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Bae Doo Na 배두나


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WE LOVE BAE DOO-NA (even if Korea doesn't)

by Kevin B. Lee and Michael Kerpan

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Like a rat I want to be beautiful

Because there is a beauty that cannot be photographed

- the opening lines of The Blue Hearts' "Linda Linda Linda"

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It may sound offensive to describe Bae Doo-na - possibly the most talented young actress in the world - as being beautiful like a rat. It certainly does nothing to capture her obvious charms: expressive eyes seemingly stenciled from a manga comic, supermodel-length limbs, a moon-shaped face poised to blossom into a smile with enough electricity to light up the Inchon peninsula. But beneath her beguiling exterior lies a persona that's as paradoxical as a beautiful rat. In her newest film, Nobuhiro Yama$hita's LINDA LINDA LINDA (2005), she's a Korean exchange student recruited as a novice vocalist for a Japanese high school band. On the day of the big show, she performs the title song with hair bedraggled by a rainstorm from which she just escaped, her pale, unadorned face squinting into harsh auditorium lights. Her hands clutching the microphone like a lifeline, she belts the song out awkwardly yet defiantly, straining to project each word in an alien tongue. And yes, she's utterly beautiful.

If such a triumphantly gawky spectacle defines Bae's rat beauty, then we may understand the allure she holds for an ever-growing foreign fanbase. Lovers of world cinema, their eyes adrift in fascinating spaces they can't quite claim as their own, may identify with this kindred soul who so confidently brandishes her bewilderment before a world of perplexities. Bae, an ex-model, has carved a career out of beautiful rat roles: a young mother in SAVING MY HUBBY (2002), an unemployed high school graduate in TAKE CARE OF MY CAT (2001); a left-wing outcast in SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (2002). Bae's artistry, still precocious at the age of 26, rests in her ability to bestow these workaday roles with a beguiling inner beauty. Invested with Bae's poise, her characters transcend their inability to comprehend the world in which they find themselves disenfranchised.

Unfortunately, Bae's embrace of the plebeian may render her as beautiful as a rat in the eyes of Korean movie audiences. Long a fixture on the Korean TV soap scene (she won the Korean Broadcasting Service Most Popular Actress Award in her debut year), she has yet to score an unqualified domestic hit. The unglamorous parts she plays, while standard for television, are not conducive to box office success. Especially when they call for a distinctively frumpy look; she was recruited for her breakthrough role in BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE (2000) for her willingness to go without makeup. It was a potentially career-wrecking choice that has haunted and distinguished her in a country where facial augmentation is common practice among women.

While pretty faces flash and disappear on Korean cinema screens within a matter of months, Bae has cultivated a persona that subverts her physical endowments by testing the conventions of a young woman's behavior. This trajectory began with one of Bae's first major roles, in the teenage male rite-of-passage flick PLUM BLOSSOM (1999), which features her engaging in full frontal nudity and explicitly simulated sex. Scandalous as Bae's appearance was, it was in fact her mother, the accomplished stage actress Kim Hwa-young, who encouraged her to take the role despite Bae's own misgivings.

On the other end of the spectrum, Bae's performance in TAKE CARE OF MY CAT is the least ostentatious among a turbulent quintet of high school friends whose post-graduate lives are spinning beyond each other's reach. Bae has only a handful of scenes to herself; even in two-shots she is staged facing others as they speak towards the camera. But in the act of listening, she serves as more than merely the viewer's onscreen proxy. Her half-concealed profile, interrupted by an occasional glance to an undefined distance, suggests a realm of private thought. Despite having less screen time than two other actresses, her performance walked away with the Korean critics' best lead actress prize.

The dual persona of empathy and introspection that Bae demonstrates in TAKE CARE OF MY CAT is present in many of her other roles, presenting an interiority at whose detachment from its surroundings provides sufficient tension to her scenes. Fans of SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE may remember a topless Bae using sign language to encourage her character's deaf-mute boyfriend while in the throes of vigorous sex. But she is at her most compelling in an earlier scene on the same bed, rationalizing plans to kidnap a rich executive's daughter to a mirror as her boyfriend reads her lips in the reflection. The spatial imbalance caused by these multiple layers of looking mirrors Bae's uncommon ability to establish intimacy and distance at once.

