's exactly what knetz are pointing at. He is at an idol level of popularity rather than national phenomenon as the two mentioned. He needed that one popular drama/movie that caters to every age group to be considered one.

    • What a big joke!! This is Kim Seon Ho HCCC all over again...After a year..no one really care that much! overrated as hell..and the rating..what?? 5%? lol

    • @Dudu Have to disagree with you regarding Kim Seon Ho. Unlike BWS, Kim Seon Ho was actually popular even with older generation because of him being in a variety show. He wasn't just some fad who's only popular with teenagers and early 20s people. His popularity only decreased because of the scandal, but even then, he was literally the second most voted in the recent Baeksang Popularity award, literally second to freaking Kim Soo Hyun. That's quite a huge feat considering he hasn't had a drama in years. As for BWS, it still remains to be seen if he was going to be a mere fad or not. I agree with the other comment saying he needs a drama that's a hit to all age groups before he can be comparable to Kim Soo Hyun

• That is a stretch considering k entertainment was only recently very much in love with Kim Seon ho (before his scandal) and then Junho.But I hope BWS's popularity lasts. In this day and age, it's hard to be KSH or LMH level popular. You can't ride on the popularity of one show for too long. There are also influencers who people feel more connected to, though not celebrities but still hold a lot of popularity. So popularity is fleeting these days for celebrities.

  • 'you can't ride on the popularity of one show for too long' - idk, there are actors who've essentially done just that, played basically the same character type once they get a hit drama.

    but yeah, putting him in company with....Kang Dong Won? and Kim Soo Hyun? After his first drama as a lead? Definitely premature. No hate, I understand his company wants to strike while the iron is hot but he's not there yet.

    btw this is not a hate comment - I genuinely think Byun Wooseok's a good actor (and to his credit, became that way by taking on a wide range of smaller and supporting roles) and I hope he's able to cement his position beyond being the It boy of the moment and follow Lovely Runner with a project that does that. I don't want his rise to be plateaued like Jang Dongyoon. Same for Kim Hyeyoon, I really hope she starts to get considered for the same calibre of projects as other stars in her age group.

  • kim seon ho and lee jun ho did broke out due to start-up and the red sleeve, but the byeon woo seok craze right now is on a whole different level.

    there are multiple articles about him that are trending every day, he topped the non-drama list for buzz for his appearance on you quiz on the block, which no other actor has topped in gooddata's ten year history, various advertisers and variety shows have been using wordplay to reference 'carry seonjae on piggyback and run'. there is currently an ongoing meme on the korean interwebs that no matter where you are, you are likely to see women browsing byeon woo seok pictures on their phones. knetizens are saying we're seeing the birth of a top star in real time. it is quite literally the ryu sun jae syndrome out there. very much a cultural phenomenon.

    all that said, i do agree that comparing to kang dong won and kim soo hyun IS a bit of a stretch. only bc times have completely changed and people just don't break out like they did back then. byeon woo seok's current popularity is more comparable to how park bo gum broke out in 2016-2017. very funny bc they both played model turned actors on the cusp of popularity in record of youth. it's up to him to make sure this mass public interest is sustained. his agency is making all the right moves, but everything depends on his next project. i'm rooting for byeon woo seok to keep rising higher bc he has the talent and work ethic for it.

  • Most kfans are comparing his rise not to KSH/KDW which is such an huge reach, but actually Kim Seonho was mentioned. Its very comparable really. Sudden unexpected burst of fame and then if he can build on it like Seonho did, he can build strong core fan base. Obv he also needs to not get into controversies but thats given haha. Junho is not the same. He was already an idol and proved himself a good actor for years as a lead.

    • i think the similarity ends with "sudden unexpected burst of fame" tbh. the level of virality between the two is not comparable. byeon woo seok/ryu sun jae is much more popular rn than kim seon ho or his character were at their peak.

    • @mimi nope hard disagree. Kim Seonho was huge during Start Up. I was in Korea during the second half of its airing and my whole family talked about him throughout my time there. I heard about him at restaurants, in the subway, on the roads. He was the last person who rose to fame so quickly and the perfect comparison. Most kfans feel that way if you check Korean communities. It is definitely the appropriate comparison.

    • @Mimi
      Kim Seon Ho might not be someone I can palate and find his acting rather slimy, but you should know he was the top ranked actor in Gallup. Something quite rare so... oh yea he is most assuredly went viral in a huge way. Still dont get it, but the comparison is very valid and fair. Way more fair and plausible than KSH and KDW undoubtedly.

