It’s a movie I had been waiting for… for almost a full year. I’ll probably have to wait that long till it hits us stateside, but conspiracy thriller Moby Dick has been out in theaters in Korea, and I sort of let it slip by me, with so many summer dramas on my plate. But the trailer and stills look great, and I’m officially back to being excited.

The film stars two top-notch actors, Hwang Jung-min (Accidental Couple) and Kim Min-hee (Love and Marriage) as a pair of journalists who investigate a strange explosion in 1994, that leads them to uncovering a massive conspiracy. They assemble a team along with Jin Gu (Athena) and Kim Sang-ho (Ajusshi! in City Hunter) to take on what quickly becomes a life-threatening mission to unmask the truth.

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Read the rest of Trailer and stills for conspiracy thriller Moby Dick (156 words)

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Post tags: Hwang Jung-min, Kim Min-hee

Three actors I love starring together in a thriller? Count me intrigued. Kim Min-hee (Moby Dick, Actresses), Jo Sung-ha (Romance Town, Sungkyunkwan Scandal), and Lee Seon-kyun (Arrest King, Petty Romance) have been cast as the leads in the upcoming film Train (working title, also called Help).

It’s an adaptation of the novel Train by the famed Queen of Detective Novels Miyabe Miyuki, in which an engaged woman (played by Kim Min-hee) suddenly disappears just before her wedding. Her fiancé (Lee Seon-kyun) sets out to find her, only to uncover a huge mystery surrounding her past. Apparently it’s something massive, because his experience is described as traumatic and horrifying.

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Read the rest of Kim Min-hee and Lee Seon-kyun in new thriller (202 words)

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Post tags: Jo Sung-ha, Kim Min-hee, Lee Seon-kyun

Kim Min-hee (Love and Marriage, Goodbye Solo, Actresses) is slated to return to film in a production of…Moby Dick? What the…? Are people just running out of ideas?

It turns out that Moby Dick is just a figurative title for an action-thriller involving an explosion, and the journalists who try to uncover the truth, going head-to-head with the people trying to cover it up. Ah, I see. Couldn’t you go with a figurative title that wasn’t…you know, a major literary work?

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Read the rest of Kim Min-hee in Moby Dick (87 words)

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Post tags: Hwang Jung-min, Kim Min-hee

On May 2, Jang Dong-gun married fellow actress Go So-young, and given Jang’s status as one of Korea’s most popular (and most loved) actors, the wedding was pretty much the equivalent of a fancy awards ceremony red carpet. There were approximately 500 (!) guests in attendance.

The wedding took place at Seoul’s Silla Hotel, which was preceded by a press conference (the ceremony itself was not open to the public or press).

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Read the rest of Jang Dong-gun marries Go So-young (704 words)

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Post tags: Ahn Sung-ki, Cha Seung-won, Go Jun-hee, Go So-young, Gong Hyung-jin, Ha Ji-won, Han Jae-seok, Hyun Bin, Jang Dong-gun, Jung Woo-sung, Kim Min-hee, Kim Min-jong, Kim Nam-gil, Kim Nam-joo, Kim Seung-woo, Kwon Sang-woo, Lee Byung-heon, Lee Hye-young, Lee Jung-jae, Lee Seon-kyun, Lee Yong-woo, Oh Man-seok, Oh Yeon-soo, Park Joong-hoon, Rain, Shin Mina, So Ji-sub, Sohn Ji-chang, Sohn Tae-young, Song Seung-heon, weddings

I previously posted about the new movie Actresses, which stars six famous movie stars playing six famous movie stars: each portrays a version of her real self, but the question is, how much of that is “acted” and how much stems from reality?

I found the initial reports really interesting, and much has been said of the supposed tensions between its two leads, Go Hyun-jung and Choi Ji-woo. No doubt the innuendos and possible exaggerations of real catfights are titillating for the public, who hardly ever get to see the real people beneath the smoothly polished images. (Korean entertainers are so carefully managed that it’s rare — and therefore big gossip — whenever one deviates from the carefully constructed narratives that have been built for them. And yet, it occurs to me that even if they’d all gotten along swimmingly, it would be a pretty shrewd promotional tactic to play up the fake-versus-real conflict to incite interest.)

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Read the rest of Actresses: Fake documentary or reality filmmaking? (1,184 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2009. | Permalink | 41 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Choi Ji-woo, Go Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee, Kim Ok-bin, Lee Mi-sook, Yoon Yeo-jung

It’s that time of year again: awards season!

On December 2, the 30th Blue Dragon Film Awards were held at KBS Hall in Yoido, Seoul, hosted by actors Kim Hye-soo and Lee Beom-soo.

Considering the recent slump in the Korean movie industry, it was a pretty good year for films, with several big hits breaking box office records, like Haeundae and Take Off, both of which amassed a number of nominations. It was also a good year for the smaller, indie movie, with awards being given to actors of Breathless, and both Kim Myung-min and Ha Ji-won pulling in top acting honors for their performances in My Love By My Side (aka Closer to Haeven).

Actress Jang Jin-young, who passed away this year from stomach cancer at the age of 35, was given a special award that honored her career in film, with roles in movies like 2001′s Sorum and 2003′s Singles.

