Song Hye Kyo, Who's Starring In Her First TV Drama In 2 Years, Criticised By Korean Media For Always Playing The "Same Role"

Korean actress Song Hye Kyo made her much-anticipated return to the small screen last week with SBS drama Now We Are Breaking Up.

The drama marks the 40-year-old’s first TV drama in two years, and is also the first project Hye Kyo worked on after her divorce from Song Joong Ki, 36, in 2019.

In Now We Are Breaking Up, Hye Kyo plays the leader of a design team in a fashion company. The drama also stars Korean actor Jang Ki Yong, 29, who plays a renowned photographer.

According to reports, the first episode, which featured a much talked-about one-night stand between Hye Kyo and Ki Yong’s characters, had the highest viewership rating of all Friday-Saturday dramas that aired over those two days.

However, despite the high ratings, Hye Kyo has gotten quite a bit of flak from Korean media, who feel that the actress has stagnated and is always “playing the same role”.

Just like Hye Kyo’s last drama Encounter, Now We Are Breaking Up is classified as a melodrama, which shouldn't be that surprising since the Descendants of The Sun and That Winter, The Wind Blows star is known as the Queen Of Melodramas .

In their coverage, Korean media outlet tenasia wrote: “She plays the same role every time, it is boring and not challenging [for her], and it results in a dulled sense of anticipation for viewers”.

They also pointed out that the actress always plays characters who have “a beautiful appearance and a cold personality, a strong independent career woman who does not seek love but manages to captivates the male lead with her 'fatal' charm”.

The report also noted that when Hye Kyo first made her debut as an actress, she took on a wide variety of roles.

In the 1998 drama Soonpoong Clinic, she showcased her naïve and lively side, and in the classic 2000 drama, Autumn in My Heart, Hye Kyo played the innocent and dreamy Eun Seo.

Four years after that, the actress starred as the outgoing and cute Han Ji Eun in Full House.

According to the report, Hye Kyo started to curate her roles after she became an A-lister, and would only choose roles that fit into the same mould. The report also acknowledged that while Hye Kyo does play these roles very well, they tend to feel very similar.

Finally, the report also compared Hye Kyo to other A-list actresses in Korea.

They noted that J un Ji Hyun, 40, has been trying a variety of roles recently, playing characters from a haughty actress, to a mermaid, and to a zombie killing village girl.

Similarly, fellow actress Kim Tae Hee, 41, who was once criticised for her poor acting, had a career breakthrough in 2020's Hi Bye, Mama!, where she played a mum who returns to her husband and daughter as a ghost for 49 days after dying five years prior.

It seems that Hye Kyo is prepared for the criticism.

In a pre-recorded press conference for Now We Are Breaking Up, which was filmed before the drama aired, Hye Kyo acknowledged that there are people who are “tired of watching her play the same roles.

Many fans have been waiting for my return to the small screen with another beautiful romance story, but I am certain that there are some viewers who are tired of watching another melodrama by Song Hye Kyo, she said.

Recently, it was also reported that the actress will star in upcoming drama The Glory, where she will play a revenge-driven teacher who is bent on getting even with her high school tormentors.

Now that we can't wait.

Photos: Now We Are Breaking Up/Instagram, tenasia, Song Hye Kyo/Instagram, iQiyi, PBE Media