Nineteen-year-old Go Ara (Who Are You) is taking on not just one, but two new drama roles. One has already been announced, which pits her opposite U-Know Yunho in the soccer drama Heading to the Ground.
The other is the Japanese series Karei naru Spy, which just began airing on July 18 and stars Nagase Tomoya and Fukada Kyoko. She’ll appear in the third episode, which airs on August 1, playing a Korean actress who connects with Nagase Tomoya, a swindler-turned-government spy, and talks with him about his painful past. She has already filmed the episode, which marks her Japanese television debut.
Meanwhile, Heading to the Ground features Ara as a sports agent and premieres on September 9.
This is an interesting article, in that it looks at the low numbers faced by current Monday-Tuesday drama The Man Who Can’t Get Married and analyzes it from a cultural perspective. Most low-rated dramas (that aren’t disasters of writing/acting) tend to explain their disappointing numbers in terms of being too complicated for the average viewer or lacking in “makjang” (convoluted, unrealistically dramatic) qualities, but The Man Who Can’t Get Married is a bit different in that it’s also adapted from a Japanese series that enjoyed quite a lot of popularity. So why is the Korean version faltering?
The Man Who Can’t Get Married can’t attract popularity
Hidden birth secrets, mother/daughter-in-law conflicts, a handsome chaebol who falls for an ajumma without reason — it has none of those. All it has is the “man who can’t get married” who has reached the age of forty as a bachelor because of his extremely fastidious temperament.
KBS’s Man Who Can’t Get Married, remade from the popular 2006 Japanese drama of the same name, has been unable to shake off its low single-digit ratings. Compared to other dramas that have been remade from Japanese series like White Tower and Boys Before Flowers, it’s a disappointing result.
The Man Who Can’t Get Married [결혼 못하는 남자] is a new KBS series that will replace Story of a Man come June. You may already know that it is based on the popular Japanese drama Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (which means “man who can’t get married”), which aired in 2006
The drama held a script reading–cum–press conference on May 6 at the Yongpyong Selra Resort in Kyeonggi province, attended by its main stars Ji Jin-hee (of Spotlight; isn’t he looking adorable?), Uhm Jung-hwa (Insadong Scandal), and Kim So-eun (Boys Before Flowers).
There’s an article in the Korea Times (in English) that points out some issues in Korean drama production and what could be improved by looking at the Japanese drama production model. I won’t reprint the whole article here, but the gist is:
Korean dramas have higher actor fees, which leads to inflated budgets and smaller profit margins (or losses); twice-weekly broadcasts keep ratings and buzz high but adds to frantic pace of production. On the other hand, Japanese dramas hand out lower salaries; once-weekly episodes have shorter running times, which gives production more time to ensure higher quality.
I think most of us here are savvy about drama production, particularly since the problems are highlighted whenever a high-profile series becomes known for its behind-the-scenes scrambling (ahem, Boys Before Flowers, East of Eden). Already we’ve had similar discussions in many threads here, but still, it’s an interesting read.
The Korean Foundation of International Cultural Exchange is working with the Japan Broadcast Writers Association in a joint “TV drama project,” which was announced at the TV Drama Writers’ Conference of East Asia, held in the city of Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture on June 10 and 11.
Plans were announced for a drama series in which eight Japanese drama writers will each be responsible for scriptwriting two hours’ worth of material, to be produced by a Korean production company and air as early as December. Writers include Inoue Yumiko (Pandora, First Kiss) and Oishi Shizuka (Kunitori Monogatari, Komyo ga Tsuji). Casting is unconfirmed, although the names being thrown around for consideration include Lee Byung Heon, while director Yoon Seok-ho of Winter Sonata has given his informal assent.
Given the success of Winter Sonata (and by extension, Yonsama) in Japan, I suppose the director was an obvious choice. There have been other joint-production attempts to capitalize on the Hallyu craze, but they haven’t had the success they were aiming for. There was the 2004 short drama Friends pairing Won Bin with Fukada Kyoko, and, more recently, Tokyo Shower. (I believe 2006’s Japanese drama Rondo with Choi Ji Woo fared better, although it perhaps didn’t live up the hope of becoming a runaway hit.)
Meanwhile, production house Olive Nine is already working on a drama to be filmed in Japan, tentatively titled Lovers in Asuka. The 20-episode series is set in the town of Asuka in Nara Prefecture and will be written by Kang Eun Jung, one of the writers of Lovers in Paris. I suppose they figured they hadn’t milked the “lovers in [insert city]” concept enough yet.
I’m not sure about Asuka, but I’m curious to see how Japanese scriptwriters bring (or don’t bring) a different feel to a kdrama production. (Also, the rotating writers thing worries me — although it’s not an automatic detractor, it’s a risky move.)
There’s an 
