'Not even close': Lee Dong Wook says his 2 years of work for Harbin went in vain due to lackluster performance

Lee Dong Wook's whining in a nonchalant manner created a hilarious moment. Read to know about it.

By Peuli Bakshi

Updated on Jan 29, 2025 | 03:27 PM IST | 82.5K

Lee Dong Wook: courtesy of Lee Dong Wook's Instagram, Lee Dong Wook in Harbin: courtesy of CJ ENM

Lee Dong Wook recently appeared in Yoo Jae Suk's variety show, where he was seen cutely sulking about his latest movie Harbin's moviegoers count not crossing 5 million mark. He was there along with his upcoming drama, Divorce Insurance's co-actor Nam Chang Hee. The episode was titled The Third Seollal Holidays are Just and Excuse and aired on DdeunDdeun channel on January 29 KST.

In the episode, host Yoo Jae Suk jovially mentioned about Lee Dong Wook's promotion of Harbin for the last two years. He said whenever the actor appeared on his variety show in the past two years, he always promoted Harbin. Talking about the film's box office success, he asked Lee Dong Wook if their film reached the 500 million ticket buyer mark. To that the 43-year-old actor sulked and said, "We're not even close yet". The Hyun Bin-Lee Dong Wook film recorded 4 million moviegoers on January 11, which marks the 19th day of its release.

Even though it's an impressive number, Lee Dong Wook expected more viewers to turn up in the movie theatres. In the variety show he mentioned the current viewership to be 4.2 million, and looked frustrated as it was far from reaching 5M. To make him feel better, Nam Chang Hee mentioned about the Seollal (Lunar New Year) being the last push the movie needs and hopes that a lot of people will use the holidays to hit the theatres.

But Lee Dong Wook wasn’t consoled by that, and he jokingly expressed his inner feelings. Addressing the audience, he said, "Honestly, I’m a little disappointed in you (viewers). I’ve been promoting this movie for the last two years, so why are you not coming to see it?" He said the entire thing with a straight face, which made it even more hilarious. The host and guest couldn’t control their laughter when the actor said that.

Watch the full episode here:

Lee Dong Wook, who is known to be effortlessly funny, asked the question at least three times. He whined but in a nonchalant way, prompting Yoo Jae Suk to comment that he had aced the "indifferent" character. To that, the Harbin actor replied, "This isn’t a character. You can just take it as the real me."