Her naturally lanky frame is another vehicle through which she conveys her character's unwieldy relationship with the world. An otherwise routine comedy such as SAVING MY HUBBY is single-handedly carried by the spectacle of Bae's physical exertion, as she spends much of the movie carrying a baby on her back while dodging through a neon-lit maze of gangster-infested alleys to rescue her derelict husband from evil extortionists. But her ungainliness is not always in the service of reinforcing conflicts. In SYMPATHY her physicality makes credible the disjunction between her character's beguiling innocence and its absolutist ideological streak, by linking both to an animated set of childlike mannerisms, notably in a scene where she subversively sings an anti-Communist anthem to the girl she has kidnapped, her exuberant cheerleader kicks menacing yet playful. In a film that alternates between compassion towards loved ones and cruelty towards all others, Bae's custody of her abductee exhibits both impulses at once. Her impulsive aura gives a much-needed spark of genuine warmth to Park's clinical execution of his misanthropic treatise on humanity.

In BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, Bae's Hyeon-nam, a Plain Jane office clerk languishing at a housing complex, is treated with more close-ups than her appearances in other films, despite the unmade landscape of her visage. Scattered with pockmarks and lightly shimmering with grease, her face enhances her character's guilelessness. While her complexion is explicit, her awareness is foggy - in her first scene she wakes up from a subway nap and offers her seat to a woman carrying a baby, not realizing that it's a beggar seeking money from passengers. Bae's character stumbles through a series of misapprehensions and faux pas, as she tries to uncover the mystery behind a series of dog disappearances and deaths around her complex. For most of the film she plays ambivalently with the level of her character's intelligence - her eyes seem to absorb everything they come into contact with, though they repeatedly seem to misperceive the darker motivations of others.

The critical moment comes when she drunkenly and playfully pursues a neighbor who, unbeknownst to her, she had chased through the high-rises after spotting him from a distance tossing a dog from a rooftop. The man admits his guilt in the canine crimes, but both Bae and director Bong play ambiguously with Hyeon-nam's tranquil, open-eyed reaction. Is she bestowing a Buddha-like forgiving gaze, or is she too drunk to comprehend what he's saying? Her face exhibits both ignorance and grace simultaneously and challenges the distinction between them. This moment exemplifies the drama of Bae's openly expressive acting style: its collisions against the confining codes that society imposes to define one's character and social standing. To borrow Gilberto Perez' description of Buster Keaton, Bae is a bewildered equilibrist whose blank, open-eyed expression harnesses the thematic incongruence swirling both within and around her.

Again, this resilient ingenuousness in a world of estrangement may explain Bae's international appeal - after seeing her in BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, director Yamaguchi cast her as Son, a Korean exchange student at a Japanese high school, in LINDA LINDA LINDA. Sharing Son's limited command of Japanese, Bae's performance is relegated to a modicum of gestures, the physicality of which is enhanced by Yamashita's enigmatic framing of her. In contrast to the extreme frontal close-up that introduces her in BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, our first look at her in LINDA LINDA LINDA is a medium profile shot, half of her face hidden. When the band asks her to join them, she's positioned so far in the background she has to shout her dialogue. Again she is in the background when she first listens to the title song, the back of her earphone-adorned head turned to her bandmates. In these opening shots Yamaguchi understands how much Bae's hunched shoulders and angular posture readily identify her, whether from behind or from a distance. Yamaguchi's visually oriented appraisal of Bae is doubtless one of a foreign admirer; Bae's first international performance takes on an iconic quality reminiscent of a Keaton, Chaplin or Lloyd.

In her frequently awkward verbal exchanges with other characters, there emerges a willful obstinacy, such as in her misunderstanding of a karaoke bar's requirement to buy a drink in order to sing; or her emphatic use of Korean to coach a lovestruck bandmate, for which she's chastised for "talking gibberish." Bae's performance conveys a pleasure in sticking out; as nerve-wracking as it is to be a misfit, it also seems to energize and define the character (who has very little backstory - we only see her interacting with bandmates, other people at school, and the daughter of her host family). Near the finale, Son inexplicably walks out of a rehearsal to visit the auditorium stage. There she simulates introducing her bandmates, surprisingly prefacing each with a criticism while subsequently expressing her admiration for them. Son defines her persona in relation to others -- an absence in the process of finding a presence, and in asserting what she is not that she defines what she is.

