Ma Dong Seok’s Twelve, Ep 1 premieres to BEST ratings for a mini-series on Saturday

The new KBS2 drama Twelve, Episode 1 premiered on Saturday night in South Korea to the best ratings for a mini-series of the entire day.

According to Nielsen Korea, the KBS2 drama, which stars some of the country’s biggest stars, premiered with a nationwide rating of 8.1 percent, making it the most-watched mini-series of the day.

The K-drama also performed extremely well with viewers in Seoul, grabbing 7.2 percent of that region’s viewership.

Both ratings made Twelve the 2nd most-watched show of Saturday, behind the popular weekend drama Our Golden Days, which also airs on KBS2 and earned 13.2 percent nationally for its fifth episode.

Meanwhile, there isn’t much point considering international ratings particularly seriously yet, as the usual trolls over on My Drama List are massively downrating the drama to a crazy low 7.1 out of 10 while IMDB only has 26 ratings up so far and is currently running at a too high 9.4 out of 10.

The cast of Twelve

The superhero-themed South Korean drama stars mega-star Ma Dong Seok in his first drama since 2020, alongside an equally superb main cast that comprises Park Hyung Sik, Seo In Guk, Sung Dong Il, Lee Joo Bin and Ko Kyu Pil.

Ma Dong Seok was also the screenwriter of Twelve so, yep, this is really the Korean actor’s baby.

The Twelve plot goes like this:

A long time ago, 12 zodiac angels fought against evil spirits to protect the human race. Thanks to the sacrifice of the angels, the evil forces were sealed in the gate of Hell. Peace was also found.

But, evil again awakens and the human world is now thrown into chaos. Against a group of evil beings, including O Gwi, the 12 zodiac angels, led by Tae San (played by Ma Dong Seok), who symbolizes the tiger, enter into an epic battle.

The 8-episode drama will run through September 14th, and is currently streaming internationally on Disney+ in a select number of regions