There is a lot of online K-netizen chatter feedback with the release of the first official posters for tvN drama Jung Nyeon, adapted from the same name webtoon. The drama is scheduled for a mid October release so in two months and has been a high profile project thanks to its prestige roots – the female lead is award winning Kim Tae Ri with a supporting cast of Shin Ye Eun, Ra Mi Ran, and Jung Eun Chae and a story adapted from a female empowerment webtoon. But once it was revealed that the drama is eliminating a female character who has a lesbian love line with the female lead and also her own story of overcoming male workplace bullying, it upset fans who felt like two important storylines were being erased. The released poster has brought back those complaints and also criticism of the poor aesthetic design from one group but the other side thinks it’s too early to judge.
I don’t think poster quality has ever been an indication of drama quality lol. Anyway I’m pretty excited for KTR’s return. She’s always been so reliable with her drama picks. A lot of expectations on her as usual, so hope she comes through.
Well that looks terrible, goes nicely with the lesbian erasure.
These posters looks the Gyeonseong Creature posters.
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I really like these posters, they look very cool to me. But what about the drama, the more I read about it, the more I get disappointed by their decision. This character was not only a lesbian, or overcoming male workplace bullying , but also one of the main leads of webtoon. Not some third main lead, so they could easily make up a reason to remove her, but important character, and their intentions to cut off her are pretty clear.
It’s a second drama of director where was removed female centric parts from webtoon. First one The Red Sleeve, now this. I don’t know if she has something to do with changing of the plot, or if she has some power to change it, but I will be interested to find out info about her next drama.
Oh, also they have the same production company.
Not feeling the top poster, but I really like the second one. I hope the drama’s will at least try to incorporate the removed character’s story in the other characters and that it won’t be a complete erasure.
Stick to the original story, jeez. Its why it was popular to begin with!
I can foresee this still being good but it always sucks when producers chicken out instead of staying true to their source material. Maybe they could have been bolder if it was an OTT original. The first poster looks oddly photoshopped/AI generated, but the second has a nice cinematic look to it.
The posters actually depend on the source material. I haven’t read the webcomic, but maybe this is how it looks like, so …
The male workplace bullying might still be in the show – attributed to another character. Adaptations often do that.
As for the lesbian character… I guess that sadly the producers decided to sacrifice this for the sake of high ratings. We maybe clamoring, but the general public unfortunately wouldn’t take well to it if it were included. But. We haven’t watched the show yet, so maybe something is salvaged.
Kim Tae Ri’s movie The Handmaiden become famous in Korea and abroad with lesbian plotline. Webtoon Jeong Nyeon a popular in Korea with lesbian character.
I don’t think lesbian character can affect a ratings of drama, if plot interesting by itself people will be watching it, especially if drama a female centric at the first place.
That’s naive. The Handmaiden is a movie which has an entirely different audience base and expectations. For example movies have very different standards on what is considered acceptable for bed scenes or action scenes. Those that would not at all be okay on cable, let alone public channels.
The queer community is still not accepted on a mass level in SK, so thinking a lesbian themed drama would not affect ratings in any way is rather naive. TV audiences are different from movie audience. Expectations are different too. I may not agree with them removing a very integral character, but I won’t pretend like that’s not a commercial and ratings driven decision. Because it most definitely is.
That’s not naive. I know about homophobia and conservative people in Korea, and I think Korea way more acceptive now than America was 25 years ago. And America with Canada made a hit show “Queer as folk” at 1999, where almost all main characters were gay. One of the main actors said “This was the times when someone can meet you on the streets and thanking for filming in this show, and some other can trying to kill you for the same thing”. Things in Korea way more calmer, and still some production companies or director/writers scaring to move left or right to do any risk. I know, some homophobic people would be complaining and hating drama for lesbian part, but they’re not majority: ordinary people more acceptive than you think, and they will be okay with lesbian character as long as drama and character are interesting and good written. As they were okay with gay character in Prison Playbook and with a man in the woman body dating with a man in the Mr. queen. And as a gay drama Semantic error become very popular in Korea despite being aired only on non-famous korean stream service, got nominations on some korean awards ceremony, won popularity awards, and got interview with main actors on MBC channel. And this is with budget of 1 million $, nugu actors and not popular stream service. While Jeong Nyeon has bigger budget, Kim Tae Ri as a main lead and tvN as a channel. If production company thinks lesbian character can be a reason for a low ratings this is their problem. As long as they keep thinking like that, they will still keep going censoring their dramas and put boundaries between any drama and drama with lesbian/gay main lead. They’re the one acting like this is a problem, although webtoon very popular and has 100 000 korean subscribes on Naver.
