Following Jun Ji-hyun and Yoona’s alleged “insulting China” controversies, Korea’s “National First Love” Suzy and male lead Kim Woo-bin’s K-drama 'Wish Upon a Genie' was released on the 3rd and immediately sparked another scandal!
Chinese platforms such as NetEase have published articles claiming that 'Wish Upon a Genie' contains a large number of insulting-to-China scenes, and that they are extremely abrupt. The main language of the show is Korean and Arabic, but whenever the Arab villains do bad things, they suddenly speak Chinese in a very deliberate and ill-intentioned manner, making it hard to believe it’s not intentional slander against China.
In addition to the plot where the Arab villains speak Chinese, the line “The Forbidden City set meal is impossible to eat and expensive as hell” also sparked controversy, with netizens seeing it as an obvious mockery of Chinese food. However, some netizens believe that the dialogue was in Korean and referred to “old palace” (gogung), which is the name of a Korean restaurant, and that the misunderstanding was purely caused by incorrect Chinese subtitles.
The article criticizes that the phenomenon of K-dramas and K-stars insulting China isn’t new, but what especially angers netizens is the way marketing accounts promoting the K-drama blindly hype it, directly provoking disgust. These accounts ignore the insulting content, and when netizens leave comments asking for explanations of the insulting scenes, the accounts simply delete or block those comments, trying to quiet the controversy by silencing criticism.
The article also claims that Suzy is a “repeat offender” in insulting-China dramas, with three works to her name, the others being the drama 'Anna' and the movie 'Baekdusan'. In the 2022 drama 'Anna', there was a scene mentioning fake watches from China, as well as a plotline assigning employees to Shanghai in a way that seemed to demean or banish them, which angered Chinese netizens who subsequently called for a boycott.
'Baekdusan' refers to Changbai Mountain, with Chinese netizens accusing Koreans of “claiming” the mountain as their own. The plot reportedly slanders China, stating that only Koreans step up to handle and arrange matters after the volcano erupts, and even includes a scene where a Chinese person says “the air is really bad.”
Seeing such absurd plotlines, the article says many netizens mockingly commented that Korean dramas seem unable to proceed unless they insult China, with writers acting like they’re on an insulting-China mission and going nonsensically wild. The article claims that this is not just business; when Korean stars repeatedly and continuously insult China without basic respect between nations, “it shows they have completely given up pretending. Naturally, the Chinese market will not welcome them—stop marketing and stop promoting here!”
Source: Liberty Times Entertainment