IU and Byun Woo Seok Personally Apologize for Production Details that Spawned Historical Distortion Controversy in K-drama Perfect Crown
All I personally felt about fantasy romance K-drama Perfect Crown was that it had all the elements to be a great drama and I was disappointed that it never lived up to its potential and was quite mediocre to bad in quality. But it didn’t offend me so the drama getting mired in a huge controversy at the very tail end of its run is both a surprise and rather feels like kicking the cat when its down. The last two episodes got netizens panties in a knot with a few scene elements. When Byun Woo Seok marries IU, her character is referred to a moniker used for the wife of a prince born to a concubine, but there is another official name for a wife of a prince born to a queen so the drama used the wrong one. Then when Byun Woo Seok becomes King, he wears a hat with nine tassels which was worn by Joseon Kings when the country was a tributary to the Qing dynasty, and he should have worn a hat with 12 tassels reflecting an independent monarchy. Also the officials chant “cheon se” or thousand years to the monarch when the correct chant is “man se” or ten thousand years. These inaccurate details are such that feels demeaning to K-netizens as a reminder of the signs of when Joseon was lesser than to the Chinese oppressors. IU and Byun Woo Seok have both personally addressed and apologized for this controversy, which honestly is not their problem but I can see why its easier to just apologize since they are the face of the drama.
Not a fan of the actors and don’t plan to watch this drama, but is IU had plastic surgery?. her nose looks similar to her BF LJS.
considering we saw a whole drama get cancelled off the air five years ago for ‘historical distortion’ (in a drama about ZOMBIES IN JOSEON of all things) and other celebrities get cancelled out of the industry for trying to defend themselves when they feel they were wrongly or unfairly accused of something (e.g. Yoon Eunhye), I’m not surprised both IU and BWS chose to apologise just to prevent a worse pile-on.
The disclaimer in front of every drama literally states it’s fiction but you never know what people can get touchy about. Back in 2006 (literally 20 years ago) the French were up in arms that Sofia Coppola dared to depict Marie Antoinette as a flawed but maligned human being and not a cackling evil witch that was the popular French idea of her, and that was an iconic and influential movie in the years afterwards. So this phenomenon is not restricted to Korea by any means.
Iu trash thought she gotta get new new queen of tears
But the drama exposed her acting chops as comedy actress no style icon and it flopped. Her fans used to mock kim ji won as second choice for qot. Karma is a biatch. Now that iu fan will come n mock my face who is busy n booked doing met Gala n fave of dior. Ur local trash is too flop to be global force
can kpop fans stay away from kdrama discussions please.
We don’t care about whatever victim complex you’ve got on behalf of whichever idol you’ve got a parasocial relationship with.
Whatever idol is more global than ur iu trash with her blockbuster dramas on Netflix Amazon and disneys most matched k drama ever.
Iu trashgggg is a biatch apologising for flopping. U don’t own the blog
That person is not worth replying to. she just token-stans other actresses to hate on whoever she’s in the mood to bash (either suzy or now IU). she always used kim go eun, han so hee, and kim tae ri to hate on suzy too. now she’s token-stanning jisoo and kim ji won to hate on IU. just deranged lol
@Wujian – I get it but I’m still tired of having idiot kpop stan children polluting the comment space of this blog.
U r drenaged stanning someone who sexualiz* minors in her songs and is getting dragged for that. Pathetic stans like royal n wujian
take your tantrums and go back to tiktok and brain rot, child.
I don’t understand why the site admin doesn’t allow immediate comment posting if they are not going to filter crazy ppl like her
Remember jisoo got blamed for snowdrop because she is popular than any actress. Iu should take the blame toom simple
Demanding historical accuracy in the fixtures and fittings, costumes etc., in a drama about a modern day monarchy in Korea. Hahahaha!
I’m amazed at the level of hate some people dedicate to strangers. This behaviour is quite sad and disturbing.
I’ve always thought kpop stans are toxic (and they are). but reading the comments on this site, i think kdrama fans are just as catty, snarky, and toxic as kpop stans lol. i’m a new fan of kim so hyun and kim yoojung so i backread the posts about them on this site and let’s just say, i can’t believe it’s grown-ass women that are commenting in here with the amount of toxicity and cattiness in the comments. it’s like i’m back in high school with the mean girl comments. and what’s crazy is that these are probably 30-40+ years old women commenting vile sh*t towards female celebrities, often way younger than they are. just insane!