As Son, Bae distills her own onscreen persona into an essence, her identity a matter of pure physicality. A shot of her framed in a doorway while clutching the mike in a punk rock power stance has the makings of poster art. In the last image we see of her, she channels her bodily energy into the microphone singing "let's sing an endless song for this a$$hole of a world" with utter conviction, but her eyes still glare out as if to guard their owner's space, not fully accepting of the gazes bestowed upon her. This is the beauty of Bae Doo-na: like a rat, it restlessly explores the crevices of the moment; and its disappearance into the cracks it finds only makes its presence more fully known.

http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/nyaff06_bdn.htm

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Movieweek's 25 Most Beautiful Faces of 2006

[아름다운 얼굴 25]김혜수 장동건 전지현 차승원 이영애

꼭 1년 만이다. 지난해 이맘때, 내로라하는 국내 사진작가 70명의 추천을 받아 ‘아름다운 얼굴’ 25인을 꼽았었다. 올해는 86명의 작가들이 이 특집에 기꺼이 참여해줬다. 영화 포스터와 스틸, 패션 화보, 광고 사진 등을 주로 촬영하는 작가들이 추천한 130여 명의 배우들 중 점수를 많이 받은 25명이 이 안에 담겨 있다. 피사체로서 빛을 발하는 최고의 얼굴들이다. 여기 속하지 않은 배우, 또 작가들이 미처 꼽아주지 못한 배우들이 아름답지 못하다는 것으로 곡해되지 않았으면 한다. 이제, 대한민국을 대표하는 얼굴들을 만나본다.

1. Kim Hye Soo

2. Jang Dong Gun

3. Jeon Ji Hyun

4. Cha Seung Won

5. Lee Young Ae

6. Jo In Sung

7. Jeon Do Yeon

8. Lee Na Young

9. Hwang Jeong Min

10. Jung Woo Sung

11. Jang Jin Young

12. Ryu Seung Beom

13. Won Bin

14. Kang Hye Jung

15. Yoo Ji Tae

16. Bae Doo Na

17. Lee Byung Hun

18. Uhm Jung Hwa

19. Kang Dong Won

20. Lee Jung Jae

21. Kim Tae Hee

22. Lee Jun Ki

23. Moon Geun Young

24. Soo Ae

25. Im Soo Jung

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16 배두나여자 8위

사진제공 | 김상곤 _ 바닐라스튜디오

오랫동안 같이 작업한 배우인데, 지금도 변함없이 그녀에게서 순수한 모습을 본다. 자신의 모든 것을 다 보여주지 않는 듯, 무언가를 감추는 듯하면서 충분한 개성을 발휘할 줄 아는 여유를 볼 수 있다. 또, 한 발 한 발 자신을 좋은 배우로 완성시켜가는 그런 여유가 사진에도 묻어 나온다.

윤석무 _ 세븐 스튜디오

억지스러움을 가지지 않은 자연스러운 눈빛과 몸짓. 아이와 어른이 공존하며 자신이 무엇을 원하는지 정확하게 알고 행동하는 용기 있는 배우.

한홍일 _ 스튜디오 오월

배두나의 매력은 자신감에 있다. 배두나는 모든 연기에 있어서 자신감이 있어 보이지만, 그건 자신감에 차 있어서 자신 있어 보이는 게 아니라 내적인 힘이 강하기 때문이다. 뭔가에 연연하지 않아 보이는 모습, 그런 힘은 그녀만의 매력이다.

credit: Movieweek 01 02 03 04 05

via shirley@News thread

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Guest goldenmarshmellow

thanks for all the news on Bae Doo-na melusine. i really like this actress.

my first post here. :)

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Melusine-hunnie, saw your trail all over soompi. :lol: Thanks very much for sharing & posting the MovieWeek list at the respective actors/actresses' threads... really appreciate your effort. Keep it up! :wub:

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^Nah, I'm not doing it for all 25, just the actors I like. :lol: Esp since they're not exactly the most popular in soompi. :lol: Of course I do have a few popular faves--and I'm sure other fans have already seen to posting the newsflash(!!! :D) that they're byootiful in those stars' respective threads. *cough*LBH*cough*

Yay, goldenmarshmellow's 1st ever soompi post is in this thread!

i really like this actress.

Can't blame ya. :)

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credit: BDN's cyworld, Naver

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Noted for her talent and 'uniqueness'..

Cool babe..not surprised she made 'The beautiful..' list.. :)

Hehehe..so many of my favourite men in there too.. ;)

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^Oooh yeessssss, so many hot guys on the list. :w00t:

Re BDN: Her pic's purty! I must say she's not a very obvious choice, which pleases me even more that she got picked by those photojournalists.

I like that about Movieweek's choices this year (and last)--it's an eclectic list. Among the unanimously gorgeous like Jang DongGun and Lee YoungAe and Won Bin and Kim TaeHee and Jung WooSung and Jeon JiHyun etc., they throw in surprising names. And though talent isn't a requirement to get on that list, I noticed that most of the actors aren't just pretty faces. Good-to-great acting makes one's face very mobile and expressive--which is essential in playing a character, but in the process also makes the viewer discover an actor's personal beauty that isn't as visible at first glance. I don't have anything against plastic surgery when done in moderation (it's their life, after all)--but I do notice that people who have it done end up looking the same because they try to approximate what present standards defines as beautiful. Which is kinda sad. And to counter that, I think the Movieweek list celebrates uniqueness. Would you call Ryu SeungBeom or Hwang JungMin or Jeon DoYeon conventionally beautiful? Of course not. Then you watch "Crying Fist" and "You Are My Sunshine" and any JDY movie, and suddenly... they are.

