These stills were released from KBS’s upcoming sageuk-action drama Chuno (Slave Hunters) on the 16th, which feature the drama’s leading lady Lee Da-hae dressed in wedding garb wearing a sad expression on her face.

In the storyline, Lee Da-hae’s character Hye-won is caught in a love triangle between her two male co-stars, Jang Hyuk and Oh Ji-ho. Her love with Jang Hyuk’s character is hindered by the gap in their social standing; while dealing with her disappointment over that love, she meets Oh Ji-ho’s character and the two fall in love. These stills show her sadness at being pressured into an unwanted marriage in order to maintain her yangban (aristocratic) standing.

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Joining the club of 2009 blockbusters is the currently screening film Take Off, also called Ski Jump or National Athlete [국가대표]. The sports comedy starring Ha Jung-woo, Sung Dong-il, and Kim Ji-suk has been buoyed by favorable word-of-mouth buzz and has pulled in over 7 million viewers since its July 29 release. It also picked up six awards at Saturday’s Chunsa Film Festival, including Best Picture. This is director Kim Yong-hwa’s follow-up to the romantic comedy 200 Pound Beauty, a sleeper hit that brought in 6.6 million viewers.

Such is its success that it has also announced a re-edited version (akin to a director’s cut), also to be released in theaters, with material that promises additional fun and laughs that been cut out of the original. (That’s not surprising, since the original run clocks in at 137 minutes.) These added parts feature 15 more minutes of Ha Jung-woo’s storyline involving his search for his biological mother and his memorable first encounter with the eccentric Lee Jae-eung, as well as a new-and-improved version of the film’s opening Olympic sequence with enhanced graphics (7 minutes longer than the first version). The new version is called Take Off: The Complete Version and opens on September 10. (This creates the somewhat unusual scenario of an original and its re-edited version screening in theaters concurrently.)

Meanwhile, the Ha Ji-won and Sol Kyung-gu disaster film Haeundae, which opened the week before Take Off, has now brought in more than 11.1 million viewers, beating Silmido (11.08 million) on the list of biggest box-office Korean films of all time. Its performance to date puts it into fourth place behind The Host (13 million), The King and the Clown (12.3 million), and Taegukgi (11.74 million).

Via Star News, Yonhap News

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Aw, isn’t little Wang Seok-hyun cute?

September 5 saw the end of the 17th Chunsa Film Festival and its closing-night awards ceremony, which was held in Icheon, Kyunggi-do. The winners list was dominated by the popular, recently released sports film Take Off [국가대표, or National Athlete], although vampire film Thirst did well, as did lush period piece Portrait of a Beauty.

Full winners list below:

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Lee Seo-jin of Hon

Since horror is supposed to offer a chill in the hot summer months, we can see why there’s such a sudden burst of horror material these days. Two television dramas will soon add to the tally, giving us a Monday-thru-Thursday lineup of horror through August and September.

MBC’s Hon (”Soul”) is first, premiering next Wednesday and starring Lee Seo-jin (Yi San), Lee Jin (King and I), and newcomer Im Joo-eun. The drama recently released its latest teaser posters in anticipation of its August 5 airdate.

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I wasn’t sure how I would feel about SBS’s A Star’s Lover. I approached it hesitantly, because (1) Hype often leads to disappointment, and (2) I know by now that series descriptions don’t really adequately portray the actual product.

So it is with a bit of relief that I say: I liked A Star’s Lover. It has a lot of pluses, such as gorgeous cinematography (particularly in Japan), wonderfully evocative music, and great casting. But what struck me most was its unusual tone — there’s a touch of whimsy to the drama, which is reminiscent of things like Pushing Daisies or Big Fish. The hint of “magical surrealism” is not nearly as overt as in either Daisies or Fish, but it works well to create a feel that’s a bit different. It’s refreshing.

SONG OF THE DAY

Oldfish – “좋은생각이 날것같아” (I think I’m about to have a good idea) [ Download ]

A STAR’S LOVER Episode 1 >>

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