International Fans Rally In Support Of Yoo Ah In After His Screentime Gets Brutally Snipped From Upcoming K-Drama

They have a completely different take on it than domestic fans.
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Serah S. Cherrie
Serah S. Cherrie

Actor Yoo Ah In has been pretty much banished from the Korean entertainment industry owing to his drug abuse scandals in the past year.

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Yoo Ah In | Wikitree

The actor was eventually arrested and put on trial after being accused of administering medical narcotics — including propofol, midazolam, ketamine, and remimazolam — a staggering 181 times under the pretense of anesthesia for cosmetic procedures. While the trial is still underway, the once-revered actor has lost most of his public appeal in South Korea. The backlash against him has resulted in him being dropped or scrubbed off from any new project he was a part of.

Netflix’s upcoming K-Drama Goodbye Earth is one of the projects that Yoo Ah In filmed before his scandal broke out. It was originally scheduled to be released last year but got pushed back when Yoo was put on trial. It is now slated to premiere on April 26, KST, but with most of the lead actor’s appearance cut off.

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The first look poster of Yoo Ah In and Ahn Eun Jin in “Goodbye Earth” | IMDb

On April 19, KST, the show’s director, Kim Jin Min, told the media that scrubbing off Yoo’s character completely from the story was difficult because he played a major part in the plot. His scenes, however, have been edited out heavily to reduce “viewer discomfort.”

When the news about Yoo broke, I was in the middle of editing the third episode. Coincidentally, it was a time when I thought I wanted to edit the story all over again after understanding new, important parts in the later episodes. So, I edited it as a whole.

— Kim Jin Min

With Yoo out of focus, the story will now center around Ahn Eun Jin’s character, a school teacher who tries to save people stranded on the Korean peninsula with only 200 days left before an asteroid hits the earth.

The news, however, has not been received kindly by international K-Drama fans, who felt that Yoo Ah In was being treated in a disproportionately harsh manner compared to his crime. Some even mentioned other actors accused of much graver crimes who continue to work in the industry today.

Many also felt that persecuting Yoo Ah In in this manner is counter-productive, noting that the actor was not a heinous criminal but rather a victim of South Korea’s ongoing opioid crisis.

What are your thoughts on this?

Source: Straits Times (1) and (2)
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