Tomorrow is Chuseok, also called Hangawi, which is the Korean version of Thanksgiving and one of the largest (perhaps the largest) holidays in the Korean calendar. That means a break from work, lots of traditional food, including the customary Chuseok songpyun dduk (a type of sticky pounded-rice cake with a sweetened sesame center), family time, and paying respects to ancestors and elders.

And what would a festive holiday season be without horrendous traffic, clogged travelways, and tons of special family-friendly television programming?

It also means lots of photo ops for celebrities as they don the traditional hanbok dress.

Here we have actress Seo Ji Hye looking pretty in her hanbok — which is a flattering look on her, as you can also check out in the cute two-episode drama (also starring Super Junior’s Choi Shi Won) The Story of Hyang Dan. She’s one of many mostly female celebrities whose pictures can be found everywhere these days, in the Chuseok season.

(Random) SONG OF THE DAY

Fanny Fink - “민트 하늘의 꿈” (Dream of mint sky) [ zShare download ]

Check out other actresses looking pretty in their hanboks >>

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The upcoming KBS Wednesday-Thursday drama Insoon Is Pretty is one I’m keeping my eye on. This is Kim Hyun Joo’s (above left) comeback drama — although it bugs me that the word ‘comeback’ is misused an awful lot, thrown around to describe anything from a true comeback to merely a star’s next project (summer 2007’s Get Karl Oh Soo Jung was called a “comeback” vehicle for Oh Ji Ho, when his previous drama had only wrapped in December 2006!). Kim Hyun Joo’s last drama was the SBS series Marrying a Millionaire; she’d also previously appeared in Miss Kim’s Quest for a Billion Won and Glass Slippers. Newcomer Seo Hyorim (right) has been cast as the younger half-sister to Kim Hyun Joo’s titular Park Insoon. Her “ice princess” role was won after fierce competition in an audition process where she beat out 300 other hopefuls.

The director, Pyo Min Su, has a resume boasting some familiar titles, among them the light-hearted romances What Star Are You From? and Full House — but what catches my attention aren’t the stars or the production, it’s the story. The beautiful Insoon unintentionally kills someone and is sent away to prison — and now has emerged to face the cold judgment of the world, eventually overcoming her struggles as an ex-con to emerge victorious (not a spoiler; that’s the tagline accompanying the story description in all the media stories).

Insoon Is Pretty premieres on October 31 (Halloween!).

(Random) SONG OF THE DAY

Linus’ Blanket - “담요송 (Blanket Song)” [ zShare download ]

More on the cast >>

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Hm, maybe my Spidey sense was tingling with the whole Unstoppable High Kick thing. Apparently it’s being made into a movie! …which I honestly can’t picture, but sure, okay.

Frankly, I can’t imagine forking over ten bucks (or should I say manwon) to see an extended version of the sitcom. Unless they go for something completely different and experimental and racy, and hook up Yunho with his teacher-crush, that is — then I’m there. Possibly twice.

Despite the announcement, it seems nothing’s quite set in stone yet. The director is going into planning with the writers — all five of them! That’s a number unheard-of by Western movie-producing standards — before the obligatory rewrites and fights over credit, that is. Five people co-writing on an initial draft is… interesting.

Furthermore, they’re not sure of the cast’s availability, noting that several of the “adult” actors (grandparent and parent roles) are currently tied up in filming for various projects. (Grandpa’s in the sageuk drama Yi San, and Grandma’s in Ggakdugi aka Radish Kimchee.) Choi Minyong (playing the teacher and uncle) is in a current legal dispute with his management company, and Seo Minjung (teacher and object of teenage Yunho’s affections) has recently married and moved to the States with her gyopo husband. Naturally, they’d like to keep the entire cast intact for the movie, for which they’ve set a target release for sometime next year.

(Random) SONG OF THE DAY

시언 (Shi-un) - “소녀찬가” “A song for girls,” or perhaps more literally, “a song in praise of girls.”
[ zShare download ]

Pics and original source >>

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Is it too cynical of me that my second thought after hearing this news (the first being the requisite “Aww”) was, “This is probably just for the publicity”?