Uhh, your very long comment is so naive. South Korea is more receptive today than 25 years ago? Yea, sure. Who said otherwise? That you think that means now dramas with queer subject matters as a major plot line won’t be affected by ratings on the basis of them being better than 25 years ago? That’s simply laughable. This is not a mutually exclusive situation and an improvement doesn’t mean elimination. Particularly not when the topic at hand is tv – a medium where the audience is of an older demographic.
The fact that you continue mentioning movies and now OTT as examples shows that you clearly don’t understand we are talking about RATINGS. Not buzz, not random MBC interviews and not some award function acknowledgement. We are talking ratings – money from investors, results in quantitative form. An interview or an award won’t bail a bad rated drama. Also utterly ironic of you to mention Mr Queen – a drama where the entirety of it visually saw a female and male romance till the very end despite taking on a queer subject theoretically. And even more ironic is that that very subject matter and its place in history was what caused so much controversy and why it was excluded from many awards despite the stellar performances. So much for open mindedness…
As for the thousands of subscribers you are mentioning, once again, you cannot seem to understand this is about RATINGS. Not about what the online community is talking about or what is topping the topic charts. If that had any correlation to ratings, LR wouldn’t have had just 5% in their finale. You honestly either don’t understand ratings, or are just that naive. Bluntly, if you wanna believe SK is so reformed that having a lesbian love line as the main romance in a major flagship drama wont affect it ratings (whether that be in a small or big way), all I can say is good for you to have such rose tinted glasses. I’d rather live in reality but that’s just me. We’ll need to agree to disagree here because this isn’t half as interesting a convo for me to write another long comment on. I’ve said what I think and I’ve got nothing.
You don’t live in reality and I’m in the rose tintled glasses, you just passesive aggressive with me from the first comment, and trying hard to talking high with me like I’m just naive silly girl with a dream. And I can’t understand why, if you disagree with me you can just stay by it, without talking about ME, my rose glasses and naivety.
You mentioned Mr. Queen, but why didn’t say anything about Prison Playbook? One of the main leads was a gay, and drama was a hit on tvN, if we’re talking about ratings. Cable and TV channels already had gay/lesbian characters in straight dramas, one of the examples teacher in Hometown Cha Cha Cha. Queer characters not forbidden on TV channels.
How do you think queer dramas started to get popular in other countries? Do you think they waited unless whole country become tolerant and acceptive? No, risk always was considered, but success surprisingly followed, because, I repeat, majority more acceptive than you think. Korea more acceptive and tolerant than you think. People would be watching anyway, because this is Kim Tae Ri, and probably a good interesting drama. I doubt millions of people will stop watching show they find interesting because some lesbian would show up on the screen. And this isn’t naivety, this is realism. But you can just keep acting like majority of dramas audience in Korea are a huge homophobics who doesn’t have a chance to any tolerance and wouldn’t stand watch a drama as soon as they would find out about a lesbian character. I will wait when some production company and TV channel would be ready to take a risk, won’t do this stupid censorship and will prove an opposite.
@Nena There is apparently not a single male cast member in the whole drama. Not even the minor supporting characters are male unless the only male characters are unnamed extras who don’t have more than 5 mins of screen time.
I really hate adaptation from webtoon and novel,they are pain in a$$ and ppl always have something to complain ab bfffffffffffff
The Glory really resurrected Shin Ye Eun’s carer. I remember a few years ago they were trying to make her happen in a succession of failed dramas and it wasn’t working and she was crying on a TV show to Moon Ga Young because all her dramas flopped and she felt responsible.
This is why sometimes it’s good for actors to take a step back and star in a good supporting role in quality production than an average lead role in yet another a mediocre production. The former will do way more for an actor’s career than the latter even if they don’t have a top billing