Ratings for the drama Heading to the Ground (HTTG), starring Yunho, Go Ara, and Lee Yoon Ji, have been lower than expected. But why is that? Some professional critics seek to blame Yunho. My response: Dude, don’t blame the newbie for what appears to be the total rejection of the actual script.
Doing a random search of comments from sites like asianfanatics, soompi and popseoul reveal Yunho’s debut acting skills may not be the reason for the low ratings. There are plans to end the drama a couple of episodes earlier than expected.
Most criticism I’ve come across directly relate to the storyline itself as the problem. The drama’s script has been called “slow”, “confusing” and full of “distractions”. I’ll just post a few of the many comments I’ve read.
Yman ms.12 (asianfantics) commented that Yunho’s skills as a actor are good for a newcomer and goes on to say “but the story is kinda confusing”.
“His acting has improved with each episode and he’s able to express a wide range of emotions,” says rayneweather.
Laurana1 (soompi) said, “Poor Yunho… At least he has always done his best. I hope he doesn’t feel sad, because he shouldn’t.”
This sentiment was echoed by lil’ zen (soompi) who also put the blame on the storyline: “Poor guy…he put in so much effort for the show…it isn’t his fault the storyline didn’t really attract people. “
These views were also echoed by blue232 (asianfantics) who, too, pointed the finger at the story saying, “Well the storyline is so so. After a couple of episodes, I got bored. I don’t think it has to do with his acting.”
Hearing the news that drama will end a little earlier than expected, ArJoe19 (asianfanatics) blamed the director for dragging out the story:
“im [totally] upset if the director had stop dragging the story and payed (sic) more attention on the romance of yunho and go ah ra then it wouldnt have had such low rating. plus i dnt (sic) like the clingy best friend she is just too much”
Jo (popseoul) said that there are just too many distractions: “He was selling chicken then entered a mental hospital and now singing on stage? There’s too many distractions… the script has gotta improve.”
Our Faith~ (popseoul) had this to say:
“i would say this drama is hilarious and a nice drama to watch cos the casts are really cute,esp Yunho,Ara and Yoon ji. But the script doesn’t works (sic) out that well cos its a little messed up,which is a pity cos the awesome casts are actually the ones that got me watching despite the bad storyline.”
Directly commenting about Yunho’s acting skills, blueharu (popseoul) thinks that while Yunho isn’t the best actor in the world, he’s actually doing a good job in his first drama:
“Yunho’s acting is not that bad… but it’s not superb too. I think he’s actually doing a great job. [HIs] comical acting is somewhat effective in an awkward kind of way. LOL.”
icedevil0289 (asianfantics) slammed the slow way in which the drama’s plot evolved, saying:
Yunho will probably blame himself, but in all honesty it’s not his fault. Yeah his acting was not that great in the beginning, but it has improved quite a bit. It’s just the writing is not coherent at all. The entire hospital/losing memory arch was just completely out of the blue and used as a ploy to make it more suspenseful, but it ended up doing the opposite. It was actually quite boring waiting for Yunho to get his memory back.
Yoosutic (asianfanatics) heard that the writer for the drama may have been a “newbie” and talked about the flow of the drama saying, “the consistency [and] flow sucked. the editing was also horrible not to mention this was a low budget drama. sm sponsored drama. “
Of course, there were also some people who don’t want to see any singer get into acting, which may have colored their view on HTTG before they even watched it.
All in all, most of the comments I’ve read were supportive of Yunho’s first attempt at being the male lead for a drama, but wished the drama itself — the plot, the editing, the flow, etc — was a lot better for all the actors involved.
Should Yunho shoulder the blame for the low ratings? Absolutely not. A drama is a team effort and it’s highly dependent on a good script, great editing and a direction for the story which actually makes sense.
Yunho didn’t write the script, he didn’t direct it, nor did he edit it. Will Yunho blame himself? I hope not, but leaders — especially responsible people like Yunho — often tend to take blame for things over which they have no control.
/ dongbanger \
Source Mat:
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Lee-Yoon-Ji-encourages-Jung-Yunho-talk691126.html
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Heading-to-the-Ground-will-end-Early-on-the-5th-Next-Month-talk691310.html
http://www.soompi.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=274042&st=22820
http://popseoul.com/2009/10/10/yun-ho-performs-checkmate/#more-65833
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