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WE LOVE BAE DOO-NA (even if Korea doesn't)

by Kevin B. Lee and Michael Kerpan

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Like a rat I want to be beautiful

Because there is a beauty that cannot be photographed

- the opening lines of The Blue Hearts' "Linda Linda Linda"

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that is a very nice write up of bae doo na .ah i see her as early as Take care of my cat .i thought this actress is so ordinary yet ..i feel some connectin with her character in that movie and she and lee yo won in that movie begin to be names i was looking forward to see what they will be doing .......come to think of it i seem to have watch pretty fair amount of bae doo na movie haha .i just simply love ..BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, keke with lee sung jae ..!~~ .i cant really explain why i like bae doo na ...it just seem quite enjoyable watching her ...haha i even watch that drama Majestic girl just bec bae doo na is in it haha it was a rather entertaining drama ...~~ despite some cliched towards the end .~! but that gurl ..has a unquieness within her ..that just appeal to me

i love that ..Beating Hearts serial .~~ and waiting to watch Someday ~! .! .and of course THE HOST :lol:

she is like lee na young ..oh i like lee na young too ..~~ ..but she should take on more variety of roles .not just quirky stuff only though it suit her ~~ ..well who are you and someone special are my personal favourites movies i can watch again and again !~ ...but ....while bae doo na has this range of different movies genre ..somehow lee na young is not ..well not as much as i want to see her in ~ ..and

then So AE...i always think she calm me down .when i look at her (even JJH in love letter say ..So Ae voice calm him down .) ..i have no idea why .but she has this quiet charm in her ..~ ..i mean she might not be some magificent actress yet .i just think she is beautfiul too ..and then im soo jung too ..so many of the names on that list ..is so unquie in their own way ~ ...

I think the Movieweek list celebrates uniqueness. Would you call Ryu SeungBeom or Hwang JungMin or Jeon DoYeon conventionally beautiful? Of course not. Then you watch "Crying Fist" and "You Are My Sunshine" and any JDY movie, and suddenly... they are.

yup that right the list is about beauty that is unique. ~that is why i bothered to post the news hahah and i like the mixture they included in the list ..~how can anyone NOT see JDY beauty keke ...~~ (she always will be my favourite actress ) and i can say HJM is so omg .in Road movie the first movie i saw of him ..and i was going who is this hunk .haha imagine no one will believe me when i call HJM a hunk ..~but he is defintely one in that movie .~!! .and in his subsequent movies gosh that man is really ..u cannot really recognise him i still remebered i watch YMCA Baseball .:) without knowing much apart from mr song is in it and jo seung woo has a minor part in it ...and after finishing it .i look through the cast list .and it say HJM and I Compleletly cannot connect that ..man in YMCA to the man i saw in road movie and from then onwards i know that actor is someone really amazing....and he just continue to produce so completely different images ....~and lee byung hun will always be a very beautiful man in my eyes..~ .....interms of whatever criteria ...

haha and RSB ..he always make me kinda of simle when i see his face i dun know why he has a happy face to me .~ **~ . actually i saw the city of violence trailer haha i think his brother is also really quite dashing keke ~ .

and i will never debate about ...JWS and WON BIN ..as beautiful men ..even men say they are beautiful ...and ....i am a woman after alll haha .~~ who want to debate about a fact ! kekeke ..

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I think actors like Hwang JungMin, Ryu Seong Beom are known for their male qualities and obviously make them very attractive and Bae Duna, Jeon DoYeon are actually very sexy babes..!! yes..i saw 'Crying Fists', 'You Are My Sunshine' and i love those movies!! :rolleyes:

hmm..i expected Mon Sori to be in the list too..anyway..i just can't wait for 'The Host'...!!

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^Nah, I'm not doing it for all 25, just the actors I like. :lol: Esp since they're not exactly the most popular in soompi. :lol: Of course I do have a few popular faves--and I'm sure other fans have already seen to posting the newsflash that they're byootiful (:D) in those actors' respective threads. *cough*LBH*cough*

Hehehee... :phew:

I love what you wrote and couldn't agree more. Of course, like any lists everywhere... people will always find faults and flaws, I'm sure the 86 photojournalist who picked out the 25 byootiful ones know what they're looking for.