    • maybe yall's memory is hazy, but the traffic that byeon woo seok is moving right now is much higher than kim seon ho did back then. bws topped the gooddata buzzworthy index every week since queen of tears wrapped up. ksh not only failed to top the list even once during start-up's run, he was also always behind suzy and njh week after week. probably bc start-up itself was not very buzzy. if you compare their weverse community members count, you will see a similar discrepancy, with bws's weverse community having almost twice as many members as ksh's. bws also outranked both new jeans(!!) and lim young woong(!!!) in rankify during their comebacks.

      i'm not in korea, so i can't personally speak to how things are offline, but by all indications, bws is generating much higher interest online than ksh ever did. and obviously that translates to offline popularity too. i'm not discounting ksh's popularity during start-up, i know he was huge. they do share that they skyrocketed from relative obscurity to widespread fame very quickly, but the level of virality is definitely different.

    • @angrybirds glad i'm not the only one who finds him unpalatable. as for your point, he topped the gallup poll in 2021 after the success of hometown cha cha cha. we're talking about their initial rise to fame. i'm not contesting his popularity in any case, i'm just saying their initial rise is not on the same level.

    • @mimi once again, nope. Your recency bias is whats making you think everyone’s memory is hazy. Agree to disagree because I may not be currently in Korea, but I am Korean and follow the kdrama communities very closely for as long as I lived. Kim Seonho was comparable to BWS and his controversy does not change a fact. Another example was Jang Geunsuk for Youre Beautiful if we want to go with an idol drama comparison. But ofc you are free to believe what you want. Popularity never was and never will be a 1:1 statistical comparison otherwise we should be bringing ratings in the conversation. Popularity and syndrom is simply a feeling. You can feel like BWS is the biggest star alive and I can feel like he reminds me of Kim Seonhos rise 🤷🏻‍♀️

      ^^my last response to you as I am agreeing to disagree

  • ah! Kim seon ho. That’s who bws’s rise to game reminded me of. Yeah. He’s closer to kim seon ho’s trajectory than he is to kdw/ksh. I mean in these days of k-entertainment it’s not too shabby to have that kind of rise.

• Lol well I loved him in LR but let's not be delusional 😭. KSH had such a long stretch of extremely popular and successful projects, it's quite unique in that matter - I don't think any of his dramas flopped. I hope BWS's management is smart enough to choose good projects and not just take anything thrown at them trying to blindly catch the next big hit. It would make me very happy to keep seeing him on my screen hehe. I also hope he works on his acting skills, because I didn't really have any expectations from him when I started LR (based on his previous roles) and he surprised me greatly.

  • "I don't think any of his dramas flopped" - One ordinary day was probably a flop, but regardless on that OOD showed his acting range on full, so I became his fan after. And whenever KSH's fans want to talk about his acting skills, they talk about this drama (yeah, I just wanted to say something about OOD)

    • ????

      OOD is not a flop and since you used the word probably, you likely dont know so here are stats.

      OOD was the first Coupang Play drama and right after release increased the subscription of CP by 250%. Monthly users increased by 900k. This is reported in several articles so feel free to check naver. It’s not mainstream but never seen anyone calling it a flop since it’s not. It is also impossible to compare the performance of it when released because it is the first CP drama ever so there is no comparison point. Anna released 6 months later. In fact CP has only 10 dramas released to date.

      KSH did well in OOD as he always does but his best performance is MoonSun which got him a Baeksang.

    • @Mel
      I seriously thought it was a flop, since the only news I saw about this drama is that OOD wasn't on 1st place by views on CP during airing. My mistake.

  • KSH may not have had a flop drama, but he did very definitely have a flop movie which was produced by a member of his family, in which the late Sulli starred in. It wasn’t just a flop, it was widely panned by the media, I remember the level of vitriol leveled at him for starring in that lasted a few months. Now he’s Korea’s darling boy again, and all is forgotten. Lesson learned - choose projects wisely and get an efficient PR team.

    • I can't understand that you mean. Everyone who knows about KSH career, knows about Real and his failure. And? You think actor can't film in flop movie or drama, that people should remember it for decade and hating actor for this? This is not about good projects and efficient PR team, this is about adequacy. Any normal person will not refer to the actor's failed film or drama for so many years. Even if the actor had filmed in it yesterday, this is not a reason to cancel him or hate him. Such people need to check their head.

