A month of global voting for the Hallyu Drama, Individual category at Seoul International Drama Awards (SDA) has officially closed on August 31st. Talents across Asia who topped the various poll received strong support from their huge fandom worldwide.

On July 15th, Seoul International Drama Awards (SDA), officially announced this year’s grand opening ceremony, the largest international awards for drama based in South Korea that honors TV drama productions and actors worldwide. The awards to be presented consist of three sections including International Competition, International Invitation, and Hallyu Drama, each comprising two categories, Program (e.g. Best Drama) and Individual (e.g. Best Performance). A Special Prize of three awards will also be presented by the organizing committee based on the recommendations from the Jury.

The candidates are selected based on appearances in dramas that aired between May 2021 until June 2022. While the winners of International Competition and Program category (e.g. Best Drama) in all sections are fully decided by the Jury, the winners in the Individual category under the International Invitation and Hallyu Drama are to be selected by fan vote worlwide through the “Idol Champ” mobile voting app after the final selection process.

Out of 225 oustanding dramas from 39 countries that were submitted and assessed, 35 Korean male actors, 32 Korean female actors, 39 Korean idol actors, 40 Korean drama OSTs were selected to compete in the final round of Individual category under the Hallyu Drama section.

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Trot singer Lim Young Woong received the most number of votes with a final count of 2.9 million or 59.53% for “Best K-Drama OST”. He led the drama OST track, “Love Always Run Away” for Young Lady And Gentleman (2021-2022).

Kim Seonho in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021) topped the “Outstanding Korean Drama Actor” category with 455,719 votes (53.39%). K-pop star Kang Daniel in Rookie Cops (2022) took 1st place in “Outstanding Korean Idol Actor” category with 45% of votes while Blackpink’s Jisoo in Snowdrop (2021-2022) claimed the no.1 spot for “Outstanding Korean Drama Actress” with 133,260 votes (41.58%).

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Meanwhile, 71 stars from China, 16 stars from Japan, 15 stars from the Philippines, 2 stars from Thailand, and 32 stars from Taiwan were selected to compete in the International Invitation, Individual category. The top results for the “Outstanding Asian Stars” are as follows: Wallace Chung from China, Yusei Yagi from Japan, Belle Mariano from the Philippines, Krit Amnuaydechkorn from Thailand, and Alice Ko from Taiwan.

The Seoul International Drama Awards organizing committee with NeoWiz CO., LTD. considered the Hallyu fans worldwide to freely vote for the best performance among the list of candidates in the Hallyu Drama Individual category, which means the results are based on the point of view from both Jury and the public. The results also show the outstanding impact of these K-drama stars in speading Hallyu wave.

The final winners will be officially announced during the awarding ceremony of 17th Seoul International Drama Awards (SDA) on September 22nd. The event will be broadcast live simultaneously on KBS2 TV and SDA’s official Youtube channel from 17:00 to 19:00 KST.

Congratulations to these Hallyu stars!