Hiking attire Jun Ji-hyun and messy hair Lee Young-ae, interesting returning works but their ratings are such bummers
From Jeon Ji-hyun in hiking clothes to Lee Young-ae with tangled up messy hair, their bold return to the mini screen is showing mixed reactions. The stories are interesting, but the ratings just can’t keep up with them.
tvN’s Saturday-Sunday drama “Mount Jiri” is a collaboration between writer Kim Eun-hee and director Lee Eung-bok, as well as the combination of Jeon Ji-hyun and Joo Ji-hoon, and viewers have had high expectations even before its release. Such a valuable cast gathered together and the huge production cost of 30 billion won raised the audiences’ expectations even higher.
In this drama, Jeon Ji-hyun has to vigorously climb up and down Jiri Mountain in hiking attire that took off her usual splendor. Over time, she even showed her delicate emotional acting on a wheelchair to enhance viewers’ immersion with the character. On top of that, she boasted a wide acting spectrum by her surprising comical acting, as well as properly showing her retrospection towards humans through the unique Seo Yi-gang (Jeon Ji-hyun). Jeon Ji-hyun’s choice of a “reality” drama rather than a “pretty” or “fancy” one really caught the viewers’ attention.
However, the rating is undeniably a regret. At first, she started with the highest rating for the 1st episode among tvN’s Saturday and Sunday dramas, and in the second episode, the drama showed a frightening rise by surpassing 10.7% (according to Nilson Korea, the national standard for paid households), but immediately fell to 7.9% in the third episode, showing the viewers’ mixed responses. As the story progressed, even though a mysterious murder case was added to enhance the story, the acting is still a hit or miss for viewers.
CG (computer graphics) and background music, which are constantly being criticized, have been pulling the show down even more. However, the mysterious events occurring in the mountain as well as the appearance of the main suspect Lee Se-wook (Yoon Ji-on) are helping the drama revive its viewership rating of 9.4% (episode 4) and raising curiosity about the development in the future.
Led by “Lee Young-ae’s awesome transformation”, JTBC’s Saturday-Sunday drama “Inspector Koo” airing on Oct 30th has received an unexpected report card. Both the first and second episodes recorded a rating of 2.6%. No matter how its previous work “Lost” ended after moving around the 1% range, the fact that its rating started lower than expected left a deep disappointment.
“Inspector Koo” is an investigative comedy drama in which a police-turned-inspector, whose life is all about games and alcohol, digs into a mysterious serial murder case that was completely disguised as an accident. From the first episode, director Lee Jung-heum’s fresh directing along with Lee Young-ae’s unconventional transformation when playing Koo Kyung-yi added fun to the work. Lee Young-ae also caught the viewers’ attention when transforming from a pure, royalty image to a “woman with messy hair”.
On top of that, the ending scene when Lee Young-ae faced the murderer Kei (Kim Hye-joon) – her husband (Choi Young-joon)’s former student – has made viewers burst into laughter. Despite the unfortunate report card with a rating of 2.6%, it clearly predicted the funny upcoming events. Whether Lee Young-ae’s shocking transformation can raise the drama’s rating or not will depend on the remaining 10 episodes.