I think all quote popular fandoms are like that. If something or someone becomes popular they attracting toxic fans who projecting their insecurity and complex on things they choose to be a “fan” of. And using “fanwars” as to make themselves feel better.
Those fans thinking if some celebity/drama/movie achieved some kind of recognition or success, it’s their own achievement. They brag about it like they’re the ones who got recognition and success.
And if some person/project they projecting on themselves and their own insecurity and complexes didn’t got recognition they considering as their own, they getting mad and starting to insult and badmouth whoever they considering as “less impactful”. Again, to feel themselves better. And to feel some kind of superiority.
But besides that, other fandoms have a lot of toxicity too: sport fandoms, superheroes like Marvel and DC fandoms, anime fandoms, pop music fandoms (Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo fans have toxic fans too), western show fandoms (for example Stranger things fandom), computer games fandoms, etc etc.
I remember when the game “No, I’m not a human” become quote popular and got a fans, someone posted “OMG, this fandom is so peaceful and non-toxic” and people responded “Lol, give it a month”.
The moment something becomes popular, it attracts toxic people projecting their inner complexes and inferiority either on people or on fictional characters.
And kpop is one of easiest way to do it as companies feeding it to make more money. Some idols really dislike such type of fans and trying to educate their fandoms don’t act like that (while some idols acting opposite, encouraging fans to act more toxic, for their own benefit), but as long as companies using it, kpop will be one of easiest ways for toxic type of people to act toxic.
And by the way toxic fans saying some things I can say there’s something wrong in their heads because it’s weird how some strangers like celebrities they never met makes them write such things.
I’ve mentioned before that real world has been throwing out trashes & uglies day in and day out, so I see one got lost here 😬
Whose fan is this unhinged canon ball? Jisoo of Blackpink? Girl, just support your idol and stop making a fool of yourself. Come again once Jisoo earns her whatever 1st solo daesang, be it singing or acting.
For the apology – I think a lot of people who are reacting in good faith know the actors are not responsible for the controversy. There are just a lot of people jumping on the hate wagon. Still, the actors are not just any actors. They’re ambassadors for the show and the main draw for the show’s success, so apologizing is the right move to try to quell ire. And I hope this blows over for them quickly.
I feel like the manse vs cheonse thing was a little weird since manse is a much more well-used and understandable term (man = 10 thousand; cheon = 1 thousand) and depending on which time period a sageuk takes place in, we hear manse vs cheonse. Gojong doing his own thing and just declaring Korea an empire was a big note in korean history so I’m surprised that this wasn’t more easily picked up on and corrected. Especially as we’re talking about a Korea that was powerful enough to successfully fend off Japan and continue the monarchy. But at least, they’ve gone and edited those chants out.
All the other stuff were a bit too subtle to pick up on. The crown was probably a prop from another Joseon sageuk. They were probably too busy cutting the writing down from 16 episodes to 12 and making do with the budget leftover.
I do understand the fears of intentional historical distortion to subtly influence the audience. It’s like how we feel squeamish around propaganda. I really hate it when stuff like this just causes another round of tensions between South Korea and China.
@prettyautumn – yeah I can see it from that point of view, the point isn’t whether they’re responsible or not or whether they have to apologise for not being perfectly well versed in what would work for an alternate universe where a monarchy still exists, the point is to prevent this from causing serious or lasting damage to their careers (particularly BWS, for whom this otherwise cements that he does have appeal to audiences as a romantic lead outside of Lovely Runner + is viable to cast opposite big name actresses in his age group – IU’s reputation and standing in the industry are much more established).
Someone in other comments suggested that the historical divergence in the show’s timeline seems to happen pre-Gojong (I guess in trying to sidestep the abdication, eventual Japanese-forced abdication, colonial rule and the division of Korea – like Goong, it never addresses that at all) but you never know what will set people off considering practically every recent-ish fantasy sageuk or ‘AU kingdom’ drama from Mr Queen to The King to Joseon Exorcist has had controversies about pro Chinese or pro Japanese elements
Crown Prince is not a fantasy drama. There are no supernatural elements in the plot. It’s mainly a love story. People nitpicking the historical accuracy should spend their precious time watching documentary rather than bitching about a fictional romance drama. Truly much ado about nothing. lol