Viewers pointed out Song Joong Ki’s excessive skin correction as a detail that hinders their immersion into “Reborn Rich”.
JTBC’s Fri-Sat-Sun series “Reborn Rich” (written by Kim Tae Hee/ directed by Jung Dae Yoon) is a fantasy drama that centers around a secretary, who works for a chaebol family, lives his second life after being reincarnated into the youngest son of that chaebol family.
This drama, which is based on the famous web novel of the same name, was selected as the most anticipated work in the second half of 2022 as it boasts a splendid lineup with Song Joong Ki, Lee Sung Min, and Shin Hyun Been. Above all, “Reborn Rich” production team drew attention by making an unusual move of airing 3 episodes a week.
“Reborn Rich”, which premiered on November 18th, overcame the challenging broadcasting method that is seemingly unreasonable and captivated small-screen viewers with its overwhelming completeness. The thrilling drama story takes place when Yoon Hyun Woo (Song Joong Ki), who works hard like a “dog” for Sunyang Group, returns to life in the body of Jin Do Joon, the youngest grandson of Sunyang Group’s chairman Jin Yang Chul (Lee Sang Min) after being murdered.
The viewers’ explosive interest and reactions to “Reborn Rich” were immediately reflected in its rating performance. According to the rating research company Nielsen Korea, the drama started off well by recording 6.068% in the first episode. At the end of its first-week run, “Reborn Rich” exceeded 10% after airing only three episodes and created a sensation on the small screen.
Amidst favorable reviews for the storyline and acting, some viewers pointed out one unexpected thing about “Reborn Rich” that they disliked. There is a controversy over the excessive skin correction for Song Joong Ki, who plays Yoon Hyun Woo and Jin Do Joon in the drama. According to the content of the recently aired 3rd episode, the story is centering around Jin Do Joon, who has just become a college student in his 20s and aims to take over Sunyang Group using information he has in the future as Yoon Hyun Woo. In this case, Song Joong Ki, who is in his late 30s, has to play a character who is nearly 20 years younger than his actual age.
Therefore, to overcome the age gap between Song Joong Ki himself and his character, the production team decided to take advantage of skin correction. The problem is the editors corrected the skin too much because they didn’t want viewers to feel the traits of the times to narrow the age gap, and that made Song Joong Ki look different from other actors. Especially when Song Joong Ki shows up on the screen together with other actors, the excessive skin correction effect can be seen even more clearly. As a result, a number of viewers are saying that their immersion in the story was broken due to that small detail.
The excuse of simply applying skin correction to narrow the age differences between the actor and his character is not enough. It’s the actor’s job to portray characters with completely different appearances and personalities as well as ages compared to their real identity. Therefore, this part must be filled with the actor’s acting skills.
Some people said that criticism of Song Joong Ki’s skin correction did not arise for the first time in “Reborn Rich”. In fact, the issue had been raised during the broadcast of his previous work “Vincenzo”. Amidst the skin correction controversy, many viewers believe what Song Joong Ki, who plays the young man Jin Do Joon in his 20s, needs is not excessive skin correction, but the focus on his ability to act and digest a character who is much younger than him.
Source: Daum
