The warning by China’s Ministry of Finance for female viewers not to fall in love with “Descendants of the Star” actor Song Joong-ki definitely fell on deaf ears.
The best proof of that is a report by Asia One that Episode 14 of the 16-episode Korean drama, aired on Thursday over video platform iQiyi, got 2.3 billion views by Saturday. On the iQiyi index, a measure of the number of times videos are played and the length of time it was played, Episode 14 logged 5.6 billion views.
“Descendants of the Sun’s” index was 300 million points higher than “My Love from the Star,” the 2013 Korean drama and broke the record. Internet searches for the drama in China’s Sina Weibo hit 10.3 billion, reported Yonhap.
However, as the drama comes to an end with the last two episodes to be aired on Wednesday and Thursday, the show got a lower rating of 8.1 for drama reviews. The first two episodes, aired on Feb. 24 and 25, got an average rating of 9.4. Yonhap explained the lower rating to viewers’ complaint that the drama’s progress on romance has slowed down and the focus has been on wars and disasters.
But “Descendants of the Sun” made a big star out of Song, now the most popular actor in China, that the city of Daejon where the actor grew and his parents still live, is now a tourist attraction, ahead of the locations of the filming which would also be developed into tourist destinations.
Soompi reported that when news spread around that Song occasionally visits the house – originally the home of his grandparents – on weekdays, tourists are now flocking to the site and having selfies taken. The house is part of a natural community village made up of 20 families.
Also attracting visitors is a tree called “Yeollimok,” said to be a place that Song also visits whenever he is in Daejon.