• Although I also compared him with Ksh in his early age, I think it's too early to call BWS next KDW or KSH. He needs at least another drama to show himself.
  Earlier I thought that Hwang In Youp can be next big actor, he was very popular after True beauty. Or Jung Ho Yeon from Squid game. But now I barely hear about them, and it's a pity, since both of them can be very charismatic on screen.
  Anyway, there are a lot of very good actors in Korea in their 20s and early 30s right now, although most of them playing second lead roles. But then I think about next big male actors, who got recognition enough to have high expectations about their casting news, only Lee Do Hyun and Choi Hyun Wook came to mind now. But hope situation will change.

  • @Olesya1 - yeah I agree, he needs a followup drama to do strong numbers i.e. ratings, to prove himself. Lovely Runner posted higher numbers than True Beauty and Start-Up like others have mentioned, but it's still just one drama and buzz can fade. Stans thinking he's going to be cast in the next Park Ji-eun drama or that he's going to be cast opposite Kim Ji-won (fresh off Queen of Tears i.e. the biggest hit in tvN history) are definitely jumping the gun.

    Can't speak for Hwang Inyeop but Jung Hoyeon, after a very promising start in Squid Game, hasn't had a single full-length role in an acting project released since 2021. She's been cast in a Na Hong-jin film but and three years is a long time to go without a film or drama release for even an established A-lister, forget a rookie with only one role so far. At least she got a lot of awards from it so her next projects will draw some attention when they finally release.

    • Out of interest why can't Kim ji won work with him? Ksh fresh off his popularity worked with shin minah.

    • @royalwe
      Just curious, cause popular IT boys always get partnered with veteran fl's though jiwon is young even younger than bws she's a veteran compared with him. It would be interesting to see Kim ji won opposite a rising actor. I could see Kjw and bwk having better chemistry than her and ksh, idk just an inkling I have since they're both so full of charm.

    • Good point Silja, Why can't he be paired with Kim Ji Won lol he's the most popular male lead right now and she's supposedly popular now due to QOT, seems like a perfect match to me.

    • this trend of new It Boys being paired with veteran actresses is a relatively recent thing and doesn't fit KJW's track record ever since her breakout with Fight My Way (leading men at least on par with or higher than her for stardom level with the exception of SSK and that drama had an A list writer in Park Hae Young). KJW right now is now more high profile than she's been in her entire career, Shin Minah wasn't in that same position when she did HomeCha.

      This is not a comment on what I think of the idea of a Kim Jiwon/Byun Wooseok pairing, I think they'd be charming but realistically I don't think it's going to happen at this point (and yeah ik how strange it is to call her a veteran compared to him considering she is younger) because she is picky about scripts and has turned down dramas with A list It boys before.

    • @royalwe

      I see what u mean actually. With seonho's project, even if shin minah is A list most people were anticipating him. I'd be interested to see now that Kim jiwon is so high profile, and will hopefully be the main bill who herleading man will be, at this point she doesn't need a hallyu actor. Many are eagerly anticipated her next project. It's also interesting that she's never been a noona or opposite a leading guy younger or even same age as her. I saw a dumb tiktok comment that she'd look much older than BWS if she's cast opposite him. I just think she's so versatile with her styling that offscreen she gives a younger vibe compared to her more mature onscreen characters. Still can't believe she pulled off playing a 30 something yr old in dots when she was early 20s.

    • @Silja yeah her next project will definitely be highly anticipated. Her choices aren't always conventional, she takes risks with her roles/dramas so not exactly predictable, and after QoT she probably has plenty of offers.

      I'm personally fine with her not getting cast opposite any younger male leads, so many of the actors in that 20s age group who do the dramas opposite veteran actresses are mediocre and just being carried by the skills of an older/more skilled female lead, if KJW has avoided that so far it's fine. It's true she hasn't been cast with anyone close in age to her either other than Park Seojoon and Kim Soohyun and they're both 4 years older than her, not a big difference.

      Anyone who thinks she looks older than BWS probably didn't watch him in anything other than the high school/college parts of Lovely Runner (he looks his age when he's playing older Ryu Sunjae who's supposed to be the same age as irl BWS) or her in anything other than Queen of Tears where she was purposely styled to look older.

    • @royalwe

      Its hard to predict what she'll do next, which makes following her next work more exciting. I know her fans want her to go beyond romance and do crime, but idk I feel like QOT was an angst fest. I want Kim ji won in a romcom, ffmw was her last real one and I miss seeing a bubbly/charming side of her plus her comedic timing is so good.As for ml, there's some some aged actors that I want to see her with like yang se-jong. Agree with u on many 20 somethings other than lee Jaewook, choi hyunwook and lee do hyun they're very meh.