I for one, appreciates LBH not from first glance. Like what I wrote in his thread, just look in his eyes, you'll be drawn to him and never let go. :blush: And we'll get more by appreciating the beauty of his intense talent and his uniqueness like melusine mentioned, which is special to each of these individuals.

And BDN is rare... only when you know her, you'll see & appreciate the beauty she possess. Go DooNa!

Very happy to see LJJ and HJM in the list, too. :)

Always good to come to your thread, melusine. Please keep it up, ok.

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^Thanks, rubie. :blush:

I think I've mentioned this ad nauseam, but in reply to shirley's post, I became a fan of Doona's in "Take Care of My Cat", one of my favorite films (which also starred a very-young-but-already-pretty Lee YoWon, Ok JiYoung, and those ubiquitous Lee twins I always see in dramas :D). There's just something about that movie that resonated with me as a young woman--that certain point in my life where the future was uncertain and the realization was beginning to hit me that it would take more effort now to get together with my high school best friends since our paths were diverging. I liked that none of the girls in that film were caricatures (The Damsel in Distress or The Sassy Heroine, The B!tchy Villainess, The Funny Friend of The Female Lead, etc) that usually populate dramas, they seemed so real, with that non-Seoulite, middle class sensibility (except for OJY's character, who was really poor). And I found that "ordinariness" (with Doona as the standout) very refreshing.

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Barking Dogs Never Bite"! It's funny though how it's impossible to explain why to friends:

Friend: Is it a drama or a comedy?

Me: It's hilarious with this kind of black humor, but I dunno if you can classify it as a comedy...

Friend: Is there a hot guy and a hot girl in it?

Me: Uhhh, not really... But I love Bae Doona and Lee SungJae's really good...

Friend: What's it about?

Me: Oh, someone kills this dog and then the girl posts up these posters looking for it and she and her fat friend just lounge around like bums and the guy has this domineering wife who earns the cash and makes him crack nuts and there's running lotsa running and oh! oh! oh! there's this creepy maintenance guy in the basement who tells a story about Boiler Kim...

Friend: :huh:

Me: *gives up*

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I could only find subs to 6 episodes and discussion in the old thread was lost in the soompi crash, but I said to hell with it, and so to this day, "Beating Heart" is the only K-drama (well, half of a K-drama) that I watched without my English-language-crutch. And I loved it all the same. :D I'm hoping "Someday" will be just as interesting.

Btw, JDY's one of my favorite actresses too. :wub: When I try to look at her with an objective eye, I mutter to myself, "She has nice skin, nice figure, great huge smile--and what else? Her forehead's too wide, her eyes are too big, her face is too small..." You know, kinda like saying "Meryl Streep's nose is too long." :lol: But when I watch her in ANYTHING, I swear, she's so beautiful to me. In "You Are My Sunshine", whether she's prancing around in her miniskirts or sitting glumly in a prison cell, I think, "She's so beautiful." No one will convince me otherwise.

And I agree with inez: it's like great actresses such as JDY, BDN and Moon Sori can turn sexiness on and off, like a switch. I just watched MSR on Happy Together Friends with Go DooShim and she's dressed kinda frumpily, a seemingly ordinary woman just happy to reconnect with her old friends; then I compare that to "A Good Lawyer's Wife" and "Bewitching Attraction" *fans myself*; AND THEN I compare that sexay thang to the cerebral palsy-afflicted character in "Oasis" ...and she's just amazing. Maybe she didn't get on the list this year because Movieweek didn't do a photo shoot for "Family Ties"?

I like Lee NaYoung as well, and she's so extremely pretty that no one will be complaining about her inclusion, I think (unlike more controversial choices like Doona and Kang HyeJung or even Moon GeunYoung). The quirky roles she does so well: Agree! Her not-as-diverse filmography: Also agree.

I only really noticed Hwang JungMin in 2005 (which was when he started getting lead/high-profile roles) and I admired his versatility as an actor. He played such diverse roles (shy guy <This Charming Girl> naive country bumpkin <You Are My Sunshine> macho cop <All For Love>), and except for "A Bittersweet Life",

(I only had eyes for LBH there <hee> plus HJM was a meanie! Sociopaths=not melusine's type)

they were all men I could fall in love with. He seems like a nice man in real life too (and far from the conflicted slimeball in "A Good Lawyer's Wife" heh). Yep, a hunk in my book.

(Now you've made me curious about "YMCA Baseball Team"!)

I'm just totally gaga over Ryu SeungBeom and will always be. The end.

