Yoona Confirmed to Romance Lee Bum Soo in Prime Minister and I
If the behemoth that is SM Entertainment produces a drama, it might not be geared towards making money and could function more as a platform to showcase its stable of young talent. That is how I always saw To the Beautiful You, but SM does have an acting arm called SM C&C (culture and content) that reps very established actors in addition to some of their idol stars who have been promoted in recent years to cross over into acting. Of all the SNSD girls, Yoona has always received the preferential treatment and I seriously do not get it. She’s neither the most attractive and definitely not the best actress potential of the bunch. If SM cast her in a drama I have zero interest in, then it doesn’t affect my watching choices, but she’s now been confirmed to join Lee Bum Soo in the upcoming Prime Minister and I and that is totally not cool with me. Lee Bum Soo is intensity and charisma personified onscreen. Yoona is like the opposite of that when I watch her act. I’m sure Yoona fans aren’t happy with her being cast opposite an actor 20 years older than her, so her fans can bitch and so can I for having such a wet blanket cast opposite the smexy ahjusshi that is Lee Bum Soo. In Prime Minister and I, Lee Bum Soo plays a forty-something young Prime Minister with a household full of unruly kids. Yoona is a 26 year old reporter who goes undercover in his residence as the music tutor to get a story, and she ends up falling in love with him and whipping his household in order as the stand in mother figure to the kids. So its kinda like The Singing Nice Housekeeper, as opposed to robotic Choi Ji Woo‘s version of tough love in The Suspicious Housekeeper. If I were to be supremely optimistic, maybe Lee Bum Soo is what it takes to transform Yoona into a decent actress. Who knows, stranger things have happened.
Above is the first episode script for Prime Minister and I, which is airing on KBS Mon-Tues after Marry Him If You Dare (Mirae’s Choice). That pits it against Empress Ki with Ha Ji Won and Joo Jin Mo as well as Kind Words with Ji Jin Hee and Han Hye Jin. Unlike the pretty boy contingent duking it out on Wed-Thurs (Lee Min Ho, Jang Geun Seok, Kim Soo Hyun), the Mon-Tues timeslot offers manly older dudes with their own brand of sex appeal.
omg NO!! this is gonna be gross … PLZ no kiss scene .
Aiyooo. sheesh. I dont like her either. Cant we get junhyung to play the housekeeper? PEOPLE, i am kidding :).
Ahahaha! Made me spit out my coffee.
Well, he said he would come back to acting if it will be a challenging role!! He he
There’s nothing gross about it per se but Yoona has such a little kid vibe… I’m still going to check it out for Lee Bum Soo.
totally agree with rina. though i’ve seen half of Time Slip Dr. Jin, I still associate LBS with On Air, with Park Yong Ha.
i would like to think of this more as a modernized Sound of Music — a nanny who fell in love with the man of the house.
btw, i would go with ms koala’s optimism that this series may be the vehicle to “transform Yoona into a decent actress.” Nice thought…
I have no problems with the set-up…if we can have noona romances, why not younger woman-a bit older man ones….but only if the actors are good….like Sooyoung and Lee Jong Hyuk, who had amazing chemistry in Dating Agency Cyrano….
hopefully Yoon-ah has improved in terms of acting….
Great point – older man/younger woman relationships are fairly common in real life compared to older woman/younger man relationships. I don’t see why people should be disgusted.
exactly!
even im not a fan of Yoona but i really do hope she could learn acting from her sunbae.. but this is SM’s drama.. well.. goodluck!
Which is exactly why they should have cast Sooyoung. She fits the bill perfectly, SNSD, SM Idol, etc.
I’m so peeved right now.
Oh Right… they even have Jung So-min. WTH SM?
Me too, the older man younger woman is a lot more common that noona-dongsaeng romances and I am definitely okay with lee Bum soo as the older guy in the equation, just not yoona as the other side of coin. It’s painful to watch her go to acting beyond her range.
