Fans lined up en masse on August 30 to get a look at their favorite movie heartthrob before he officially goes off the market. After all, Kwon Sang-woo only has about a month left of bachelorhood before tying ye ol’ marital knot to Sohn Tae-young on September 28.
He signed autographs and shook hands at his last fan-signing event before his marriage, at a Home Plus (a retail store) in the city of Cheonan in South Chungcheong Province.
(Maybe this is just me, but it doesn’t it seem like kind of a, erm, weird event for such a huge star? I mean, would George Clooney sign autographs at a makeshift booth at Wal-Mart? I’d betcha Yonsama wouldn’t.)
After releasing his first album in years, the Japanese- and Korean-language-album My Biography, Lee Dong-gun has launched himself into singerly activities, marking the occasion with two days in concert in Tokyo for his “Lee Dong-gun 2008 Debut Concert in Japan.”
“My Biography” was released earlier this summer; Lee previously released a single album in Japan in March, and has contributed to various soundtracks in his Korea since his 1998 debut as a singer.
He’d arrived in Japan on August 14 to prepare for the concert, which took place on August 22 and 23, and performed fifteen songs. He plans to spend a few days vacationing in Japan before returning home. No doubt he’ll throw himself back into his work, what with his military service looming large on the horizon (he’s 28; therefore he’s likely to enlist in relatively short order).
Kim Dong-wan wishes fellow Shinhwa member Jun Jin a happy 29th birthday at Jun Jin’s fanmeeting, themed “All For You.” The event took place on August 16 at Konkuk University in Seoul.
Infinity Challenge’s Jung Hyung-don served as MC, while VIP attendees included Kim Su-ro (who shakes up some champagne below; he wears orange shorts) and the members of boy-band Battle.
Jun Jin is releasing his “repackaged” album in August and gives a solo concert in Seoul on September 5 and 6. He plans to travel overseas later this fall, performing and holding a fanmeeting in Shanghai in October, with another in November in Singapore.
As announced, supa-star Rain held his fanmeeting and birthday party (called “Summer Vacation with Rain”), at Olympic Hall in Seoul’s Olympic Park on July 27.
The event commenced at 3pm, hosted by MC Kim Jae-dong, who made his TV debut around the same time as Rain’s singer debut. That familiarity made for a light-hearted time with lots of joking around as Kim interviewed Rain. The star also sang “A Day” (haru do) and “How to Escape the Sun” and danced to “Instead of Saying Goodbye.”
Approx fans 1,300 were from overseas, making for an overall total of around 3,000.
Some interview highlights:
His “worldwide album” planned for September has been pushed to next year, mainly in part because of his filming schedule for upcoming film Ninja Assassin. However, he does plan for an “Asia special album” for October, to be released — and performed, and promoted — in China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and throughout Asia. He explained, “The Asia special album is about 50 percent complete. Actually, I’m holding up completing the remaining half because I want to perfect it.”
(What does “worldwide album” even mean? Is that a euphemism for his U.S./English-language album? Is this his way of backing off from Western ambitions without actually admitting to it? Did he finally realize that despite overwhelming domestic popularity, the U.S. watered-down-R&B-pop-music machine is saturated with homegrown pop-star aspirants? Is he going to sing in multiple languages?)
As for his Hollywood film, Rain trained rigorously for his role as the titular assassin, learning swordplay as well as how to throw a blade attached to a chain. He lost a lot of weight while training, although he expressed having a hard time with the strict diet: “If I stayed away from food for too long, I’d end up overeating, and my insulin levels would shoot up, which isn’t healthy.” Thus he mostly stuck to a 30-30-40 diet (30 percent protein, 30 percent fat, 40 carbs, aka The Zone diet).
Rain also revealed, “I thought filming a Hollywood movie would allow for more sleep and more comfortable shooting, but I was wrong. Because daily production costs are so high, I ended up sleeping five hours a night and started filming at 8am and continued all through the day.”