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Read the rest of 2009 Blue Dragon Film Awards (1,513 words)

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Post tags: awards, Cha Tae-hyun, Choi Kang-hee, Chu Ja-hyun, Chun Jung-myung, Go Soo, Ha Ji-won, Ha Jung-woo, Han Ye-seul, Jang Jin-young, Jang Young-nam, Jeon No-min, Jin Gu, Jo Ahn, Kang So-ra, Kang Ye-won, Kim Haneul, Kim Hye-soo, Kim Ji-suk, Kim Min-hee, Kim Min-joon, Kim Ok-bin, Lee Beom-soo, Lee Chae-young, Lee Min-ki, Lee Shi-young, Oh Yeon-seo, Park Bo-young, Sohn Ye-jin, Song Chang-eui, Sunwoo Sun, Wang Seok-hyun, Yoo Sun, Yoon Jin-seo

Talk about an all-star line-up: the new film Actresses [여배우들] features a whole slew of high-profile names, such as Queen Seon-deok‘s Go Hyun-jung and Hallyu princess Choi Ji-woo, pictured above, in addition to Lee Mi-sook (East of Eden), Kim Min-hee (I Like It Hot), Kim Ok-bin (Thirst), and Yoon Yeo-jung (The World They Live In).

Here’s the official description, which I think sounds GREAT:

Actresses: Christmas Eve. For a fashion spread in Vogue magazine, six top actresses are brought in spanning ages from their twenties through sixties. As expected, these ladies who are used to receiving the spotlight alone engage in a battle of wills, and tension fills the studio. It’s an unwritten law in the fashion world to schedule shoots to avoid actress encounters, so this experiment was playing with fire from the outset. The psychological battle starts with wardrobe choices and ends with the scandalous scene of [Choi] Ji-woo storming out at [Go] Hyun-jung‘s provocation. [Yoon] Yeo-jung suspects she was only called in at the last minute to substitute, and while [Kim] Min-hee enjoys the shoot, [Kim] Ok-bin feels the burden of being around sunbaes, wondering how far she has to go to treat them as elders. They endure an endless wait for the featured jewelry that doesn’t arrive. The staff is growing worried and the actresses are becoming more and more sensitive.

What events happened that night? What words were exchanged between these frank, bold women? Could they have really finished their shoot without incident?

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Read the rest of Movie “Actresses” blurs line between fact and fiction (811 words)

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Post tags: Choi Ji-woo, Go Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee, Kim Ok-bin, Lee Mi-sook, press conferences, Yoon Yeo-jung

You know how at the prom, everyone goes for uber-glitz and black-tie formal, only it’s done through the filter of a 17-year-old fashion sense — or rather, what a 17-year-old would think was formal black-tie fashion sense? So the end result is a really weird mix of over-the-top gaudiness that may have been expensive but looks cheap?

That’s kind of the feel I get from looking at pictures from the 7th Annual Korea Film Awards.

Of course there are some standouts — Han Ye-seul glammed it up with the appropriate touch of class and sexiness — but there were also a lot of beautiful women in ugly dresses that looked more off-the-rack Jessica McClintock (hey, it’s fake prom!) than red-carpet awards ceremony.

So if we’re talking red-carpet wow factor, it was a decided step down from, say, last month’s lovely Blue Dragon Awards.

As for the awards themselves, no surprises if you’ve been watching the accolades accumulate all year long. The Chaser was the overwhelming winner, with The Good, The Bad, The Weird taking up (a distant) second place. A few notable exceptions from the rule were Kang Ji-hwan (A Movie Is a Movie) and Gong Hyo-jin (Crush and Blush), but you can check out the full list (and, of course, the fashions!) below the jump.

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Read the rest of 7th Korea Film Awards (1,738 words)

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Post tags: awards, Eom Ki-joon, Gong Hyo-jin, Ha Jung-woo, Han Ji-hye, Han Ye-seul, Joo Ji-hoon, Kang Ji-hwan, Kim Min-hee, Kim Min-sun, Lee Mi-sook, Lee Soo-kyung, Oh Man-seok, Park Hee-soon, Shin Mina, Sohn Ye-jin, Song Kang-ho, Song Yoon-ah, Uhm Tae-woong

I knew Love & Marriage would end on a happy note, and that nothing totally unexpected would come in the last hour. But I was still pleasantly surprised with how well the drama wrapped up its romance — even managing to pull out a bit of cleverness to keep the inevitable from being totally predictable.

I’ll be the first to admit that Love & Marriage isn’t a perfect drama, or even a particularly noteworthy one. But what it did, it did well: happy romance that endeared its characters to those of us who don’t necessarily like our dramas traumatic. Also, I always want to give extra points to dramas whose finales manage to satisfy AND add a little something extra to the series, rather than ending on a disappointing note — or even just an adequate (but unexciting) one.

SONG OF THE DAY

Love & Marriage OST – “Come to Me” by J [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Love & Marriage: Episode 16 (Final) (3,309 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2008. | Permalink | 65 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Kim Ji-hoon, Kim Min-hee, Love & Marriage, Park Ki-woong

Love & Marriage reminds me of the exchange in Clueless — Cher: “He said you gave him a toothache.” Tai: “How’d I do that?” Cher: “It’s an expression. It means he thought you were sweet.”

If this drama were a type of candy, all my teeth would have fallen out by now.

SONG OF THE DAY

Love & Marriage OST – “이젠 나를 붙잡아” (Hold onto me now) by Jung Jae-wook [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Love & Marriage: Episode 15 (2,432 words)

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Post tags: Kim Ji-hoon, Kim Min-hee, Love & Marriage