Goo Hye Sun accepted to Sungkyunkwan University

Director and actress Goo Hye Sun has become a freshman at Sungkyunkwan University for the 2011 school year.

She will be attending the school next March as an arts major. In an interview with MyDaily on October 29th, Goo Hye Sun revealed, “I’m extremely glad to be able to enter college.”

Goo Hye Sun previously attended Seoul Institute of the Art but was forced to give up her education due to her busy schedule. She continued, “I wanted to continue studying, which is why I submitted an application privately in order to achieve my dream.”

She went on to talk about her interests in directing as well, stating, “I hope to study directing a bit more and a variety of other areas as well.”

Her self directed movie, “Magic,” was invited to the Tokyo Film Festival on October 27th.

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Moon Geun Young gets married again on ‘Mary Stayed Out All Night’

The ‘Two Geun Couple’ – Jang Geun Suk and Moon Geun Young – revealed their wedding photoshoot for upcoming drama, ‘Mary Stayed Out All Night‘. This is the second wedding pictorial released for this drama; the first was taken with the other male lead, Kim Jae Wook.

For this photoshoot, Jang Geun Suk wore a fashionable yet modern black tux; hilariously, his sullen expression places him as the most reluctant bridegroom we’ve seen yet. Co-star Moon Geun Young was primped into a mini wedding dress with a pink ribbon, and accentuated her fairy-like appearance with a tiny tiara.

After finishing the wedding photoshoot, Jang Geun Suk commented, ‘Today, the unusual Mary is very pretty. Don’t I look handsome too? We had fun filming, so I hope the viewers will enjoy watching the drama.’

Moon Geun Young said, ‘Even though it’s a different design from the last wedding dress, I like both. The hairstyles and atmosphere is also different.’

‘Mary Stayed Out All Night’ will begin airing on November 8th.

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Did Rain steal Lee Min-ho’s thunder?

It was big news when Lee Min-ho was cast as a womanizing PI in the kdrama adaptation of the famous manga and anime series City Hunter, which was hugely popular in the 1980s. So what has the production team suddenly worried?

Apparently, it’s the similarity of City Hunter’s distinctive Ryo Saeba character to Rain‘s lead character in currently airing drama Runaway Plan B, as well as the storylines of the two projects. When Runaway premiered, a lot of viewers noted the familiarity of Rain’s Ji-woo to the well-known City Hunter hero, with his detective occupation, incorrigible flirting with pretty women, and chic urban style.

The similarity itself isn’t the only issue, though; what makes things stickier is that Runaway, which got off to such a strong ratings start, has nearly halved its audience at the midway point. If it had continued to be a hit, perhaps there’d be less worry — just as one vampire/zombie hit is sure to spawn dozens of imitators — but with the first one faring poorly, there’s concern that the second would meet a similar fate.

There have even been rumors that the production is reconsidering its direction with City Hunter, and is waiting things out before making a final decision. Currently, the series is being planned for an early 2011 broadcast on SBS.

It’s an interesting dilemma. On one hand, there are tons of dramas out there with similar topics that get produced all the time, and sometimes it’s just a matter of certain trends emerging at once. For a while we had a spate of legal and medical dramas, which have since faded. Then you had 2009 as the year of the (failed) sports drama, focusing on everything from boxing to soccer to golf to figure skating. Heck, there were even two versions of Iljimae.

On the other hand, you can see where there is concern that the first drama will steal the thunder from all those that follow — remember Cinderella Man‘s lawsuit with Fashion King, or Style versus Magazine Allo? And even though MBC’s Return of Iljimae was vastly superior to SBS’s Iljimae in writing, directing, and acting, SBS purposely hurried their production in order to scoop MBC, aired first, and brought in the bigger ratings. (They also had the bigger star — Lee Jun-ki — which certainly helped.)

So, you can see the reason for concern. Lee Min-ho was a great “get” for this role despite his youth (at 23, he really is too young to play Ryo, imo), but now there’s a likelihood that everything he does would be compared to Rain’s performance — either he’d be called a copycat, or fall short of the comparison.

Still, Lee is taking an optimistic line, and on October 26 a rep from his management stated, “The character Kang Jin that Lee Min-ho will be playing is different from the original character in a number of aspects, and the script has not yet come out. I think you’ll find that Kang Jin is a fresher and more three-dimensional character than expected. These days, Lee Min-ho is busy preparing to express that character. Please don’t worry and look forward to Lee’s Kang Jin.”

As for me? I’ll be watching both!

credit : javabeans@DB

SBS interviews Big Bang on the photo shoot set for FILA, briefly mentions comeback album

The boys of Big Bang have been endorsing Korean apparel brand FILA for over two years now with the last photo shoot taking place in August. Now, they’re back with another photo shoot for FILA and SBS’s One Night TV Entertainment News was on hand to conduct a short interview with them on the set.