Well, no matter. This time, I’ll believe people are good and nice and all that crap. Today I take the blue pill.

Apparently actress Park Shi Eun, whom you may remember as the calculating and possessive (but so pretty!) Chaerin from Delightful Girl Chun Hyang (she was also in Doctor Kkang and mini-drama Looking For Dorothy) heard about the recent troubles of R&B duo Monday Kiz — singer Kim Min Su was recently in a car accident and has had to have multiple shoulder/ligament surgeries. In the wake of the accident (Kim is still in the hospital and has more surgery to undergo), Monday Kiz has been unable to continue activities for their upcoming third album, and has instead decided to release a digital single album.

Park Shi Eun felt sympathetic to their predicament and agreed to appear in the title song’s music video without payment. Actor Sung Woo Jin (Surgeon Bong Dalhee), who will also appear in the music video, has also waived his fee. According to Monday Kiz’s management company: “After hearing about Kim Min Su’s accident, Park Shi Eun expressed her intent to appear in the video for no payment,” adding, “It must have been a difficult enough decision to agree to appear when details are still unclear for the present, but we had no idea she would do so without any pay.”

(Monday Kiz)

SONG OF THE DAY

Monday Kiz - “하늘아 제발” (Heaven, please) [ zShare download ]

Source article(s) >>

Filed under: Kpop News by javabeans - 11 Comments →

Apparently singer (and sometimes actress) Park Jiyoon just posted these pics (left) on her cyworld of herself dressed up as a man. Is it news? Hardly. (You know Korean entertainment media is having a sloooow news day when pictures on a celeb cyworld merit news; but that beef is for another day.) Okay, there’s a bit in there about her SBS drama Bichunmu with Joo Jin Mo being broadcast in 2008, but that wasn’t the point of the article.

But maybe for once media isn’t exaggerating when they say Yoon Eun Hye’s Coffee Prince-inspired fashions are setting some trends. When actress Park Shin Hye cut her hair short in a boyish style not long ago (reportedly for her role in the series Ggakdugi, aka “Radish Kimchee”), everyone immediately pointed to the Eun Chan comparison.

So, what’s my point? (You mean I have to have one?) Park Jiyoon was, interestingly enough, a name that was widely reported earlier this year as having been cast in Coffee Prince — in the Yu Ju role which ended up going to Chae Jung Ahn. And, of course, she also released an album several years ago titled “Man” with its title track, “I’m A Man,” and donned androgynous (but pretty), gender-bendery clothes to go with it.

SONG OF THE DAY

Park Jiyoon - “가져요.” This song isn’t from her “Man” album, although this one is.
[ zShare download ]

More pretty pics and the original article >>

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I’m bored. Bored, bored, bored.

Not only bored, but restless. The only drama that holds my interest these days is Legend, and that’s just barely. It’s not hard to tell that my taste veers to trendy dramas — the fluffier, the better — and I feel the current lack keenly. As I was saying to a friend recently, I can find meaning in the most superficial of trendy dramas — just give me the sugariest cotton-candy drama and I’ll mine the hell out of it looking for depth and thematic resonance. Of course, I do have some standards — I won’t watch just any trendy drama, if it’s just a boring rehash of familiar stuff. But let’s say that if trendy dramas are the television equivalent of chick lit, I’m looking for Bridget Jones, not Shopaholic or Lipstick Jungle or whatever else comes with cheesy pink covers and pictures of high heels and handbags and jewelry. (I am not my accessories closet! … and if only I actually had an accessories closet!)

What does that have to do with The Unstoppable High Kick? Nothing really, except explain just how bored I am and in need of something light and fun, even if it doesn’t aspire to be meaningful. I missed the boat on High Kick when it first aired — daily sitcoms usually air over a hundred episodes, and that’s just too much of a commitment. It finished its run earlier this summer, but AZN has been showing it (unsubtitled), and I’ve let the episodes accumulate on my Tivo, watching them whenever I remember to. I’m somewhere up in the nineties now (there are 167 episodes), although I skipped a bunch in the beginning.

(Random) SONG OF THE DAY

Heritage - “Grateful” [ zShare download ]

This is just an excuse to post pretty pictures >>

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