Song Hye-gyo and Hyun Bin shoot their upcoming drama The World They Live In in this just-released still photo
The drama also features actors Cha Soo-yeon (Nowhere to Turn) as Hyun Bin’s old girlfriend, Bae Jong-ok (Heavenly Beauty Park Jung-geum), Eom Ki-joon (Kimchi Cheese Smile), Daniel Choi (Golden Apple), and Seo Hyo-rim (Insoon Is Pretty), It airs on KBS starting October 27.
It’s kind of unnerving how all the news right now is either Choi Jin-shil’s sudden death or the 13th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), and sometimes while looking through the news listings, it’s easy to confuse the two based on the thumbnail images. (Given the timing, as far as I can see, there were no overlaps in attendees — or at least, very few — between PIFF and Choi Jin-shil’s funeral viewing.)
October 2 saw the opening night to the nine-day festival; PIFF closes on October 10 and is the largest film festival in Korea, and one of the largest in Asia. Over the course of the week, more than 300 films will be screened from 60-plus countries.
Kim Rae-won and Han Eun-jung, above, came as brand models for PIFF sponsor L’Oreal. Other famous name actors showed up to the red carpet night; the opening film was Kazakhstan’s The Gift to Stalin, as well as the Hyun Bin & Lee Bo-young film I Am Happy.
Hyun Bin just celebrated his birthday (his 27th) with a large-scale fanmeeting, hosted at the Dome Art Hall at the Children’s Grand Park in Seoul, on September 27 (actual birthday September 25). With approximately 2,000 fans present, the event took the title “2008 Hyun Bin Fan Meeting & Birthday Party — The Present… HYUNBIN” (what a mouthful of redundancy) and welcomed a number of overseas fans from Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, China, and Singapore.
Conducted in typical fanmeeting style, Hyun Bin greeted his fans, took questions from those in attendance, chatted with former co-stars and other guests, and revealed his official fan club, “The Space.”
Birthday wishes were sent also via video from other stars, including clips from Jang Dong-gun, Song Hye-gyo, Shin Mina, and Jung Ryeo-won. Singer Kim Dong-wan (with whom he co-starred in the film Taekwon Boys back in 2004) was present as a guest, as well as unexpected guests Gong Hyung-jin and Jang Dong-gun, who made surprise appearances at the end.
Hyun Bin: “It’s been a year since meeting with fans, so this has really been an exciting and happy time. With these international fans who came from far away to attend, I hope all my fans have had a special time, and I will continue to show more of myself through more activities and work.”
Hyun Bin is currently at work filming his comeback drama with Song Hye-gyo, KBS’s The World They Live In with Full House PD Pyo Min-soo. His film I Am Happy has been selected to close the upcoming 13th Pusan International Film Festival, which opens this week.
Yeah, I knew that would get your attention. (The photo, I mean.)
Cast and crew gathered on July 15 for the press conference and screening of Summer Days. They’re calling this one a “crossover” film, but it’s not so much a film as it is yet more branded entertainment. They’re starting the branding with the description itself, calling it an “XNOTE crossover film,” XNOTE being a laptop put out by LG Electronics.
As I’ve mentioned before (regarding Anycall’s music videos, Anyband’s project group, Jang Geun-seok’s hair-product music video, and So Ji-sub’s cable-TV commercial), Korea’s got a way with branded entertainment. Western entertainment may produce engaging commercials, but they’re still always commercials first and foremost. Product placement is rampant and increasing everywhere (a friend who works on a U.S. television show tells me the writers routinely get notes from the studio about writing storylines around whichever cell phone they’ve got contracts with), but this kind of elaborate branding is something Korea’s integrated much more thoroughly (dare I say insidiously?).
Summer Days, for instance, is touted as ad campaign, short film, drama and music video all rolled into one, to unfold in seven episodes (each approx 4 minutes long; total running time is 30 minutes). They’ve brought on CF director Jo Won-seok and hired music director Yoo Hee-yeol, aka the singer-songwriter also recording under the name Toy. On top of that, we have three name actors, Hyun Bin, Shin Mina, and Ryu Seung-beom, acting out this adver-story about “love, friendship and conflict.”
In the “plot,” Ryu Seung-beom plays a “cheerful programmer,” Hyun Bin is an elegant architect, and Shin Mina takes on the role of a stylish film columnist. The first episode is titled “Morning After the Rain” and the second “The First Day of Summer” (wherein the three characters meet, unfolding like a short film). The third is called “A Day with Loud Cicadas” (featuring the notebook in a commercial-like format), and the fourth titled “A Day the Summer Breeze Blows” (a travel-themed music-video-like segment featuring a Yoo Hee-yeol song, “My Happy Day,” sung by Shin Mina). The fifth episode, “Tropical Night,” features the split between the three characters; the sixth is “Summer Night, Summer Day,” leading into the last segment, “The Day Before Autumn Starts.”
I’ve got mixed feelings about branded entertainment, but I guess everything’s selling something these days. So long as the product is entertaining (and honest about being quasi-advertisement), I suppose there’s no harm done. At least some of it produces (unintended) hilarity, like seeing Jang Geun-seok grooving along to pimp hair gel.
The LG XNOTE campaign launches mid-August via the Internet, broadcast television, cable TV, in theaters and in stores.
Hyun Bin adds a film, I’m Happy, to his year-end plans, bringing his upcoming project count to two.
He’d first gotten his fans excited for his long-awaited comeback with the recent announcement that he would be returning to television by the end of the year. Cast opposite Song Hye Gyo in November’s KBS miniseries The World They Live In, it would be his return after a rather quiet three years (yeah, he did act in Snow Queen following Samsoon, but that drama met with lukewarm — if that — reception).
In the film, which started shooting at the end of last month, Hyun Bin plays a patient who connects with a nurse while in the psychiatric ward. I’m Happy will be directed by Yoon Jong-chan of 2001’s mystery-horror film Goosebumps [소름] and 2005’s Blue Swallow [청연], and co-stars Lee Bo Young (so, not exactly strong on the acting front then).
The release date for I’m Happy isn’t yet fixed, but it looks to be around the same time as the airdate for The World They Live In.