Really, shirley, you find Ryu SeungWan dashing? Hmmm... I'm already a RSW fangirl as it is, but it's still on an *eherm* cerebral level. We'll see if I start shrieking "OMG he's hottt" when I see "The City of Violence."

I've always found Lee JungJae hunkylicious droolicious, so definitely can't argue with his being on the list.

Lee ByungHun... well, what can I say? He's perfect.

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Well, of course he's not, but you know what I mean, kekeke. I neglected to mention him in my "unanimously gorgeous" list because for some reason, people (including myself, I confess) don't seem to find him hot at first glance. But 2 mins of "Beautiful Days" and I was a goner. :lol: I don't think he's conventionally handsome like JDG/JWS/WB, but the man is beautiful.

And guys like Jang DongGun/Jung WooSung/Won Bin: I'm so glad they're in the world and will one day be populating the human race's gene pool. ^_^

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HJM in This Charming Girl... he looked so young and soft-looking! Can't explain why. :blush: Very shy... very sweet. I actually waited for him to appear again and again. :lol: I was like, is that him... or is he not?

There's one photoshoot he posed with the cast of BSL... such cool actors, including Director Kim :P... LBH & HJM ... so photogenic. The camera probably blushed! :P

Thanks melusine, could always come to share and talk with you, here.

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I've always found Lee JungJae hunkylicious droolicious, so definitely can't argue that he's on that list.

Lee ByungHun... well, what can I say? He's perfect.

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.

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Well, of course he's not, but you know what I mean, heh. I forgot to mention him in my "unanimously gorgeous" because for some reason, people (including myself, I confess) don't seem to find him beautiful at first glance. But 2 mins of "Beautiful Days" and I was a goner. :lol: I don't think he's conventionally beautiful like JDG/JWS/WB, but the man is beautiful.

High-five for LBH & LJJ! :w00t:

I've been a LBH-goner ever since BD. No turning back, no regrets. Aish... if he'd do another series for us hopeless souls. And LJJ... the always... mysterious one. :blush:

Have to go now... will return later. All In's showing on tv in a few minutes and I just can't take my eyes off the screen when InHa comes out. Actually, it's still Jin Goo's version :P but I never get to watch the series completely before, this is certainly something not to be missed. Makes you yearn to see him in a series, even if it for just one last time... before he goes really international.

Even BDN's coming back to the small screen with "Someday".. when will we see a LBH drama... someday, too? :(

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^Though I knew "This Charming Girl" wasn't centered on HJM's character, the romantic in me wished he'd appeared a few more times. Like you, I just kept spotting him walking in the background/foreground, lol. Yes yes, a weakness for shy dorky guys, I'm afraid. :wacko: Aww, you just reminded me how much I love that movie...

...and how much I love "A Bittersweet Life", sigh. The cast (+ KJW) were indeed cool.

I'm forever wishin' and hopin' that LBH does a drama again. Maybe with the current trend of 100% pre-broadcast shoots (which won't be as stressful), it's more likely he will.

I also wish that someday(pun!) Doona will get to work with LBH. They seem to be the only PCW characters who didn't appear in cameos in "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". (Boo!)

And twas a pleasure as always, rubie. :) And to inez and shirley as well. It's been fun discussing (and going off-topic too).

b6674323858ms6jv.th.jpg msy0926205ix.th.jpg <-- clickable thumbnails

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Hey..it's good to have BDN thread really!!. thanks melusine for starting this !.

I still like her pairing with Shin Ha Kyun..they obviously are(were) the coolest duo..hmm..was talking to a fren whether we should start a Shin Ha Kyun thread...a REAL awesome actor with so many great movies to his name..(or maybe there is a thread already??) but not not exactly a pin-up dude.. :) .

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^Oooh yeessssss, so many hot guys on the list. :w00t:

Re BDN: Her pic's purty! I must say she's not a very obvious choice, which pleases me even more that she got picked by those photojournalists.

I like that about Movieweek's choices this year (and last)--it's an eclectic list. Among the unanimously gorgeous like Jang DongGun and Lee YoungAe and Won Bin and Kim TaeHee and Jung WooSung and Jeon JiHyun etc., they throw in surprising names. And though talent isn't a requirement to get on that list, I noticed that most of the actors aren't just pretty faces. Good-to-great acting makes one's face very mobile and expressive--which is essential in playing a character, but in the process also makes the viewer discover an actor's personal beauty that isn't as visible at first glance. I don't have anything against plastic surgery when done in moderation (it's their life, after all)--but I do notice that people who have it done end up looking the same because they try to approximate what present standards defines as beautiful. Which is kinda sad. And to counter that, I think the Movieweek list celebrates uniqueness. Would you call Ryu SeungBeom or Hwang JungMin or Jeon DoYeon conventionally beautiful? Of course not. Then you watch "Crying Fist" and "You Are My Sunshine" and any JDY movie, and suddenly... they are.