    • @silja she's expressed an interest in doing something in the thriller genre and before QoT aired she received an offer for a drama with Jeon Doyeon (though she turned it down and the part ultimately went to Kim Goeun, it was the same drama that originally cast Song Hyekyo and Han Sohee before they left the project).

      in the middle of all this chat about a potential pairing of her and BWS, and knowing that she's now getting offers for more female-centric dramas, I'm more interested in seeing her in a drama with Kim Hyeyoon, they have Elsa/Anna (Frozen) vibes and we don't see enough buzzy kdramas led by two women, Little Women was the last one.

• I think the article meant to compare the level of phenomenal and not necessesarily the actors. I love Byeon woo seok I really hope him to show a magnificient achievement in his next project to keep his star status. The world is faster today, there are more competition and people forget things easily.

• I like BWS so hopefully he can maintain the momentum of this fame. I'd still like to see him get casted more as the male lead since he did work his way up.

• Haha even kfans think thats pushing it way too far. Outside of girl fans, mostly everyone are saying that in the comments. To be a syndrome, you need to be loved by fans of all ages. Thats a true syndrome. And you also have to be an amazing actor which is not precisely the case.

  And you are right Koala. The ‘4’ is just for poetry. Everyone knows KSH broke out much earlier than that. His succession of hits was truly insane and if I were to summarize, he went from winning KBS rookie in 2011 to Daesang in 2015. By 2014, he was already the biggest star in Korea in the 20s. And KDW also needs no introduction. BWS has a very very long way to go to reach either of these actors and this type of article is damaging. Even his fans agree with that.

• This article is so ridiculous LOL.
  I am a huge Lovely Runner fan after binging. SO GLAD I waited till it was done because i cannot wait weekly for it. I like Sol & adore Sun Jae who is definition of swoon. BWS did amaaazing. I'm in love and am obsessed with everything! Lee Si Eun the writer also wrote True Beauty so I was expecting it to be fun, but LR was miles better. It wasnt just a pretty boy, Sun Jae had soul. I love everything about him including the acting and depth.
  But but but... this article is so ridiculous LOL. Byun Woo Seok's rise is great and I'm so happy for him, but to compare him to Kang Dong Won(!!) and Kim Soo Hyun(!!!) is serious wtf-uckery. These two are amongst Korea's biggest stars. KDW has been at the top for 20 years now and maintained his status even without starring in a drama which none of his peers have managed. As for KSH, he is literally The. TOP. Actor. If he retired in 2015, his filmography would still be unmatched until today. That was his level. And just a month ago led tvN's biggest drama and the 3rd highest cable drama in history. The comparison is... so ridiculous.
  I hope BWS can build on his success and pick a challenging character for his next drama. If it is live shoot, its better so there is no long pause which is always the case with pre produced dramas. I am looking forward to his career!

• He needs at least another big drama to be considered on the KSH /KDW level. His break-out show's TV ratings is also not that big of a deal compared to KSH's TMETS or YFTS.

  • It’s going to take a lot more than just another big drama. Unless that big drama breaks 30% on cable and he wins Baeksang best actor for it. That’s literally what KSH did in his 20s with his second lead role.

    • No he doesn’t need a big 30% ratings drama to be a big star. LMH followed up the phenomenal success of BoF with Personal Taste which was a huge flop but it did nothing to hinder his popularity. Till date LMH is riding on the BoF and Heirs popularity. One big drama is enough to cement a celebrity. PBG hasn’t had a single hit since LITM but his superstardom remains undisputed.

• This reporter has lost his marbles. Kang Dong-won and Kim Soo-hyun? His agency needs to tone it down because this is embarrassing and setting him up for failure.

  Oh and this report thinks its ok to think of Lovely Runner in the same breath as You From Another Star and Temptation of Wolves? Is he fr? 😂

  • I thought for a second this is from cdramaland. This is mainstream tactics, trying to anchor yourself to big names, being called their younger version or successor. It’s bad strategy, you’ll just attract ite from the senior actor’s fans

    • Tell me about it. Stinks bad strategy from an ocean away. Its plain embarrassing.

      I am not a fan of either Kang Dong-won or Kim Soo-hyun but I dont even think their fans will be upset. It is just so implausible to make anyone upset fr 😂

    • @Rosie

      And there are also a lot of draft saying lovely runner beat qot in online popularity, seems like they’re bent on stepping on ksh