I was actually a fan of her with You are my destiny, her as sebak was acceptable and was like an endearing friend I wanted to cheer on sort of way. And back then I was had just started my korean drama fetish so only have a few dramas under my belt thus I was not yet introduced to actors who can breathe life and soul to a character. But now i want more than eye candy, I need more in my dramas than just a plucky likeable character. She definitely is not one of actress I think that you want to pair of the charismatic Lee Bum Soo. Lee Bum Soo will eat her alive.
Am okay with her in high school teen drama, I think she can pull that off. I just don’t think this one can be that acting drama she can pull off.
I get she is like the FACE of SNSD, but do we have to be subjected to limited range of emotion with her acting. Among the SNSD members, I can definitely say that SooYoung has the best acting props and I think she can still improve based from the progress she has made from drama to another. She was good in Third Hospital and was better in Cyrano dating agency. After her dramas, I wished sooyoung to focus on acting rather than be a sidelined member of SNSD. That’s how much I saw much progress in her. Though I still don’t know if she can act with Lee Bum SOo though…. ?__?
But even then, if SMEnt needed to shove all their talents down our throat with another SNSD member, why not have SooYoung?
Aisshh, I really don’t get this?
They had acquired the SM C&C and have real actor under their belt, why not have those take these role. I mean they have JUNG SO MIN who is by far and high waters can act around YOONA.
But as koala mentioned, maybe BumSoo can pull an actress out of Yoona. I hope and wish that would be, for BumSoo’s sake.
Sigh
I wish SM had kept their grubby hands in K-pop idol land.
I can probably think of at least half a dozen actresses I would prefer in this role.
I hate that SM has the clout to strong arm their idols into major roles opposite actors that I really enjoy. It’s like being forced to eat twinkies with top grade sushi.
LOL, so true! Totally agree. I can now only write this off as a lost cause, watch something else, and hole that in turns of ratings Empress Ki becomes a National Drama.
Empress ki and ha ji won in that fighter dress …bursting charisma …whereas yoona . 🙁 yoona does best wat she shd do .being an idol .she is good visual great at dancing .good in variety . As an actress may b she doesnt hav tht actress face . I cant realy expres .she has a doll like face but lacks tht look of an actress that sucks u in her charactr ….in short she is idol material not actress one
I don’t mind the age gap, but I think the pairing is a bit off.
I’m more disappointed by Lee Bum Soo whose recent picks have been far from decent whether its Dr Jin or Iris 2…. and now this show which doesn’t sound that promising even by itself (even if we took Yoona out of the picture)…he could and should be doing far more interesting stuff….and ofc sm would cast Yoona…if it wasn’t her it would be another one of their starlets with little to no talent like Lee Yeon Hee or Go Ara
SM C&C just acquired some nice young talent, couldn’t they have used one of their actual skilled actresses? Oh wait this is SM and these dramas aren’t meant to show talent but serve as promotional vehicles for their non existent SM trained talent (Sooyoung might be an exception). That said this set up on paper doesn’t bother me since it happens all of the time in real life and definitely in recent years in Korean ent marriages. Its just that Lee Bum Soo and Yoona are so poorly matched in terms of acting ability that I just don’t see this working. If they casted a young actress that could measure up to Lee Bum Soo is acting ability and charisma this would actually work since the main female lead would be able to go toe to toe with the male lead but its going to be a definite stretch to believe that lee bum soo falls for wet blanket yoona in a romantic sense.
The age gap doesn’t bother me (I’d be quite ok with this if the girl they cast was Sooyoung), but the difference in skill level…..that does. And I say this as someone who thought Yoona was pretty good in Love Rain.
(never understood the fuss around her as a SNSD member, though – unless idol appeal is based solely on variety show performance or something. The girl can’t sing, looks like an electrocuted praying mantis when she’s doing a dance move requiring any fluidity, and isn’t the all-natural beauty her fans paint her as).
You can say what ever you wan about Yoona but she is a great dance, sharpest and most fluid in her group tbh. I don`t know what video of Yoona did you saw or you maybe confused her with Tiffany or Jessica but, she has great dancing skills.
I`l, watch this for Lee Beom Soo , and i hope he can help Yoona shine in this role. I don`t think she is bad actress but she rally needs a role that will showcase her acting skill, non of those `pretty girl next door` type of roles.This could be a good change for her.
