Comments on: Failed dramas still result in high star price tags

By: rain

rain — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:53:24 +0000

stars can have reasonable fees as long as they get a share in the profit, esp if the kdrama goes international. but management fees really should have a cap. it’s unfair to the artists.

By: diana

diana — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:15:34 +0000

maybe those dramas dont necessarily fail. yes, they fell badly in their home country but a lot of foreigners are a sucker for those kinds of dramas. maybe their real success is in their overseas market, you know: by selling licenses, etc. but, i can understand why this dramas flop big time. i’d say its becoz they’re far too cliche and too much whining. hahhaha

By: snow_drop*

snow_drop* — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:43:51 +0000

I didn’t know they are actually paid quite high. I think the reason, in my opinion, to these poor ratings is not in the script being bad (not all scripts are bad), not in the acting, but probably in the tendency of the production to drag. Or actually, to wrap things up in a very plain way as if it’s just for the sake of ending the series. It’s hard to produce high quality dramas when everything is around 15 – 16 episodes. Seems like a small amount of hours but to me that’s a lot of time to tell a story. There is a tendency to add in unnecessary stuff as well. The problem with watching many K-dramas for me right now is how to still be interested for 15 minutes. I find myself past forwarding every 5 minutes, and finished watching an hour’s worth of episode in less than 20 minutes…

By: Phyllyw

Phyllyw — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:13:02 +0000

No one has really asked why ratings are so low. First there are too many plots , many that use the same silly performers in scenes that have nothing to do with the story. Watching Mom’s Dead , the main plot was ten minutes. The rest was stupid conversation. This happens in most of your series. The producers should provide quality not junk. I Would rather see 18 interesting episodes rather than 50 or 100 episodes of people chasing their grown of fspring or screaming for no reason. Could we have fewer scenes where the actors get drunk. and are carried home, please, please produce a drama without this scene. it sets a bad example for young viewers..And why does every scene have ti be during a meal? Also It is sickening to have someone crying every five minutes .Do you really believe that people cry at the drop of a hat. I have stopped watching many dramas that become boring in spite of a great cast and a good plot. Somrtimes I just fast foreward the stupin parts , but it would be easier on the viewers to leave those scenes out completly. I don’t mind a good cinderella drama once in a while. Producers, you need to know what is in the script. before you pay millions
for performers, that hurt them and me. Don’t let writers run away or ruin a good drama and cause another flop.

By: javabeans

javabeans — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:39:52 +0000

klutzy, 지키다 means to guard, protect, watch over.

By: klutzy

klutzy — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:26:02 +0000

지켜줄게…. isn’t it officially “keep in your heart” and not “i’ll protect you”? just wondering…

By: Cass

Cass — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:51:33 +0000

well i think bad love, who are you , three daddies and 1 mommy and formidable rivals are all pretty good drama….i really enjoy all these dramas especially formidable rivals….well honestly, those drama with good ratings arent as nice as i had expected where as all these dramas as i had mention above are all good drama!…Good Job to them and they definately worth the price they received!

By: belleza

belleza — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:30:40 +0000

Yeah, Bad Love is a good example of this. It recuperated all its costs on initial Taiwan and Japanese sales, while it was still shooting. Casting Binnie and Hye Kyo in the same production is essentially an expensive insurance plan. It doesn’t matter if the show does poorly in South Korea; the China (esp. after Hye Kyo officially crosses over in the next John Woo film) and Philippines distributions right will pay for it anyway.

We are really talking about only a handful of actors here who can do that though. I still think that, for the most part, you’ll end up seeing much younger actors take on lead roles. And possibly you’ll end up seeing a lot more teen-oriented dramas . If the ratings aren’t high anyway, might as well. I mean, to cast Han Ye Seul in an expensive remake of Tazza? Does that make sense?

LBH’s Iris budget is 20 billion won, but I read somewhere that a huge chunk is really going into his salary. After they sign all the leads, uhhhh how are they going to film in 3 different countries without cheesing up the production?!?

By: Amber

Amber — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:38 +0000

But they do make some money (the stations I mean) even though some of them are drama flops in Korea. Overseas interest in K-dramas are high— from China, Japan, to South East Asia —the market clamors for it. Korean dramas rate much higher in countries like China, Singapore, The Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, than their other Asian counterparts. Once a K-drama has ended, you know a foreign station is already trying to buy it. Sometimes considerably so-so ratings in Korea, does not always translate to epic failure. For they always have a brand new audience outside of Korea. And even if they do not do as well as expected in that country, the stations still buy these flop dramas especially if there is a big star in it.

Just an example, in the Philippines from local stations to their sister cable companies, they are all saturated with K-dramas. These Korean produced dramas “killed” the once high clamor for Taiwanese and Latino telenovelas in that country. To an extent, “killed” their own brand of drama because people started preferring K-dramas.

Even the likes of Dal Ja’s Spring is beating the rival local show. Also, the rather dry and lackluster Hello! Miss is having a successful run there.

Sure, piracy is so abundant that people can either download it or buy it off the black market, but people still prefer watching their K-dramas dubbed in their language. Hence, the high clamor of Korean produced shows in both local and cable stations there.

Now, it all comes down to this effect. The reason for this supposed high salaries as hc said, it’s highly dependent on their star power not just in Korea but outside of their country. It’s not called the Hallyu wave for nothin’. I think though, 100 thousand dollars per episode is an obscene amount of money. That’s just filthy. Not good for a human being who’s just paid to brood on cam.

By: ji

ji — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:31:54 +0000

i had no idea these actors were paid so much, but i guess they do deserve it but there should be a better way of figuring how much dough an actor deserves, maybe based on their career/history/previous projects/popularity. most of those failures were up against Yi San so there is not much you can do about that. i think half of the ratings depend on the actors/ their popularity, and the other half depends on the script writers & the plot. i wonder how much do the script writers, pd and crew members get paid?, it would suck it most of the budget went to the actors, since the pd and crew seem suffer too working long hours, like Hong Gil Dong crew, the bts stuff shows them freezing/tired.