Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun may be co-stars in The Legend Of The Blue Sea, but they were competitors when it came to deciding the top brand ranking for Korean drama actors in December.
Jun Ji Hyun came out on top, though, beating Min Ho based on statistics provided by The Korean Business Research Institute, Soompi reports. Actually, she blew him out of the water.
Hyun scored 9,570,088 points. According to Soompi, that’s a 61.48 percent increase in the number of points the 35-year-old actress received in November 2016.
Lee Min Ho, on the other hand, scored 5,467,926 points which is a 57.22 percent increase for him from November’s score. But it still means that his Legend Of The Blue Sea co-star beat him by 4,102,162 points.
Vote for Lee min ho & jun ji hyun here???? https://t.co/fYOoaAzCP2 ???? pic.twitter.com/pp1qCtHtov
—????PinkMinho???? (@snimbalkar444) December 16, 2016
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Lee Min Ho’s ‘Legend Of The Blue Sea’ Hit By New ‘Plagiarism’ Scandal But Still Dominates Ratings
Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun may have taken the top 2 spots on the December brand ranking chart but Color Of A Woman’s Lee Soo Kyung was right behind them in third place with 3,255,485 points.
[PIC] Preview adegan Kim Jae Won & Lee Soo Kyung di drama MBC “Father I’ll Take Care of You”. #KWI pic.twitter.com/EwIdu8OgcK
— KWI (@KoreanWaveINA) December 15, 2016
Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun’s popularity has obviously been buoyed by the popularity of their k-drama, The Legend Of The Blue Sea . As the Inquisitr previously reported, Legend ‘s ratings for the relatively new Korean drama are still superior to those of its competitors in the same time slot.
The show has attracted more than 20 percent of the viewing audience on Wednesdays and Thursdays when it airs and 16 percent of those viewers live in Seoul. The Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun drama is also picking up fans outside of South Korea as well. According to the stats from Nielsen Korea, the show is also popular in the The Americas, Oceania, and Europe.
#legendofthebluesea #episode10 #leeminho hugged #junjihyun pic.twitter.com/PWWuWvKFsK
— LeeMinHo GLOBAL (@LeeMinHo_Global) December 15, 2016
The drama has remained successful even though it has been plagued by plagiarism rumors. Some netizens found that the way white text flashed over the characters in the premiere was too similar to the British TV series, Sherlock . So, the accused Legend Of The Blue Sea of copying.
As the Inquisitr also previously reported, one screenwriter accused the k-drama of stealing elements of a movie script she wrote. She has since said that she’s afraid to officially call it plagiarism due to the legal ramifications.
Busted lol???? #leeminho #junjihyun pic.twitter.com/6zDNDB8mqF
— LeeMinHo GLOBAL (@LeeMinHo_Global) December 9, 2016
The Legend of The Blue Sea follows the story of Shim Chung (Jun Ji Hyun), a mermaid who has somehow been transported to modern times. One day, she gets caught by Heo Joon Jae (Lee Min Ho), a cunning con artist who looks exactly like Kim Moon, the son of a noble family from the Joseon Dynasty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1FXYvhpiV8
In modern day Seoul, Joon Jae works with Jo Nam Doo (Lee Hee Joon), a more experienced con man who leads Joon Jae to become a scammer extraordinaire. This all leaves Shim Chung caught in a net of intrigue but Joon Jae’s friend, Cha Shi Ah (Shin Hye Sun), a researcher at KAIST, a public university, could be Chung’s only hope of navigating this dark world that she’s found herself in.
As Koreandrama.org notes, The Legend Of The Blue Sea is inspired by a classic Joseon legend from Korea’s early historical folktales about a fisherman who captures and releases a mermaid. Legend is Lee Min Ho’s first k-drama in five years.
[Featured Images by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, Ashley Pon/Getty Images]
