Lots of Korean stars have reaped great success in Asian market for some time now. Not satisfied with the achievement, now a bunch of Korean stars are approaching the United States with the hope of making it in the homeland of pop culture. Most prominent of them are Rain, Lee byung-hun, Boa, Seven, and Jeon ji-hyun. An American blog complex.com posted a story on how much potential those Korean stars have to succeed in the US. The post gave points to each Korean stars in terms of potential in US market like this.

Quite moderate ratings given their status in Asian market. But even from my viewpoint as a Korean, the post is not totally wrong.

For example, one of the problems with these stars – raised by the post repeatedly – is their less than satisfactory level of English and I agree with that. If you are not planning to settle in supporting roles in Kung-fu action movies, you have to be absolutely natural – not native -  in speaking English. It just seems to me none of these stars reached that point of proficiency.

Just take a look at the video clip of Bae seul-ki where she speaks opening lines. Although she speaks decent English from non-Amerian standard, she just sounds awkward. I am not saying that she should sound like a native American. With or without native accent, your English should convey your emotion. She doesn’t do that here.

Another argument given by the post is that Koreans cannot succeed just by copying already-in-the-market American style. That’s why Seven got the worst point. He sounds just outdated to American, the post says.  All the three singers in the post are actually doing that. The problem is Korean guys singing hip-hop just like Black-Amercan stars would be nothing more than a subject of passing curiosity. The same applies to a Korean girl singing a lyric like I’ll eat you up. Does that aggressively sexual line even match her cute look?  The bottom line is they should offer something unique than copycat styles.

To read the post on Korean stars’ potential in US market, click here.

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