Song Kang and Cha Eunwoo: Why They are Fruits of the Same Tree

Cha Eunwoo and Song Kang are snagging lead roles left and right, despite mixed reviews about their acting chops.

Cha Eunwoo and Song Kang are known as two of the most popular Korean actors right now. With Cha Eunwoo ascending to superstar status after his dramas and Song Kang snagging Netflix dramas left and right, a lot of fans are seemingly smitten over them whenever they appear on the television screen.

Song Kang and Cha Eunwoo are known to be extremely handsome actors with irresistible charms no one could actually resist. They have a lot of things in common: their faces are works of God, they have buff bodies to boot, they have hordes of fans supporting them in every single project they have, and unfortunately, they also share the same acting skills — bland, boring, and leaving much to be desired.

Thus, it is common to compare these two because they have a lot of common denominators. How come they get lead roles in dramas with much capable female leads? I’m talking about Rookie Historian with Eunwoo and Shin Sekyung, and Nevertheless with Song Kang and Han Sohee.

Same with Song Kang, I have yet to find out one single praise about Cha Eunwoo’s acting. Most comments I hear about his acting are about the people I know from the industry. They say that casting directors and directors only get him because of his looks, and the amazing fanbase he has. That’s a great business move, because at the end of the day, the entertainment industry is still an industry — they need to earn money off of these people.

Cha Eunwoo won an Excellence Award for an Actor in a Wednesday-Thursday Drama for his role in Rookie Historian Goo Haeryung at the 2019 MBC Drama Awards. Netizens questioned if his acting chops are worthy of an award.

Let’s start with Cha Eunwoo. Rookie Historian was one of Cha Eunwoo’s biggest acting projects because I believe this is the first leading role he landed, after playing supporting roles in Hit the Top and other webdramas. Rookie Historian was also broadcasted on a public TV station — MBC — so a lot of people would be watching him.

Some people were surprised at the casting, and they eventually got annoyed when Eunwoo cannot produce multiple facial expressions fitted to the script. It’s the same face he keeps on giving to the camera, be it when he got mad over something, to when he was trying to seduce Shin Sekyung, to crying moments. It’s bland, meh, and people expected more.

To be fair, Shin Sekyung’s acting chops in Rookie Historian were not the best, either, so people questioned how these two managed to get nominations for Excellence Award and Grand Award (or more popularly known as Daesang, respectively.

His another drama, My ID Name is Gangnam Beauty — another lead role — was underwhelming. Good thing Im Soohyang’s acting was also put into question and he was not alone in sharing the criticisms about acting. It’s the same tsundere pose and facial expression, again and again and again.

His most recent drama True Beauty was a hapless mishmash of everything bad — bad plot, bad actors (save for Hwang Inyeop), bad acting — and it was his face that saved and hard carried everything to the end. Ask everyone about his acting chops in this drama and they’ll give you praises about his looks instead. Clearly, nothing’s praiseworthy.

Unlike Cha Eunwoo, however, Song Kang got praise for his acting in Sweet Home. He was able to portray the role and give justice to the webtoon. People praised him for his acting chops this time, so maybe this was the boost Namoo Actors heard and they continued sending him to auditions to more lead roles. We all know what happened next.

Navillera was his first major role to be aired on television — since Sweet Home was a Netflix original — so everyone was expecting he’ll deliver the same acting chops he gave to Sweet Home. Unfortunately, it was his vocalization that made him fall.

He was too soft and timid most of the time, to the point that his senior co-star Park Inhwan, suggested to Namoo Actors that he take vocalization lessons to improve his pronunciation and speaking tone. In addition, he kept on reminding Kang about the importance of enunciating everything clearly — before they shot, during the shoot, and after the shoot ended.

As I mentioned in the previous article I wrote about him, if a senior actor has told him, the male lead, that he needs to improve, constantly throughout the filming process, he really needs to work on something.

Alas, Namoo Actors never listened and instead went on with his next drama Nevertheless.

By then, no one was expecting growth from Song Kang since he had little time to prepare from Navillera to Nevertheless, and boy they were never wrong. He was compared to his onscreen partner Han Sohee (of the World of Married Couple fame) and the parallels are so huge.

While Han Sohee gathered so much praise especially with her iconic museum scene, Song Kang’s entire acting performance is a different story. Viewers complained of his stoic acting, lifeless delivery, and overall bland performance.

Again, Namoo, you guys should have listened.

What worries me the most is that these two have accepted more dramas: Eunwoo with Island alongside Kim Nam-gil (The Fiery Priest) and Lee Dahee (Search WWW) and Song Kang with Cruel Story of Office Romance alongside Park Minyoung (What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim and Her Private Life). These are major dramas and they are expected to have big roles.

Can’t they at least refuse the dramas and focus on their improvements instead?

I’m still hoping that Fantagio and Namoo Actors do their jobs as agencies because they are very much known for producing great actors and these two are not doing them any favors.

Another common reason why they get booked for every male lead role out there is their visuals. Undeniably, these two are some of the most handsome Korean actors nowadays, and many fans are swooning over their looks. However, one may wonder if the fans are really at awe with their acting chops or they were blinded by their gorgeous looks, both on and off-screen.

They keep on landing drama roles on different TV stations, despite the netizens having an impassive reception towards their acting performances. They also get booked on several fashion and CF campaigns, and people do not bat an eye. This is because they do so well in these lines but never on dramas.

Are the fans really willing to shelve the fact that these two cannot act because all they need to do is stand there and be handsome? I don’t think that should be the reason. Dramas are dramas, and advertising campaigns are advertising campaigns. They have different standards, so fans should never apply the CF standards to dramas they are in, because they are doing a disservice to their fellow actors, who are always working hard to get the spotlight these two seem to enjoy effortlessly.

This is the most possible reason why they get booked all the time. As we all know, the entertainment industry is still a business, and they still need to earn more money in the first place. So directors are stuck at a tight spot here. They want to create amazing dramas that can be great additions to their belt of achievements, but they don’t want to flop because they do not have faces that will keep the viewers glued. Thus, they need to hire these two.

However, it can still be a disservice to the others, because they will serve merely as decor for these two, wherever drama they are.

One difference that these two has, and maybe sets Song Kang at an advantage, is the fact that he has a Baeksang Arts Awards nomination last year for his performance in Sweet Home. Even though he didn’t win that night (his fellow co-star in Sweet Home, Lee Dohyun, did for 18 Again), it still goes inside his portfolio as Baeksang Arts Awards is a big thing. It’s like a Golden Globe nomination for the Korean entertainment.

Meanwhile, the highest award Cha Eunwoo has was his MBC Drama Awards win in 2019.

Song Kang and Cha Eunwoo have a lot of things in common. Both have handsome faces, amazing physique, legions of fans, and acting skills that left much to be desired. Let’s hope that they do change for the better so that the fame and love they receive from fans are worth it.

This article was published earlier by the same author at KWave.ai: [OPINION] Cha Eunwoo vs. Song Kang: The Lesser of Two Evils (kwave.ai)

Read this if you want more: https://upreleaseofficial.com/the-best-korean-and-chinese-dramas-starring-park-hae-jin/