On October 8, the 14th Pusan International Film Festival, or PIFF, opened in Busan. (Yes, the city takes a different official spelling than the film festival. Blame inconsistent Romanization.)

As the largest film festival in Korea, it drew a large list of attendees, as you can see from the long list of red-carpet walkers. It was definitely a star-studded opening night, and even included one familiar Hollywood face (Josh Hartnett).

This year’s PIFF features its largest lineup to date, screening 355 films from 70 countries, and closes on the 16th.

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Read the rest of Opening red carpet at the 14th Pusan International Film Festival (241 words)

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Post tags: Byun Jung-soo, Choi Jung-won, Eom Ji-won, film festivals, Go Eun-ah, Go Jun-hee, Ha Ji-won, Han Chae-young, Han Eun-jung, Han Hye-jin, Han Ji-hye, Han Ye-seul, Im Joo-hwan, Im Soo-jung, Jang Dong-gun, Jang Hyuk, Jeon Do-yeon, Jeon Hye-bin, Jo Jae-hyun, Jung Ryeo-won, Kang Ji-hwan, Kim Haneul, Kim Kang-woo, Kim Nam-gil, Kim So-yeon, Kim Yunjin, Lee Byung-heon, Lee Seon-kyun, Min Hyo-rin, Park Hee-soon, Seo Woo, So Ji-sub, Su Ae, Sung Yuri, Sunwoo Sun, Uhm Jung-hwa, Wang Seok-hyun, Yeh Ji-won, Yoo Hana, Yoo Sun, Yoon Kye-sang

For anyone who reads a famous star’s profile online and then feels bad about yourself — psst! They’re usually fake. Or, let’s say, “altered” from strict reality.

For instance, not every Korean actress weighs less than 50kg. (Gasp, I know!) I’m sure a large majority of them do, but it is not a universal truth that all actresses stop gaining weight (or eating) when they hit 50kg. Hyori may be the only one who admits to weighing more than 50kg, but she’s not the only one who actually does.

Oh yeah, and as we know from looking at profiles of ladies who are famously petite (Song Hye-gyo, Kim Tae-hee), those heights are often exaggerated as well. Think of it like a driver’s license. Or penis size. Everyone (or most people) takes a little off the number here, and adds a little there.

So it’s no surprise that a little fudging goes on about age, as the following article points out. The trend has been highlighted by the public admissions of a couple new actresses that their initial ages were shaved to make them more marketable, like Queen of Housewives’s Sunwoo Sun and We Got Married’s Lee Shi-young.

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Read the rest of Stars caught lying about their ages (643 words)

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Post tags: controversies, Hyun Young, Lee Shi-young, Lexy, Sunwoo Sun, Yeh Ji-won, Yoon Mi-rae

In stark contrast with its star-studded opening night, the 13th Pusan International Film Awards closed after nine days with a night much lacking in glitz or stars.

Maybe it was just a lackluster year, or maybe Choi Jin-shil’s untimely death cast a pall over opening night, or maybe celebrities went up to Seoul to pay their respects and didn’t return to Busan. In any case, stars were few and far between at the closing ceremony on the 10th.

In fact, Yeh Ji-won (Old Miss Diaries, looking gorgeous all festival long) and Jo Jae-hyun (New Heart), above, were two of only a very few famous faces to walk the red carpet. (The only other top names present were Hyun Bin and Lee Bo-young, and even then I’m not sure I’d call them A-list. Maybe B+.)

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Read the rest of PIFF goes out with a whimper (150 words)

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Post tags: film festivals, Hyun Bin, Lee Bo-young, Yeh Ji-won

On October 5, the short film Boy Meets Boy held an open discussion at the Pusan International Film Festival with its stars Kim Hye-sung (Jenny, Juno) and Yeh Ji-won (Mixed-up Investigative Agency) and director Kim Jo Kwang Su.

I remember being intrigued when I first heard about Boy Meets Boy [소년, 소년을 만나다], which marks Kim Hye-sung’s departure from his family-friendly image in Unstoppable High Kick. His early career had been marked by an emphasis on his pretty face more than anything (he rose to fame as an internet uljjang with thousands of fans, got a couple movies, and then the hit sitcom High Kick), but he seems to have a grounded perspective of his fame (as he explained in the interview linked above).

Not only is he portraying half of a gay romance in the short film, the narrative is expressed without dialogue — the director opted instead to tell the story mostly in the characters’ gazes.

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Read the rest of Boy Meets Boy at PIFF (364 words)

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Post tags: film festivals, homosexuality, Kim Hye-sung, press conferences, short films, Yeh Ji-won

I foresee this may start getting repetitive, but here’s another red carpet from the Pusan International Film Festival (we saw opening night’s red carpet yesterday).

This time, the event was the Asian Pacific Actors Network (APAN) Star Road. It seemed some of the stars who were at opening night were noticeably absent at this event, most likely because they traveled back to Seoul to pay their respects to Choi Jin-shil.

Pics beyond the jump.

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Read the rest of More PIFF red carpet at APAN’s Star Road (298 words)

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Post tags: Choi Jung-yoon, Daniel Henney, fashion, film festivals, Jung Ryeo-won, Kang Hye-jung, Kim Ji-soo, Kim So-yeon, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Min-ki, Lee Wan, Oh Man-seok, Park Jin-hee, Song Chang-eui, Yeh Ji-won, Yoon Jin-seo

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.

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Read the rest of Pusan International Film Festival’s opening night (165 words)

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Post tags: Baek Sung-hyun, Cha Seung-won, Choi Jung-yoon, Choi Kang-hee, Eom Ji-won, Eugene, fashion, film festivals, Go Ara, Gong Hyo-jin, Han Eun-jung, Hyun Bin, Jang Dong-gun, Joo Ji-hoon, Jung Ryeo-won, JYP, Kang Hye-jung, Kim Ji-soo, Kim Jung-eun, Kim Rae-won, Kim So-yeon, Kim Sun-ah, Lee Bo-young, Lee Dong-wook, Lee Jin, Lee Jung-jin, Lee Seon-kyun, Lee Wan, Lee Yeon-hee, Oh Ji-ho, Park Eun-hye, Park Hae-il, Park Jin-hee, Shin Hyun-joon, Shin Mina, Song Chang-eui, Yeh Ji-won, Yoon Jin-seo

Yeh Ji-won (Mixed-up Investigative Agency) poses for an elegant “avant-garde” photo shoot to contrast with her eccentric, quirky image for her new movie, “당신이 잠든 사이에,” which translates literally to While You Were Sleeping but appears to have adopted a different English-language title, One Shot.

Judging from the preview and stills, that title alludes to the copious amounts of drinking Yeh’s character partakes of as a 32-year-old singleton, who rates a cut below the designation of “gold miss” (successful, single and proud) to its less-attractive cousin, “yellow miss.”

You’ve got to love the 35-year-old actress, who said of her own single status, “I don’t have a house or a car so I’m not a gold miss, so perhaps I’m in between a gold and yellow miss as a poop-colored miss?” (No stranger to playing the role of the old maid, Yeh Ji-won also starred in the TV comedy Old Miss Diary in 2004 and its big-screen version in 2006.)

The comedy, which co-stars Tak Jae-hoon, opened this past weekend on August 14.

Via Sports Khan

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Post tags: photo shoots, Yeh Ji-won