Lee Bo Young, Lee Jong Suk Chosen by PDs as Having the Best Drama Luck

2013 is rapidly coming to its inevitable conclusion. This is the time of year where various industry figures take a look back through the year to reflect on the successes and failures of the industry and this year has certainly not being lacking in either categories. But at the very least some industry figures believe that Lee Bo Young and Lee Jong Suk have both had a great year.

To get us started this month, news media outlet “TV Report” has run a survey with 30 producers from the 3 main terrestrial broadcasters (KBS, MBC, SBS) to see which actors/actresses they believed had an almost uncanny ability to pick out great work throughout the year. However as racing driver Jackie Stewart once said, “Good luck in most cases comes through the misfortune of others” and so the survey also asked who the PDs thought  had the terrible misfortune of picking out the duds amongst the jewels. Note that the survey only asked about dramas that aired from January to November of this year. Dramas that are set to air in December are excluded since PDs aren’t time travelling psychics. Anyway enough of that, lets see the results. 

The Luckiest Of Them All – Lee Bo Young and Lee Jong Suk

One of the revelations this year in the drama world was SBS’s “I Can Hear Your Voice.” This drama seemed to have this strange trance like effect on viewers, including most of the Soompi writing team. It’s rating were one of the highest for any non-daily drama running for most of the year and spawned one of the biggest drama threads on the Soompi forum. So naturally it will be reasonable to assume that the two leads who had been cast for it have fortunes that will be the envy of anyone. 

The PDs certainly seem to think so because they have voted for Lee Bo Young and Lee Jong Suk as having the best fortunes in terms of drama selections. The votes were a landslide as well with Lee Jong Suk getting 16 votes out of a possible 30 votes for the guys while Lee Bo Young got 17 votes out of a possible 30 votes. Even more impressively, Lee Bo Young got the most amount of votes of any star included in the tally, both male and female.

The reason for their high vote tally was credited to their great partnership, backed up by their great acting, despite how unexpected their pairing was on first impressions. Lee Bo Young was also noted for her role in KBS’s weekend drama “My Daughter Seo Young,” which ended in March of this year and had one of the highest program ratings for the year, with peak ratings at 47.6%. Suffice to say you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that hasn’t seen Lee Bo Young on a drama this year. 

Lee Jong Suk meanwhile was labelled the “Super Rookie” of the year through his roles in “School 2013” and “I Can Hear Your Voice.” He has marked highly for his ability to evolve his image and get past the impression that he was only good for younger roles. His luck also jumped over to the big screen and the movie “The Face Reader” featuring the talented actor has been one of the biggest movie success of the year.

Fortunate To A Degree – Ji Sung, Hwang Jung Eun, Joo Won, Lee Da Hee and the other runners up

One of the PDs in the survey states that “The most sensational works of the year were easily ‘I Can Hear Your Voice’ and ‘Secret’. It’s interesting because projects were not hugely anticipated. They competed against some formidable dramas and came up successful.” 

Given this appraisal, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the two stars of “Secret” took overall runners up in the drama luck votes. Actor Ji Sung took 8 well deserved votes while his compatriot Hwang Jung Eun took a total of 7 votes. 

It’s clearly been a great year of Ji Sung and Lee Bo Young. They’ve been voted as having some of the best luck in terms of picking dramas and they’ve capped it off with a wedding this year. Hope to see their successes continue into the new year.

Other runners up in the male category was KBS “Good Doctors” Joo Won with 5 votes, MBC “Scandal’s” Kim Jae Won with 2 votes while Bae Soo Bin, Joo Sang Wook, Kim Woo Bin and Yoon Sang Hyuk took up the rear with a single vote each.

In the female category, Lee Da Hee got 3 votes thanks to her appearances on “Secret” and “I Can Hear Your Voice.” In some respects she might be the luckiest of them all given that she somehow managed to get involved in two of biggest dramas of the year but alas only as secondary roles. Other runners up include Han Ji Hye and Moon Chae Won with 2 votes, with Gong Hyo Jin, Eugene and Ha Ji Won filling up the rest of the line up with a single vote each.

Talent Overshadowed By Misfortune – Moon Geun Young and Kim Myung Min

You can be one of the most talented individuals in the world but if you got a knack for picking out the duds amongst the jewels then even your talents won’t be enough to push you towards success. This has ringed true for the two individuals picked by PDs as having the worst fortunes for the year. They were MBC “Goddess of Fire’s” Moon Geun Young with 12 votes and Kim Myung Min with 8 votes thanks to his appearance on “The King of Drama” on SBS.

12 votes were also enough to see Moon Geun Young top the list of misfortunate stars this year. A large part of this is thanks to the lacklustre performance of her much anticipated return to historical dramas with “Goddess of Fire.” It was supposed to be the hit that would rekindle the success she had seen with SBS’s “The Painter Of The Wind,” which was praised for it’s high quality. But alas it was not to be, with “Goddess of Fire” being shunned by viewers for its slow story and lack of any interesting characters. 

Meanwhile Kim Myung Min received his smattering of votes thanks to SBS’s “The King Of Drama” which unfortunately didn’t live up to its name but it certainly wasn’t due to lack of trying by any means. It was supposedly a well produced drama with some great acting from its cast list. However it failed to capture the interest of viewers for varying reasons and it went on to finish in relative obscurity. 

Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who Else Was Unlucky This Year? Son Ye Jin, Yoon Eun Hye, Uhm Tae Woon, Kwon Sang Woo and Many More

If you thought the battle for most fortunate star was jam packed, it’s got nothing on the list of stars that battled for runners up in the list of the most misfortunate.

In the female category, Son Ye Jin, Yoon Eun He and Jeong Ryeo Won battled it out but eventually reached a stalemate with all 3 actresses taking the runners up place with 4 votes each. Son Ye Jin appeared in the forgettable KBS drama “Shark” while Yoon Eun He appeared on the recently finished “Marry Him If You Dare” which failed to make any impact on a Monday-Tuesday line up comprised of poor performing dramas like “Goddess Of Fire” and “The Suspicious Housekeeper.” Meanwhile Jeong Ryeo Won appears in what will probably the worst performing drama of the year in MBC’s “Medical Top Team.“

Meanwhile Go Hyun Jung got the remaining single vote thanks to “The Queen’s Classroom.”

In the male category, Shin Ha Kyun got the runners up prize with 7 votes thanks to “All About Romance.” Following in his wake was Uhm Tae Woong with 6 votes for “The Blade And Petal.” Kwon Sang Woo got 5 votes for “Medical Top Team” while Lee Dong Gun and Joo Ji Hoon got a vote each.

This is what the producers thought; what about you? Who do you think had the best or worst luck this year?