After four years away from the screen, Jun Ji-hyun was supposed to make a triumphant return with Disney+’s Tempest. Instead, the 43-year-old star has found herself at the centre of an online firestorm.
The drama — which has already topped Disney+’s charts as its biggest Korean original premiere of 2025 — is blowing up in China for all the wrong reasons.
In episode four, Jun’s character, Seo Mun-ju, a former UN diplomat-turned-presidential candidate, asks:
“Why would China prefer war? That way, nuclear bombs would fall along the border areas.”
The single line was enough to set Chinese social media ablaze. Netizens branded the dialogue “fabricated” and “politically defamatory,” with some accusing Jun herself of being anti-China. Calls to boycott her work and strip her of brand deals quickly followed.
“Her good relationships in China over the past 20 years are gone,” one user wrote on Weibo.
It didn’t stop there. Tempest’s depiction of Dalian as rundown and “shady” was also slammed, with viewers pointing out that the backdrop wasn’t even Dalian but a factory in Hong Kong. Other scenes — including one with a red carpet and yellow stars, and Jun reciting a Chinese poem with what some called a “wonky accent” — only added fuel to the outrage.
Luxury brands have already started distancing themselves. Sharp-eyed users spotted that La Mer, Louis Vuitton and Piaget quietly wiped Jun from their Chinese socials.
Her agency has denied any connection between the show and her endorsements, but online pressure is mounting. “Terminate her contracts globally. Otherwise, we’ll boycott LV forever,” reads one Weibo comment with thousands of likes.
Read more: The K-Drama Political Thriller ‘Tempest’ [Review]: A Storm on the Korean Peninsula
While some fans defended Jun, saying she’s just an actor reading lines, others argued she should have known better when choosing scripts.
The controversy has also reignited debate around China’s unofficial ban on Korean entertainment, in place since 2016 after Seoul agreed to host a US missile defence system. Although recent months hinted at thawing ties — with K-pop concerts planned and cancelled at the last minute — Tempest appears to have reset the clock.
Jun Ji-hyun, who rose to fame with 2001’s My Sassy Girl and cemented her status with hits like My Love from the Star and Kingdom, now finds her comeback overshadowed by geopolitics.
“Keep the K-drama ban to the death,” one Weibo comment reads.