Well put. I've always thought that she had a unique beauty, really almost anime like too, not conventionally beautiful by some standards but she stands out altogether. I think what really makes her different are her facial expressions in which they are like one in a million. I still remember watching Country Princess with her and Kim Yoo Mi and i was thinking, wow, can that accent be any more real. She is quite talented and so happy to know that she has more going on upstairs than alot of these actresses nowadays. Granted i wasnt too crazy about some of her movies but nevertheless i see talent and i rarely see that in some of the new crop of actors and actresses now.

She's very low key from what i can tell. I dont see her doing much of CFs (or maybe because i dont really pay much attention to it unless i read something regarding that)and much magazine photoshoots. But i guess that is what i really like about her, very under the radar and when you see her again in some sort of project, you know its special since she is coming out in it.

The list is definitely ecclectic, left out some well known beauties or considered beauties in the industry, some of the people chosen i dont entirely agree with but well researched in general.

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^Doona does have an anime-ish face, doesn't she. ^_^

doonadrama.jpg

And her talent is undeniable.

Though I'm glad she seems to have a rich life apart from show business (judging from her cyworld), I wish she'd do more stuff. I want to see more of her. She's the sort of person who's picky about her projects (which shows), but I hope that her being low-key is really a matter of personal choice, and not because she isn't being casted because she's not a box-office draw. I think her conscious choice to be in risky and non-mainstream films (plus the fact that she isn't super gorgeous) meant that she was sacrificing future CF deals. As the Subway Cinema essay said, she seems to get more love from foreign fans than at home.

It's a huge consolation that (1) genius directors like Bong JoonHo and Park ChanWook recognize her talent and hopefully will continue to use her in their films; (2) her acting rep makes her the go-to girl for quirkier dramas like "Beating Heart" and (from the synopsis) "Someday"; and like you said, (3) when she comes out with a project, you can expect it to be special.

I guess she's more comfortable being an actor than being a star. Can't help it if I want her to be both. :P

I still like her pairing with Shin Ha Kyun..they obviously are(were) the coolest duo..hmm..was talking to a fren whether we should start a Shin Ha Kyun thread...a REAL awesome actor with so many great movies to his name..(or maybe there is a thread already??) but not not exactly a pin-up dude..

There isn't one yet. Do it! Do it! Hey, I'd post in a Shin HaKyun thread.

He dropped by "The Host" set, btw. ;)

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I became a fan of DooNa's in "Take Care of My Cat", one of my favorite films. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Barking Dogs Never Bite"! It's funny though how it's impossible to explain why to friends:

Friend: Is it a drama or a comedy?

Me: It's hilarious with this kind of black humor, but I dunno if you can classify it as a comedy...

Friend: Is there a hot guy and a hot girl in it?

Me: Uhhh, not really... But I love Bae DooNa and Lee SungJae's really good...

Friend: What's it about?

Me: Oh, someone kills this dog and then she posts up these posters looking for it and she and her fat friend just lounge around like bums and he has this domineering wife who earns the cash and makes him crack nuts and there's running lotsa running and oh! oh! oh! there's this creepy maintenance guy in the basement who tells a story about Boiler Kim...

Friend: :huh:

Me: *gives up*

I could only find subs to 6 episodes and discussion in the old thread was lost in the soompi crash, but I said to hell with it, and so to this day, "Beating Heart" is the only K-drama (well, half of a K-drama) that I watched without my English-language-crutch. And I loved it all the same. :D I'm hoping "Someday" will be just as interesting.

Btw, JDY's one of my favorite actresses too. :wub: When I try to look at her with an objective eye, I mutter to myself, "She has nice skin, nice figure, great huge smile--and what else? Her forehead's too wide, her eyes are too big, her face is too small..." You know, kinda like saying "Meryl Streep's nose is too long." :lol: But when I watch her in ANYTHING, I swear, she's so beautiful to me. In "You Are My Sunshine", whether she's prancing around in her miniskirts or sitting glumly in a prison cell, I think, "She's so beautiful." No one will convince me otherwise.

And I agree with inez: it's like great actresses such as JDY, BDN and Moon SoRi can turn sexiness on and off, like a switch. I watched MSR on Happy Together Friends with Go DooShim and she's dressed kinda frumpily and just plain happy to reconnect with her old friends; then I compare that to "A Good Lawyer's Wife" and "Bewitching Attraction" (*fans myself*)...and it's just amazing. There's always next year (and the next and the next...) for her to get on the list, I guess.

