Fans of K-pop boy band EXO member Chanyeol defended him after Korean reporters voted him as the No. 1 worst film actor in Korea in 2021.
On Dec. 27, Korean media outlet Sports Kyunghyang released the results of its yearender 5th Raspberry Film Festival, which was patterned after the Golden Raspberry Awards, or the Razzies, in the US, which annually awards the worst film, worst actor and worst actress.
In the 4th Raspberry Film Festival in 2020, K-pop girl group Apink member Chorong was voted as the No. 1 worst film actor in Korea for her movie “Road Family,” garnering eight out of 25 votes.
Actor and model Bae Jung-nam ranked as the second worst film actor in Korea in 2020 with seven votes followed by actor Oh Ji-ho and actress Bae Suzy who tied for third place with four votes each.
For the 5th Raspberry Film Festival this year, Sports Kyunghyang conducted a survey among 22 movie reporters from leading Korean media outlets to select the worst films and actors, and movie stars with the worst manners from films released from December 2020 to Dec. 15 this year.
The Korean movie reporters voted EXO’s Chanyeol as the No. 1 worst film actor in Korea in 2021, in which he garnered eight of 22 votes, or 36 percent, for his movie “The Box,” which was released in March 2021. The movie sold 122,469 tickets and earned $802,238 at the box office in 2021, based on data from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).
Fans defended Chanyeol from the worst actor tag, saying “The Box” and the singer-actor garnered achievements not only in South Korea but in other countries.
According to the fans, “Music-blockbuster film 'The Box' was nominated in the 42nd Blue Dragon Film Awards.” The Blue Dragon Film Awards listed “The Box” as one of the movies released from Oct. 30, 2020 to Oct. 14, 2021 from which voters could choose from. Fans nominated the film and Chanyeol during the preliminaries for the 42nd Blue Dragon Film Awards.
“I see quotes congratulating Chanyeol. He hasn't won anything yet nor has the movie. The nomination is only when we vote for Chanyeol and The Box. Let's get this ward for him. Vote under this link, exols,” according to a tweet by @exopredict on Oct. 20.
The winners and nominees for the 42nd Blue Dragon Film Awards were announced last November.
Chanyeol’s fans also said the K-pop idol and actor, and “The Box” achieved the following:
“Chanyeol's name garnered five million tweets during 'The Box's' premiere, which trended Number 1 worldwide for a wide period, making him the most tweeted Kpop Idols in 24 hours. This attracted 126 Naver articles written for his appearance.”
“Due to ‘The Box’ popularity, it aired in around 32 countries and Chanyeol became the first-ever Korean Idol to have a movie premiered in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine.”
“The movie premiered in over 100 cities in Russia and multiple sold-out theaters.”
“In Russia, The Box premiered in Moscow's most prominent movie theater, with a capacity of more than 1,000 people, wherein the pre-release garnered more than 700 attendees.”
“The Box debuted #7 in Russia's weekend Box Office. The movie crossed 23,000 total viewers and ended up the 5th highest-grossing film distributed by World Pictures - earning an overall gross of 7.2 million rubles which exceeded the expectation of 5-6 million rubles.”
“The physical box OST album surpassed 60,000 pre-order sales within a week and was recognized as the second highest-selling OST album in Korea, which topped La La Land (20,000 sales) and Begin Again (50,000 sales) globally.”
“Chanyeol also became the first-ever individual Kpop idol to have a movie premiere in Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan - all to full theaters.”
“The Box OST album debuted #4 on the iTunes worldwide albums chart, earning recognition from The Box team. Break Your Box debuted #21 on the iTunes worldwide songs chart, the highest-charting Kpop song globally at that time.”
“The Box made groundbreaking history in Indonesia. With an audience of more than 115,000 people - it earned the second-highest recorded audience for a Korean film in the country - after Parasite (380,000 viewers). Despite having only two weeks of airtime due to social distancing regulations, the record previously mentioned was achieved.”
“The news made it onto national TV - with the distributors of the film being shocked by the result. A large portion of the audience were nonfans who watched the movie. It debuted #1 at the box office in CGV and Cinepolis.”
“Chanyeol became the first EXO member and second SM Artist to have a lead film to debut Top 10 in Singapore and Malaysia Box Offices.”
“The Box also had a historic debut in Taiwan - debuting #9 in the box office grossing 1.01 million Taiwanese dollars, 390,000 of which came from Taipei.”
“Despite Philippine fans not being able to watch the film in theaters, the demand was noticed by Vivamax PH, and it debuted #1 on the most popular movies list, with more than 1,000 reviews. It received radio promo and trended #1, with tons of nonfans leaving their reviews. It also remained within the top 10 positions for an entire month.”
“The Box experienced international news coverage in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.”
“The Box was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews from the press, other actors and directors, and different people from the Korean general public.”