Queen of Tears, the newly released South Korean drama is enjoying immense popularity. The series, co-directed by Jang Young-woo and Kim Hee-won premiered on March 9 on tvN. It now airs every Saturday and Sunday at 21:10 (KST). One can also stream the show on TVING in South Korea and on Netflix in selected regions. According to Koreaboo, since the release of its three episodes, the show has achieved an “all-time high viewer rating of 9.5% in South Korea.” The fans are loving the star-studded ensemble cast which includes Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won in the lead roles.
However, the show’s popularity is getting tainted by the past controversies of its screenwriter Park Ji Eun. Park Ji Eun has been credited with writing some of the leading Korean dramas such as My Love from the Star, The Producers, Legend of the Blue Sea and Crash Landing on You. This impressive record has been marred with multiple plagiarism accusations in the past. Here is a look at them:
In 2013, SBS drama My Love From The Star was accused of borrowing a few scenes, including the opening sequence, from the 2008 American TV series New Amsterdam. Additionally, author Kang Kyung-ok claimed that the concept of My Love from the Star was copied from her 2008 comic book titled Seol-hee. In her blog post, Kang wrote that the jobs and relationships between the characters and the show’s setting were similar to Seol-hee. On May 20, 2014, Kang filed a lawsuit against Park Ji-eun and the show’s production company HB Entertainment. However, she later dropped the lawsuit in July 2014 after reaching an out-of-court settlement.
In 2017, screenwriter Park Ki-hyun filed a lawsuit against Park Ji-eun, for violating the copyright of an unmade movie scenario titled The Legend of Hae Wol Sea: Pearly Shells to create her show The Legend of the Blue Sea. However, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office dismissed the case.
In 2019, Park Ji Eun’s most popular work, Crash Landing On You also faced plagiarism allegations. A young scriptwriter claimed, in a now-deleted post, that Park Ji Eun stole the plot of the drama (which was about a North Korean soldier falling in love with a South Korean woman after he crash lands in a paragliding accident) from their original work called Unique Romance. The scriptwriter claimed that they submitted their writing to a scriptwriting contest, where Park Ji Eun must have read it. Park Ji Eun defended herself and reportedly sued the apprentice for defamation.
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