Ooh. Kim Kang-woo is about to join the cast of sageuk drama Dong Yi, which stars Ji Jin-hee as Joseon’s King Sook-jong and Han Hyo-joo as water maid (Dong-yi) turned concubine (later named Sook-bin).

A production source confirmed that he has been offered the role, and the decision is 90% of the way to finalization. They expect his casting to be made official within a week’s time. Kim Kang-woo’s side gave a more cautious answer that Kim wants to do the role and is looking on it favorably, but given how both sides have responded, I think it’s looking likely.

The role would have Kim in the role of Cha Chun-soo, who is by day a coroner with the police but a core member of an underground group by night. He’s a childhood friend of Dong-yi’s older brother Dong-joo, and when the latter is killed, he promises to take care of Dong-yi and devotes his life to protecting her.

As you know, I was blown away by Kim’s performance as an ice-cold, calculating, brilliant psycho financial genius in this year’s Story of a Man. I would LOVE to see him doing a sageuk — I think his first? — in what looks like another intense role. I confess I was only half-interested in Dong Yi, but now it’s got my attention.

Dong Yi is scheduled to air in March 2010.

Via OSEN

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Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 11 Comments →

Ji Jin-hee, most recently of KBS’s j-drama adaptation The Man Who Can’t Get Married, has been cast to be Han Hyo-joo’s leading man in the upcoming MBC sageuk drama Dong Yi [동이].

This’ll be the second time Ji teams up with PD Lee Byung-hoon, with whom he first worked in the hugely successful Dae Jang Geum. PD Lee also directed several other hit sageuk series such as Heo Jun and Yi San.

Ji Jin-hee will play Joseon-era King Sook-jong, portraying both the leadership skills of the king as well as the pure heart and affection of the man. Han Hyo-joo is to play Sook-bin, a water maid who becomes the king’s concubine and bears him a son, a future Joseon king.

Han has been playing more mature roles as she transitions from rookie actress to leading lady, but this is still a pretty wide age gap — 16 years, as Han is 22 and Ji is 38. I tend to find age gaps less of an issue with sageuk dramas, so I’m keeping my mind open for the pairing, although the thought of Han taking on another sageuk makes me nervous. (She’s improved a lot in her short career, but I don’t think sageuk is her thing, and I thought her turn in Iljimae was one of her weaker performances.) Of course, as we know, his role in Dae Jang Geum makes Ji no stranger to the historical epic.

Dong Yi will air next March on MBC.

Via Joy News

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Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 30 Comments →

Three actors — Ji Jin-hee (The Man Who Can’t Get Married), Yoon Kye-sang (Triple), and Sunwoo Sun (Queen of Housewives) — have teamed up for something called the “it Travel” project, which consists of a travel book and DVD in which they showcase photos taken on their journeys and express their sentiments about the experience. It also includes recommended places of interest, travel tips, and behind-the-scenes stories. The book has yet to be published, but the trio have just opened a companion travel blog called “it Travel: Travel with Stars.”

[Read more →]

Filed under: Celebrity News by javabeans - 22 Comments →

This is an interesting article, in that it looks at the low numbers faced by current Monday-Tuesday drama The Man Who Can’t Get Married and analyzes it from a cultural perspective. Most low-rated dramas (that aren’t disasters of writing/acting) tend to explain their disappointing numbers in terms of being too complicated for the average viewer or lacking in “makjang” (convoluted, unrealistically dramatic) qualities, but The Man Who Can’t Get Married is a bit different in that it’s also adapted from a Japanese series that enjoyed quite a lot of popularity. So why is the Korean version faltering?

The Man Who Can’t Get Married can’t attract popularity

Hidden birth secrets, mother/daughter-in-law conflicts, a handsome chaebol who falls for an ajumma without reason — it has none of those. All it has is the “man who can’t get married” who has reached the age of forty as a bachelor because of his extremely fastidious temperament.

KBS’s Man Who Can’t Get Married, remade from the popular 2006 Japanese drama of the same name, has been unable to shake off its low single-digit ratings. Compared to other dramas that have been remade from Japanese series like White Tower and Boys Before Flowers, it’s a disappointing result.

[Read more →]

Filed under: Drama Casting & News, J-Drama by javabeans - 108 Comments →

First of all, much thanks to Javabeans for letting me commandeer her site so I could post these recaps and putting up with all my questions. Second, I have to say that I’m really enjoying this show much more than I expected. I am watching the show ahead of where I’m writing my recaps, so I’m a few episode past the first one right now, and I will tell you that this show seems to be getting better with each episode, so even if you found the first episode lackluster, you should definitely continue.

Anyways, on to the Ji Jin Hee eyecandy!

Disclaimer: In the interest of full disclosure, I think I should warn everyone right now that I’m a kpop aficionado, and thus, kpop references and comparisons will almost definitely be popping up in my recaps, though I promise to try and keep it only to the really relevant stuff. I also take no responsibility for any harm caused by any pondering I may engage in on certain men and their relative eyecandy-ness.

THE MAN WHO CAN’T GET MARRIED Episode One >>

Filed under: Drama Recaps by Starling - 61 Comments →