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Category Archives: Jeon Do-yeon

Easter celebrity round-up

22-Mar-08

Easter celebrity round-up

It's been a while since I rounded up some of the celebrity news as an excuse for posting some pictures, so here's some recent items: First - Brits with Korean connections: Korea Beat has a translation of an interview with David Beckham, recently in Korea with LA Galaxy Kate Moss gets an advertising contract with Korean fashion brand GGPX Next, Korean celebs with Chinese actors in Hong Kong: Jeon Do-yeon picking up Best Actress at the Asian Film Awards (for her performance in Secret Sunshine), with Tony Leung (best actor, for Lust, Caution). And Choi Ji-woo with Chow Yun-Fat. For full explanation, visit the Marmot. Next, Korean celebs earning money (or not) from product promotion Rain, who has been rather invisible of late, pops up in a Nikon ...

Secret Sunshine at the BFI London Film Festival

29-Oct-07

Secret Sunshine at the BFI London Film Festival

Note: this post contain spoilers It was slightly disappointing to see Screen One of the Odeon West End (seating capacity: 500) somewhat under half full for the London premiere of Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine last Monday. By contrast, No Mercy for the Rude, a film which (from its description at least) is much more in the hackneyed Asia Extreme mainstream, was fully booked for the following night, albeit at the much smaller ICA screen (seating capacity: 185). At two hours twenty minutes, it's a long film, but somehow time didn't seem to drag. The slowest part was the time up to the point when Shin-ae suffers the calamity which sets off her downward spiral. The nature of the calamity itself was guessable ...

Deadly Elves and other recent tabloid stories

28-Aug-07

Deadly Elves and other recent tabloid stories

It's a while since I did a round-up of celebrity news, which means that I've almost forgotten all the things I was going to mention, and lost most of the links that I was going to use. So before things get completely out of hand, here's one of my not-so-regular posts shamelessly plundering the celebrity blogs. 1 Bada After my recent post defending Bada against the assaults of Popseoul I exchanged a few emails with the Popseoulites. They don't have an issue with her singing ability, just her sense of style. I'm coming round to their way of thinking, based on one of their more recent posts. A weird vision. And the singing ability? Well, I've now listened to Made ...

Jeon Do-yeon wins at Cannes

28-May-07
Congratulations to Jeon Do-yeon on winning best actress at Cannes. She was an early front-runner in the competition, and just for once those early hopes of success were justified. For the first third of its nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time, "Secret Sunshine" feels like a slightly somber fish-out-of-water comedy (reports AO Scott at the New York Times), until a sudden catastrophe cranks up the psychological intensity, sending the heroine (the remarkable Jeon Do-yeon) into a frenzied, desperate search for some kind of peace. Her pain is almost too much for Mr. Lee's deliberate style to contain — and there is something incomplete about the film, in spite of its length — but Ms. Jeon's portrayal of a meek soul in torment is a ...

Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine gets early thumbs-up

07-May-07
Probably the most eagerly awaited Korean film of 2007, at least by me, is Lee Chang-dong's fourth: Secret Sunshine, or Milyang (밀양). I've admired his first three for the issues they tackle and the superb acting: Lee has had access to some top stars for his films - Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri for Oasis and Peppemint Candy, with Han Suk-kyu in the slightly lesser-known Green Fish. And for Milyang we can look forward to Song Kang-ho and Jeon Do-yeon appearing together. An early report from this year's Cannes festival is of an advance screening of Milyang, and the viewer was certainly enthusiastic - about the film, about Song, and particularly about Jeon. Visitors to koreanfilm.org will know that Darcy has ...

Darcy’s predictions for 2007

11-Jan-07
It's getting to be the case that the more interesting stuff over on Darcy's site is in his What's New page rather than his forums. Here are his predictions for 2007: Park Jin-pyo's VOICE OF A MURDERER is going to be a major critical and popular hit (at least 6 million tickets) There will be about 80 Korean films released in 2007, down from 103 this year Korean comedy will make a comeback Kim Ki-duk will fight with the press, and will not release his new movie in Korea Total annual admissions will drop for the first time in a decade Jeon Do-yeon (below) will win Best Actress at Cannes Darcy's been Jeon Do-yeon's number one fan for as long as I can remember. But it would be ...