Home > Entertainment > Television

Voice actor mocks 'Bon Appétit” star Jo Jae-yoon for poor Chinese pronunciation

Published: 11 Sep. 2025, 09:40 Updated: 16 Sep. 2025, 12:51

Actor Jo Jae-yoon, left, plays Ming Dynasty envoy Dang Baekryong in tvN drama “Bon Appétite, Your Majesty," [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A Chinese voice actor has accused Korean star Jo Jae-yoon of butchering his Chinese lines in tvN’s hit drama “Bon Appétite, Your Majesty," sparking an online storm that has spilled across borders.

Taiwanese news outlet Sanli News reported on Wednesday that episode six of the drama shocked viewers with “strange” Chinese pronunciation. The episode introduced envoys from the Ming Dynasty, with dialogue spoken in Chinese. Viewers complained they could not understand the lines and pleaded for subtitles. Some compared the delivery to “reciting a spell.”

Taiwanese audiences said they struggled to follow the drama. Comments included, “The lips are moving, but I can barely understand,” and, “These are supposed to be Chinese characters, but even native speakers can’t make sense of it.”

The report also detailed a claim that a Chinese voice actor wrote online, saying that he had dubbed the dialogue for actor Jo, who plays the envoy Dang Baekryong.

“When I first heard the original recording in the studio, everyone burst out laughing,” the Chinese voice actor wrote. He described Jo's pronunciation as “truly terrible” and “unusable.”

The post, made on Xiaohongshu, included a photo from a dubbing studio. The actor claimed he recorded the lines “12 hours earlier” and mocked Jo's delivery, saying even a Korean producer fluent in Chinese laughed in disbelief. Although the actor deleted the post, the comments spread widely.

Korean viewers reacted angrily, saying, “Is it a flaw that Koreans don’t know Chinese?” and “Just let the characters speak Korean instead.”

Despite the controversy, “Bon Appétite, Your Majesty," continues to perform strongly. The tvN drama, also streaming on Netflix, has risen to No. 2 on Netflix’s global non-English TV chart and remained in the Top 10 for three consecutive weeks. In Korea, episode six reached an average 13.1 percent rating in the Seoul metropolitan area, peaking at 15.1 percent.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]