At the beginning of the interview, the host questions the members with, “Which member is best suited for today’s photo shoot?” Big Bang leader G-Dragon responds, “Today, it’s me…” When the topic of G-Dragon’s unique fashion sense was brought up, Seungri mentioned, “At home G-Dragon likes to mix and match clothes and tries out around 5 outfits all the time… but out of those 5 outfits, 3 of them look terrible. However, he ends up going out with the cool outfit every time.” The host also mentions that G-Dragon is a fashionista and can pull off many looks that most other people couldn’t.

As for their comeback album, G-Dragon states, “Very soon.” While TOP jokingly says, “It may have very well been released 30 minutes ago and nobody knows about it yet.”

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Check it out below:

Hwang Bo reveals MV for “Still Beautiful”

Earlier in the month, Veteran singer Hwang Bo took pride in her 52kg body and uploaded a sexy bikini photo on her twitter. Some say she’s past her prime but she’s out to prove them wrong as earlier today, the beautiful singer released a new single titled “Still Beautiful.” In conjunction with the single, the MV was released as well.

The track was produced by Shim Tae Yoon, composed by Jae Yoon, and arranged by Huh Seok. The MV along with the track is beautiful, much like the artist herself. Check it out below and remember to support the artist by purchasing the music.

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Movie posters for bubbly romance Finding Kim Jong-wook

There can never be too many good frothy-cute romantic comedies out there, as far as I’m concerned (operative word being good), so I’m looking forward to the upcoming movie Finding Kim Jong-wook, which stars two very talented and charismatic actors, Im Soo-jung (I’m Sorry, I Love You) and Gong Yoo (Coffee Prince). The movie has released its first posters, pictured here.

The film is adapted from an original musical of the same name, which premiered in 2006 and became a hit with audiences. The plot kicks off when the heroine (Im Soo-jung), decides to find the first love for whom she still pines, and becomes a client of Gong Yoo, who runs a service dedicated to finding your first love.

(Such a service may rather seem curiously specific to the Western ear, but kdrama fans are probably well aware of that mystical pull of the elusive First Love that exists in Korean culture, and this idea isn’t SO far-fetched. There was even a cable reality program dedicated to a similar premise, called Tracking Your Ex-Boyfriend, which was hosted by Jae Hee and Shin Dong-wook and dispatched its production team to finding erstwhile loves of its participants.)

Of course, Im Soo-jung falls for Gong Yoo in the process. While the film isn’t exactly like the recent smash hit Cyrano Dating Agency, perhaps it’ll ride the wave of its success in the bubbly-rom-com market.

Finding Kim Jong-wook opens in December. Below is a promotional video of clips from the musical on which the movie is based. Looks breezy and fun:

The following is one of the duets featured in the musical, and sung here by Eom Ki-joon (yup, the musical-turned-television actor of dramas The World They Live In and Hero) and Oh Na-ra:

credit : javabeans@DB

Home Sweet Home starts off with brisk story, slow ratings

It was a slowish beginning, ratings-wise, for MBC’s new “Korean Desperate Housewives” series Home Sweet Home, which I’d previously called by its literal translation, My Happy Home. Wednesday’s premiere improved upon its predecessor, Playful Kiss (which averaged 3.5% for its 16-episode run), but not by much, drawing a 6.4%.

On the other hand, initial evaluations of the first hour were positive for the strong acting skills of its cast, and it looks like it has carved out a niche with 30-something women viewers, among whom the rating share was 19%. Not bad, considering ajummas also love Go Hyun-jung, who headlines competitor drama Daemul. (On the same day, Daemul held its lead with a 25.5%, a few points lower than its high, while KBS’s Runaway Plan B inched up a few points to 12.8%.)

I only managed to catch the first part of the episode so far, but based on my first impressions, I get the feeling that this show will definitely bring The Drama — loud voices, sexy scenes, catty rivalries, you name it. I’m not yet sure if it’ll be in the realm of ridiculously cheesy or deliciously exaggerated, but I can see the potential for both.

The story has Kim Hye-soo playing a happily married psychiatrist whose sexy husband (Shin Sung-woo) seems to be very much in love with her, but still keeps in contact with his old girlfriend, the glamorous but shrewish Hwang Shin-hye. Episode 1 kicks right off with a domestic altercation between Hwang and her husband (Kim Gab-soo) that ends with her braining him over the head with a wine bottle in self-defense. He’s injured but not yet dead when she calls her ex for help, but tells him that her husband has disappeared. The next morning, his death is declared the result of a car accident.

So the premise of the series is that Hwang Shin-hye will desperately try to keep this a secret, and Kim Hye-soo will try to uncover the mystery behind the death. I do think they missed an opportunity right off the bat by showing us how the husband died, because while the characters find themselves in a mystery, we don’t. At least the U.S. Desperate Housewives introduced an element of intrigue, because we didn’t know WHY the housewife committed suicide until the end of the season, which I think would have been a more exciting way to go here.

But then again, I’ve only seen part of the first episodes — maybe they’ll throw in a few surprises along the way. What’s key in this series is really the tone — the glittery, over-the-top, dramatic, faaaabulous tone. I mean, just take a look:

credit : javabeans@DB