Asked what event in his six years of fame has left the strongest impression, he answered that it was meeting with the now-deceased cancer patient Ahn So-bong: “When I visited the hospital room, he was sadly in the late stages of cancer. Afterward, we spoke many times over the phone, but because I was working overseas, I couldn’t visit again, which was painful for me. Up till that point in my life, that was probably the one really good thing I’d done with my celebrity.”
His cooking? “I’ve cooked for myself a lot,” he explained, prompting Kim Jae-dong to ask for the recipe for his kimchi chigae. (He’d cooked onstage at a previous fanmeeting last year.)
Acknowledging that he’s spent quite some time away from home, he promised, “After I release my Asia special album in October, I’ll be doing promotional activities so much that my fans will get sick of me.”
(Restraining… self… from retorting… to last comment…)
The cast and production team of SBS’s Iljimae gathered at Yongsan CGV today (July 24) to watch the finale of the drama together. The hit fusion sageuk premiered on May 21 to viewership ratings of 14.8%, which steadily climbed over the course of the drama’s run to end in the near-30% range.
In attendance was the drama’s star, Lee Junki, with co-stars Lee Young-ah, Han Hyo-joo, and Park Shi-hoo, as well as PD Lee Yong-seok. Approximately 400 to 600 attendees were present (the numbers vary according to different reports), most of whom were members of Lee Junki’s fan club and the drama’s online fan café members. [SPOILER, highlight to read] By the way, it appears the fans are in a spot of denial about the drama’s ending, saying, “He may have died, but he’s not really dead.” Which sounds to me like dude’s dead. Reading the article’s summary of the ending, wherein Iljimae confronts the eeeevil king and engages in a hard fight against the king’s men, it also seems to bear similarities to the ending of Hong Gil Dong, actually, which was an ending I appreciated but would rather avoid repeating in more dramas of its kind. Chil Woo had better stay alive, is all I’m sayin’. [/SPOILER]
Lee Junki and PD Lee both expressed their thanks for the fans and staff, although Lee Junki did wish they’d had more time to present a better finale episode (”If we’d had more time, we could have shown you a better result, but I’m a little disappointed that we weren’t able to do that”), referring to how things fell behind schedule. Apparently the drama finished filming its last episode… on the day the last episode aired. (Yeesh! The last time I heard of something that frantic was with Fantasy Couple’s finale, which sounded insane.)
The drama Working Mom (starring Yeom Jung-ah and Bong Tae-gyu) will air in Iljimae’s time slot starting next week, on July 30.
First he had that (as predicted) rather forgettable turn in Speed Racer. Then there was that Kung Fu Panda theme song he recorded that was overshadowed by Cee-Lo’s better (and “official”) version, after which he spent some time in Germany bulking up to shoot Ninja Assassin.
After such an extended stretch of time away from singerly (and actorly) activities at home — his last album, “Rain’s World,” and last domestic acting project, I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK, were both back in 2006 — “world star” Rain is coming back to Korea to resume activities there, beginning with a fanmeeting on the 27th.
Rain held a fanmeeting in Tokyo on June 30, while this event is expected to draw a capacity crowd (approx 3,000) at Seoul’s Olympic Hall, and attract his fans from all over Asia. Hopefully he still has some left after his less-than-stellar “world tour” last year ended in mass cancellations, slipshod planning, and tons of angry fans, many of whom weren’t able to recoup ticket prices or travel expenses after flying across the country (some across the world) to attend his U.S. (non-)appearances.
The fanmeeting will be emceed by Kim Jae-dong and is being called “Summer Vacation with Rain.” According to his company, JTune Entertainment, Rain is currently busy at work on his next album, aiming for an October release.
I think Rain is at his best when he’s not overextending himself and trying to do a dozen different things simultaneously in his attempt to conquer the world; hopefully this marks a return to more successful endeavors.