And, if i could survive Suzy , Kim Hyun Joong, Taecyeon, Yunho , Minho, Yunghwa , Krystal etc, i can definitely survive anything Yoona throws at me.
I really like Yoon-ah. She has this naive, innocent vibe to her so this could be endearing. She always gets the preferential treatment because she’s the most popular out of SNSD. There was a time 2 years or so ago when she’d get all the popularity awards and was the ‘it’ girl.
But I’m not in love with this pairing. I really wish she starts getting paired with actors around her age because I feel she’s most comfortable with them – and her fans are happier that way too. I think LBS has a lot of charisma which she lacks so it could be odd. But the age difference don’t eeek me out. In the drama its around 15 years which is alright. It’s pretty normal in RL anyway.
hahahah,you have the exact opinion as me.why does she always get the preferential?she is neither attractive and suck in acting. I hope they dont waste LBS’s talent..sigh..
Story sounds very much like The Sound of Music to me.
Why is it gross! I don’t like this paring but I don’t find it disgusting either! Yes I sense zero chemistry but defiantly not because of the age gap. I find him a great actor and she’s way far from him.
Anyway I don’t intend to watch this drama. The other upcoming dramas are much more promising!
I think soo young is way too tall for lee bum soo maybe that’s why…
She’s only about an inch taller than Yoona, lol
poor poor lee bum soo. Sigh just the thought of yoona makes me cringe.
Ugh…exactly why they keep casting this chick who can’t act to save her life, someone will have to explain to me.
Dear SM, please stay away from dramas n movies UNLESS ur using real actors and not trying to showcase ur idols. Kthanks
Hopefully magic will happen on the scene where Yoona can act rightfully to match with her male lead. It is such a wasteful if we end-up watch a beautiful story line, but no chemistry between Yoona and Lee Bum Soo because lack of acting from a female lead. I assume this story line look like a movie “The Sound of Music”.
Not so interested in Yoona or her acting, so I may have to pass on this drama.
While reading the premise of the drama I kind of got a Sound of Music feel to the plot. Unruly kids, strict father type, and a singing nanny/tutor (but Yoona is no Julie Andrews). lols
Oh my. You dont know the power ofyoona. Once, their is comparision between her and suzy and the hates comments people downgrading suzi is like zillllions out there and people really taking her as the most most most gorgoues in the world.
I dont know but she is the most worst actress i just cant watch i hope she know how to say no to an acting offer and do to acting class first.
Please ,there is no comparasion between her and Suzy, Suzy is far worse.
Yoona is not bad actress, she just always plays same type of roles and it gets boring.
Suzy on the other hand tried different characters but she just sucks at all.
Now that you mentioned JSM, I’m imagining her as Maria to LBS’s Captain. That makes me cry that it won’t happen.
I have never watched a Yoona drama. I am guessing she’s going to be playing it sweet?
I hope they cast the lead girl student from the Queen’s Classroom. She would be great with LBS.
Yoona’s not THAT bad, she can do cute but definitely doesn’t have the chops for a lead role. And I love Seo Shin-ae, but I can’t see her being anything but one of the kids here, she’s only 13 or something.
I agree word by word about Yoona and have no clue what’s her deal.. she is the most popular SNSD girl from what I’ve seen and I don’t really know why
Yoona isn’t all that bad of an actress though. She definitely has potential but she can’t really showcase it with all the candy roles she is given.
And yes as a Yoona fan, I feel kind of weird that she will have to kiss a guy 20 years older than her. With that said, I feel like it will be an interesting drama nonetheless.
I can’t believe all the criticism of YOONA. Yoona and Lee Bum Soo acting was excellent in the drama prime minister & I. The characters were perfect for each lead. Yoona & Lee Bum Soo has on screen chemistry, that age difference wasn’t noticed because of the superb acting by the two. I was memorized by this show and the acting ability of the two.
This show had great casting. All the cast was perfectly picked. YOONA has grown in her ability as a actress on this Drama “Prime Minister & I. Let’s congratulate her instead of tearing her down.