The tvN coming-of-age drama Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born saw a huge jump in its ratings last night, grabbing its highest ever audience share by a mile.
Via data from Nielsen Korea, the cast and crew of Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born, Episode 4 can now brag their K-drama has earned well into “double digits” just four episodes into the 12-episode series.
That rating nationwide was 12.76 percent — a huge increase from its previous episode’s 9.22 percent on Saturday. The drama’s previous all-time high ratings record, which was then obliterated less than 24 hours later.
The period K-drama saw an even larger increase from audiences in Seoul, where Episode 4 jumped from the previous night’s 8.88 percent to last night’s 13.57 percent of the viewership.
Who said a cast of mainly women can’t bring in the big ratings, eh?
International viewers criticism of Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born
Interestingly, however, current ratings from some international viewers are lower than you might expect.
Especially given the show’s huge success in South Korea. (Just an 8.1 out of 10 from the folks over at MAL (364 users rating so far), although it is faring much better on IMDB with an 8.7 out of 10 from 84 users).
Part of that, of course, has to do with the lesbian storyline in the webtoon the K-drama is based on (written by Seo Irae and illustrated by Namon) being completely obliterated from the drama.
Other viewers, who have read the webtoon, are also saying substantial amounts of the plot have been cut out.
To the point that leaving some characters in anyway, without the scenes that came before, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Throw in that that has also negatively affected the stronger character development you see in the webtoon, and the K-drama is definitely falling flat for some international viewers.
But, there is no denying it, Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born is performing exceptionally well in South Korea regardless of all of that, and the cast are doing a phenomenal job in their roles.
Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born stars Kim Tae Ri, Shin Ye Eun, Ra Mi Ran, Jung Eun Chae and Kim Yoon Hye.
The Korean drama’s next episode will air/stream on October 26th on tvN and Disney+.