As you may know, actress Gu Hye-sun (Boys Before Flowers) has been planning an exhibition of her drawings, which just opened this week in Seoul’s Insadong La Mer Gallery.

The exhibition is showing under the name “Tango” — which you may recall is also the title of her recently released novel. Coming hot on the heels of her leading role in the super-popular hit drama Boys Before Flowers, Gu’s book has been selling very well, and now her art show has also attracted an impressive attendance as fans have flocked to take a look. (Since the opening on July 1, weekday attendance has averaged 700 per day, while weekend traffic increased to 1,000. Many have come from Gu’s online fan café and members of fan forum DC Gallery.)

Proceeds from this event will go to charity, toward the “With Campaign.” Fan club members also collected funds and donated them at the art exhibit. The exhibit, which features fifty of Gu’s drawings, will close on July 7.

Via Star News

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Gu Hye-sun’s novel Tango, for which she recently held a book signing, contained the actress’s illustrations. Now she’s holding an art exhibition to show off more of her artwork.

As you may know, I wasn’t impressed with the book, but I thought the illustrations were decent. They were irrelevant to the book, but not bad for a doodling-in-the-margins effect, which is what they were. (Take a look at some of the illustrations below.) When some people commented that they were boring and repetitive, I thought that while true, that was a little harsh because they were just decorations — it’s not like she was selling them or calling herself a serious artist.

But to hold an exhibition? Erm…. Let’s just say that if I were a working artist dying to hold my own exhibition, I’d be a little insulted. But whatever, starpower, name recognition, etc etc.

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As announced, Mnet has (finally!) released the last two parts of the four-part F4 “After Story” music drama, featuring Ji-hoo’s (Kim Hyun-joong) and Jun-pyo’s (Lee Min-ho) segments.

Although the songs were pretty nice to listen to, the first two parts with Kim Bum and Kim Joon were rather disappointing, imo. Like those parts, the last two also featured mostly old footage cobbled together into a new video. I thought Ji-hoo’s was pretty lame (there have been better fanvideos), but at least Jun-pyo’s had a little bit of new footage.

SONG OF THE DAY

Lee Min-ho – “My Everything.” His pronunciation could be better (everyTING? ah, well, just pretend he’s going for a rasta accent) but I love how husky his voice is. I had no hopes for his singing voice (after his CF/digital single for Cass beer was so annoyingly overproduced with barely audible vocals), so this is a nice surprise. [ Download ]

F4 AFTER STORY Parts 3 & 4 >>

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Gu Hye-sun signed copies of her novel, Tango, on the afternoon of May 9 at the Jamsil Kyobo Book Centre. The actress was 30 minutes late to arrive on the scene that day.

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Actress-turned-writer Gu Hye-sun published her novel Tango last month, and it has been selling briskly. The actress is even holding a fan-signing event, which will be held on May 10. It’s doing so well that plans have been announced to adapt the novel to a manhwa as well.

I think it’s fantastic for Gu, but I will say that I’m reading the book now, and I’m… not impressed. It’s not bad, but I can’t say it’s well-written, either. It’s adequate. Which, I suppose, is fine, since it’s not literary fiction so much as it is an almost diary-like (first-person) recounting of the main character’s growth through various relationships.

The story starts as a twentysomething young woman named Yeon grows tired of a relationship with her boyfriend; when they talk, they find themselves arguing and missing each other’s points, and he drinks too much, and isn’t considerate of her feelings. They break up, and she learns stuff.

I think she really needed an editor, because what drives me nuts is the kind of faux-profundity sprinkled throughout, as though repeating simple phrases gives them extra depth. For instance, Yeon and her boyfriend argue over coffee (he thinks she doesn’t know the true taste because you’re supposed to drink it bitter). She thinks, “I don’t know how to drink coffee. How to make it. Or why. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

There’s also an entire chapter that is only several sentences long, that serve to tell us, “I’m going to become happy.” It gets tiresome reading an entire novel of short, staccato bursts of thought. Writing like that. Like this, I mean. Doesn’t make it more meaningful. It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

But like I said, good for her. The story itself isn’t bad — not special, but I suppose if you’re a fan of the actress it’s an intriguing glimpse inside her head — and I’m not so turned off I won’t continue. (But I do think it’s an example of someone’s name getting them published rather than their work. On the other hand, I also picked up Cha In-pyo’s historical novel Goodbye, Hill, and I’ve only skimmed through the beginning, but immediately it reads much more literary.)

SONG OF THE DAY

Ryuichi Sakamoto – “Tango” (Versão em Português). I previously posted the Castellano and regular versions to Gu Hye-sun’s inspiration song by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Here’s the Portuguese version, and now I’m out of “Tango” renditions to post. [ Download ]

Via Sports Khan

RELATED POSTS

• Cheerful Caretaker screens in Busan
• Boys Before Flowers: Episode 25 (Final)
• Book releases for Tango and Goodbye, Hill
• Gu Hye-sun’s Tango

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