The Queen Seon-deok largesse, she continues. And here I thought co-star Go Hyun-jung’s gifts to the crew (worth $16,000) were pricey.

Lee Yo-won, who plays the titular queen, and her co-star Uhm Tae-woong have teamed up to present their cast with expensive padded jackets — a total value of 160 million won, or $136,000. Each item costs between 500,000 and 600,000 won ($400 to $500), and they gave them out to 300 staff members. Lee said, “I’m not feeling well either as I film, but the staff can’t even admit that they’re feeling sick as they work. I was thinking of how to show my gratitude, and came upon the jackets.” Hearing about her intention, Uhm joined his colleague in making the gift.

Queen Seon-deok continues to rule Monday and Tuesday nights in the ratings, bringing in numbers in the upper 30s and lower 40s.

Via Segye

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• Go Hyun-jung gives extravagant gifts to drama crew
• The business of kdrama extensions and cuts
• Movie in the works for Queen Seon-deok
• Queen Seon-deok has SBS running scared
• Lee Yo-won doubles her filming workload
• Queen Seon-deok gets twelve more episodes

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Han Ji-hye’s next role takes her back to Joseon Korea, and for her role as a famous gisaeng, has begun taking a variety of classes. As gisaeng entertainers were often skilled in the arts of dance and music, her education includes classes in the gayageum (a stringed lute, the same instrument Honey Lee is known for playing) and singing in verse.

Han Ji-hye has mostly been known for acting in dramas (East of Eden, Likable or Not), but this project is the latest movie from director Lee Jun-ik (You’re Far Away, King and the Clown), called Like the Moon Escaping from Clouds [그르믈 버서난 달처럼, also written 구름을 벗어난 달처럼]. It’s an action-fighting period film based on a Park Heung-ryong manhwa of the same name and boasts quite an impressive cast list: In addition to the previously announced Hwang Jung-min it has added City Hall’s Cha Seung-won and Accidental Couple’s young Baek Sung-hyun. (Looks like Uhm Tae-woong and Ryu Seung-beom are out.)

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Disaster movie “Haeundae,” horror-action film “Chaw”

Korean movies are doing well this week at the box office, with the just-released tsunami movie Haeundae [해운대] selling more than 166,000 tickets in its first day alone, beating out Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince in the latter’s second week out. (Granted, Harry Potter is most certainly going to win in overall numbers, but it’s a strong showing for a Korean film to premiere at #1 when it’s going up against international blockbusters like Potter and Transformers 2.)

Meanwhile, another Korean action movie opened big last week, the killer-pig-on-the-loose film Chaw [차우] starring Uhm Tae-woong and Jung Yumi. Chaw opened on the same day as Harry Potter and secured a second-place box-office slot for the day. By the end of its first week, Chaw had managed to break the 1 million mark, benefiting from word-of-mouth buzz.

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Just watch, I’ll bet that after all the razzing I’ve done about Chaw [차우], it’ll put me to shame and turn out to be a hit. It’s just that I can’t get past the dubious-sounding premise of a wild, people-killing boar going on the rampage near a small village that results in a hunt through some remote mountains. But I’m hesitant to write it off, if anything because the cast is so solid.

The film held its preview screening and press conference on the afternoon of July 8, attended by the film’s stars (Uhm Tae-woong, Jung Yumi, Jang Hang-seon, Yoon Jae-moon, and Park Hyuk-kwon) whose characters form a five-member hunting team to capture the murderous beast.

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Ratings battles are always part of the trials and tribulations of television dramas, but is the experience better or worse when one is going up against one’s own sibling? It’s not a common scenario, because while there are several sets of famous siblings in the biz, like Kim Tae-hee and Lee Wan, it’s rare that they’re both in dramas simultaneously, much less in the same timeslot.

But now, we have not one but two sets of siblings in this situation. Older sister Chae Shi-ra is currently heading the KBS weekend sageuk series Iron Empress [천추태후], but will soon face competition from her own little sister, Chae Kook-hee, who has been cast in SBS’s Style [스타일], which premieres August 1.

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