Korea Mocked ‘The Remarried Empress,’ Then Paid to Watch It

Featured photo: Ju Ji-hoon, Shin Min-a, Lee Se-young and Lee Jong-suk at “The Remarried Empress” open talk, Busan International Film Festival, October 2026. Photo: Arielaortizb, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Korean viewers mocked Disney+’s “The Remarried Empress,” and paid for it while they laughed. Ju Ji-hoon’s emperor costume and his jealous face went around as memes first, and the people laughing at those memes went straight on to hit the subscribe button. Meanwhile, three days after its premiere, “The Remarried Empress” became the most-watched local original in Disney+ history worldwide.

I’ll be honest: as a longtime Ju Ji-hoon fan, I’m glad about all this noise. When the teasing pours in like this, it means everyone is watching him.

One meme spread faster than the show

“The Remarried Empress” is a romance fantasy. Empress Navier (Shin Min-a) is told by Emperor Sovieshu (Ju Ji-hoon), who has fallen for the runaway slave Rashta (Lee Se-young), that he wants a divorce. Instead of simply accepting it, she demands that he approve her remarriage to Heinrey (Lee Jong-suk), prince of the Western Kingdom. Episodes 1 through 4 came out first, on November 3 (Star News, November 5).

What set the Korean internet on fire first wasn’t the plot. It was one scene. The shot of Sovieshu jealously watching from behind as Heinrey dances with Navier spread as a jjal, Korean slang for a screenshot or GIF passed around online, much like a reaction image. Like neukkeukeu, it’s the kind of internet word Koreans use without thinking. People gave that face a name: “He looks like a tired, vicious department head,” and “He looks like a husband his wife sent to wait in line at a hot restaurant” (OSEN). A scene meant to show an emperor’s majesty got translated into the face of a Korean office worker and a Korean husband.

The costumes became memes, too. Some posts said Sovieshu’s outfits made him look “like a trot singer” and like something “hanging in the wardrobe room of ‘Surprise'” (Korea Economic Daily, November 5). “Surprise” is an MBC reenactment show that ran for more than 20 years, and for Koreans it’s shorthand for clumsy, over-the-top Western period costumes. So the nickname the show got in Korea was “somewhere between ‘Surprise’ and ‘Bridgerton'” (Korea Economic Daily).

Also read: Japanese Teens Say "Kenchana" When They Comfort Each Other

In Korea, ‘watching while you trash it’ is a compliment

Korea has a specific phrase for this: a “drama you watch while cursing it.” It’s the name for a show you can’t stop watching even while you trash the plot holes and laugh at the costumes, and being trashed is itself taken as proof that everyone is watching. “The Remarried Empress” earned that spot in under a week.

The comments show exactly how it happened. “Everyone’s trashing it and mocking it and still watching.” “I just saw a few memes and paid for Disney Plus. All thanks to Ju Ji-hoon.” “If this is what Disney was going for, total success” (OSEN). People who’d watched it all said something else: “As memes it looks weird, but the whole story is actually kind of fun.” “I didn’t expect this either, but it’s fun.” “Once you fall in, there’s no way out” (OSEN, November 7). The mockery was the way in, and the story locked the exit.

The numbers weren’t on the mockers’ side

A day after premiering, “The Remarried Empress” hit No. 1 on the Disney+ app’s “Top 10 in Korea Today,” and on FlixPatrol, a site that tracks streaming rankings, it ranked No. 1 among Disney+ TV shows in 12 countries (OSEN). According to Disney+, three days in, it was the most-watched local original in Disney+ history worldwide, and No. 1 among Korean titles released in more than 50 markets, including the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Mexico and Canada (News Culture, November 7). That record came when only four of its ten episodes were out.

Overseas, the reaction was never laughter in the first place. Screen Rant wrote that “the best K-drama of 2026 has finally arrived,” Collider called it “a world you can’t escape once you step in,” and The New York Times picked it as a must-watch series for November (Korea Economic Daily, Star News). The source material carries weight too. The web novel has been downloaded more than 160 million times, and the webtoon, available in 10 languages, has racked up about 2.97 billion views worldwide (Hankook Ilbo, November 3). While Korea made fun of the costumes, readers around the world who had loved this story first as a webtoon came in to see Navier’s choice.

The first person to laugh at those clothes was Ju Ji-hoon

The most lovable person in this whole commotion is Ju Ji-hoon himself, standing right in the middle of the teasing. In a W Korea video, he laughed as he confessed, “Most of the outfits were either half-naked or V-necks cut down to the navel,” and “The costume team always says, ‘You look great,’ and it felt like I was knowingly letting them fool me” (Korea Economic Daily). Shin Min-a said that during the shoot in the Czech Republic, when Ju came out in an outfit of mesh with accordion lace, it was so funny she ruined the take, and Ju shot back, “I used to be a model, so I’m not put off by most clothes, but everyone laughed at me” (same article). At the press conference he added, “I acted shameless, but every time I walked out of the dressing room, I asked, ‘Is this okay?'”

W Korea’s interview has 536,493 views (checked November 9, 2026).

The two were reunited for the first time in 19 years, since the 2007 drama “Devil.” On set, an actress he’d worked with 19 years earlier couldn’t stop laughing at his lace outfit and ruined the take, and the man wearing it was the first to crack a joke. Korean viewers’ mockery was just catching up, late, to the laughter on that set.

“Devil” (2007) is on KBS WORLD TV’s YouTube channel with English subtitles, as “Lucifer” (checked November 9, 2026).

“The Remarried Empress” streams on Disney+ in Korea and most countries, and on Hulu in the U.S., with two new episodes every Wednesday starting with episodes 5 and 6 on November 11 (Top Star News). Where to watch: Disney+ · Hulu (U.S.) (checked November 9, 2026, U.S. and Korea).

The Hulu trailer has 1,330,684 views and the Disney+ Korea main trailer 2,757,201 (checked November 9, 2026).

On Wednesday, Sovieshu will stand on screen again in lace with that jealous face, and Korean viewers will be waiting for that face again, trashing it all the way. I’m one of them.

Sources

• OSEN: “Mocking it, then subscribing to Disney?”
• OSEN, November 7, 2026: Ju Ji-hoon teasing explodes, but it’s Disney+’s all-time No. 1
• Korea Economic Daily, November 5, 2026: “Is Ju Ji-hoon a trot singer?” Harsh reviews at home, a twist abroad
• Star News, November 5, 2026: The Remarried Empress, noticed even by The New York Times
• News Culture, November 7, 2026: The Remarried Empress sets a Disney+ record
• Hankook Ilbo, November 3, 2026: The 3-billion-view Remarried Empress
• Top Star News: Episodes 5 and 6 on November 11
• YouTube views (checked November 9, 2026): Hulu official trailer, Disney+ Korea main trailer, W Korea interview, KBS WORLD TV “Devil” trailer