I like Lee NaYoung as well, and she's so extremely pretty that no one will be complaining about her inclusion, I think (unlike more controversial choices like DooNa and KHJ or even MGY). I agree that her filmography isn't as impressive as DooNa's yet; wish she'd do more projects.

(Oh, you've made me curious about "YMCA Baseball"!)

I'm just totally gaga over Ryu SeungBeom and will always be. The end.

Really, shirley, you find Ryu SeungWan dashing? Hmmm... I'm already a RSW fangirl as it is, but it's still on an *eherm* cerebral level. We'll see if I start shrieking "OMG he's hottt" when I see "The City of Violence."

omoo ..u also like Barking dogs ..haha you are luckier gosh ...i remember i recommend to a friend and i just start on the dog killing and er i dun think my friend find any amusing thing in such a plot ..dog lover cant take it i suppose --;;; ...so i never even got to Boiler kim !! .haha but that scene was hilarous but scary too i was curled up with pillow wondering is this going to turn horror or something !! .DUN OPEN the cupboard .! i was like thinking !! ...ohhh and that toliet roll that went down the road ~ hahah i always remember that scene ~ i like lee sung jae actually just that recently his movies .hmm some good ones some bad ones ...he was so wasted in Diasy .!

ahh beating heart..hahha ..the first two esp was really amusing seeing her and dong wannie haha i laugh out when i saw her explosive hairstyle hahahh ,~~ .but still sad they got to end up like that ....sob sob ..sigh.~~ ...

~~ ah and the next section on her and her sister and ji sung as the first love ..gosh i teared ..bae jongok is really also such a good actress .!~! ..

yeh .when JDY is in her movies ..~ she is simply just awesome ..i think she is born to be an actress ..! that amount of life and engery and passion she exhbit .in her roles ...just make her so beautiful .~~

ah moon soori .~ how come i forget about her .** another amazing actress .~

..

ahhh RSW ..haha yes i do find him veryyy cool while watching the The city of violence MV ! ~~ ! and whatmore .i like JUNG Doo-hong when he was in ruler of your own world ~ so this movie i will surely try to catch it when the dvd is release .~

YMCA ..~ is not a bad movie ..entertaining enough .~ reallly HJM ~ you simply cannot believe is him ~ watch out for small appearance of jo seung woo at the end .keke .~ .

Well put. I've always thought that she had a unique beauty, really almost anime like too, not conventionally beautiful by some standards but she stands out altogether. I think what really makes her different are her facial expressions in which they are like one in a million. I still remember watching Country Princess with her and Kim Yoo Mi and i was thinking, wow, can that accent be any more real. She is quite talented and so happy to know that she has more going on upstairs than alot of these actresses nowadays. Granted i wasnt too crazy about some of her movies but nevertheless i see talent and i rarely see that in some of the new crop of actors and actresses now.

bellaangel012 ^^ ... :lol: catching any interesting dramas recently ?

ohh ya.! her accent in country princess haha .* ( i still remember how she chase after the bus in the first esp ! ..) gosh long after that and i watch the Killl the love .seriously i can see the contrast ~ .i so apperciated Bae Doo Na accent ..even if i dun understand it ~ she just make it more fluent or convincing to me ...and not as irriating as the kim sara did in kill the love ~ . :sweatingbullets:

i used to remember ..BDN ..she like to take photos of the set ~ and the cast .filming the country princess~ .~ and posted on her cyworld .or was it the drama site .~ :) ..

..ya .her anime-ish face that why when i heard that Someday was about animation and she is cast i was commenting ...the casting director make a great choice .~ !

i am just waiting so much for the the change of dramas .~~ ..so many i want to watch ..someday . stranger then paradise ...and then JJM's new drama ..game queen is it call ~(we dun care we just want to go bimbo over moshi keke even if the plot might sucks which we hope not .) ... :P oh and that park jin hee drama ..The Return of Soon-Ae ”, -

=

Shin Ha Kyun = > HIS SAVE THE GREEN PLANET IS A MUST WATCH !! ...:) Awesome .script and performance .!

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There isn't one yet. Do it! Do it! Hey, I'd post in a Shin HaKyun thread.

He dropped by the "The Host" set, btw. naughty.gif

I second melusine's idea... ya... inez-Jang... your own thread to start & explore. :lol:

Shin Ha Kyun, LBH, LJJ and Jung Jae Young all belong to the same management agency. There's Jin Goo, too! :w00t:

Sorry, off-topic :blush: ... well, not where Shin HK is concerned, I suppose. :P

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