Why 'Boys Over Flowers' star Lee Min-ho still beats Hyun Bin, IU overseas

Let's start with a quiz: Which Korean actor is the most popular among international fans of the Korean Wave?

While recent hitmakers like Lee Jung-jae of the "Squid Game" series (2021–2025), Kim Ji-won of "Queen of Tears" (2024) and Park Bo-gum of "When Life Gives You Tangerines" (2025) might seem like obvious candidates, the survey data points elsewhere.

According to the 2026 Overseas Hallyu Survey released by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, global fans selected Lee Min-ho for a 13th consecutive year as their favorite actor.

Actress Song Hye-kyo and singer-actress IU followed in second and third place, respectively, in the poll of 27,400 international viewers of Korean content across 30 countries.

Respondents answered open-ended questions.

The proportion of respondents who named Lee was 7.1 percent, more than double that of Song at 2.6 percent and IU at 2.3 percent.

This indicates how strongly global consumers of the Korean wave regard Lee as Korea's leading actor.

Lee's presence extended beyond acting.

In the ranking of influential Korean wave figures, he placed second o ...