Happy Birthday, Park Shin Yang!

Nov 1, 2009 – Park will be celebrating his birthday with fans from Japan and Korea, and on this day,  a great news came – Lee Kim Productions, a CODA member, which refused to pay Park after the k-drama, War of Money, had lost its appeal to the Seoul Central District Court’s ruling on May 8, 09 that Park was legally entitled to be paid in full for the contracted wages.  The Seoul High Court (11th Division) has ruled on Nov 1st that Lee Kim Productions has to pay Park in full the remaining balance AGAIN.

A contract is a contract.  Lee Kim Productions, no matter how many times you appeal, you are wrong for not paying Park. 

CODA – why do you insist your ban on Park Shin Yang?  Can’t you see that Lee Kim is wrong again?  Why do you still take the wrong side?  Please reverse this unfair and unjust ban immediately!  Please, don’t ever release any more statement that Lee Kim Productions is the victim  (XYZ!!!).  Park is the double victim here – no pay and no work!!

Someone, please, make sure Lee Kim Productions doesn’t just “fold” like that – please make sure it pays Park in full and please don’t let it pull some other tricks and let it go away with it – please!

I invite you to join the Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang – on Nov 5th, send your email to CODA and its members and ask them nicely to reverse the ban on Park; thanks!

News in English: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/11/113_54747.html

News in Korean:

 http://m.media.daum.net/view.html?cateid=100000&newsid=20091101090145369&p=fnnewsi

http://www.cbs.co.kr/nocut/show.asp?idx=1303017

Fighting, Park Shin Yang!  Hope to see you in a new k-drama soon.

(Updates: photos from “Autumn, 111″  @ Grand Hyatt Hotel / Seoul (text in Korean) – http://news.msn.co.kr/article/read.html?cate_code=5000&article_id=200911012226125007  )

Park Shin Yang’s doing great at NYIT.  There are two postings at his Japan official fan site on Oct 5, 2009. 

The first article was about logistics arragement due to a large crowd of attendence and it included comments taken from one of the five Korean students who received a scholarship to attend this course.  The student said Park Shin Yang’s passion of life and acting made him feel his own passion once again.  Professors of other acting classes also brought their students to join Professor Baek and Park’s class.  Many people were packed in a classroom.  The attenders were asked to open their hearts and minds for a frank discussion.

The second article covered the agenda (lecture notes) of that class – a list of very down-to-earth, practical questions (see for yourself!).  At the end of this class, everyone applauded.  Touching, isn’t it?  Apparently there is no “language” problem – when it comes to acting, the body language is universal, isn’t it?

Speaking of the Japan official fan site, there is a call for photos of 1 MB or less to be sent to the “Autumn 111″ birthday party event organizer – theme is of course the birthday celebration for Park Shin Yang.  Selected photo will be shown at the party.  Deadline to send is Oct 27.  For details, please click here (in Japanese).

CODA, you may ban Park from future k-dramas, but you can’t ban his spirit and passion in dramas.  The sooner you reverse the ban decision, the better.  People are not stupid.  They can tell what is legit and what’s not.

Reader, if you haven’t participated in the counter ban campaign before, consider joining at least once – the next one is launched Nov 5th, 2009 – please check “Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang” out!

The Seoul International Drama Awards SDA2009 awards ceremony was held at Seoul’s Olympic Hall in the Olympic Park on Sept 11, 2009.

Many Korean newspaper covered the news.  Feel free to search for “SDA 서울드라마어워즈” and you will see a ton of articles about the results.

I am only going to highlight winners related to K-industry (and Canada!!) - note these are my best guesses (if I made any mistake, please inform me!)

First, no surprise to anyone -

These were announced on the evening:

Grand Prize: Memoirs in China (China, Zhejiang Huace)

Best & Excellence Drama 

SS501 (where Kim Hyun Joong is a member but did not perform due to high fever and serious flu symptons), Park Hyo Shin (박효신),  Tae Yong (태연) (SNSD/Girl’s Generation) and Tmax were some of the performers of the evening.  Songs presented included Lee Jun Ki’s Il-Ji-Mae – HwaShin, Kim Myung Min’s Beethoven Virus – Can You Hear Me.  Park and Tae Yong performed MISA’s Snow Flower as a duet.  Tae Yong’s voice is really nice – it’s a pity that this key wasn’t Tae Yong’s range… (see the clip with the link behind Tae Yong).

Source:

http://www.mydaily.co.kr/news/read.html?newsid=200909112046521117&ext=na (complete winner list at the end of the article; with photos!)

http://www.newsen.com/news_view.php?uid=200909112036111001 (with photos!)

http://www.allkpop.com/index.php/full_story/seoul_international_drama_awards_2009_wrap-up/ (more photos and video clips!)

Hwang Jung Min (황정민) – a name Korean movie goers will not forget.

If you pick your movies or dramas just by the look of the leads, you could have easily skipped his work.  But – you really have *NO IDEA* how much you’ve missed out.  Seriously.

I have not exhausted his work yet.  Actually I bumped into his work purely by accident.  After I watched k-drama “Lovers in Prague” (프라하의 연인, 2005, SBS), I was interested in seeing more work of both leads, Jun Do Yeon and Kim Joo Hyuk (whom I have briefly discussed before).  Then I came across this movie, “You Are My Sunshine” (너는 내 운명, 2005, Korean Movie) with Jun Do Yeon as the Female Lead and Hwang was the Male Lead.  I had no idea who Hwang Jung Min was then.  After watching “You Are My Sunshine”, I became more curious of Hwang.  His role in that movie was a “below average Joe”, late middle-aged farmer Seok Joong who received coffee delivery from Eun Ha, a staff of a rural coffee shop.  She delivered products of the coffee shop in a small town, and sometimes she offered “special services” to the male customers as well.  This is a melodrama.  Then I watched Hwang’s another movie, “A Man Who Was Superman” (슈퍼맨이었던 사나이, 2008, Korean Movie).  Hwang played a superman whose single mission is to save the earth and has been doing that for the longest time, until a producer/reporter met him and looked at the ”superman”’s x-ray report.  This is a very meaningful story that makes you think and reflect a lot.  I was swept head over heel - Hwang Jung Min’s performance was shockingly and amazingly solid.  Since then, I’m convinced – show me his name, and I am sold (almost).

Yesterday I heard of Hwang’s movie, Shadow Murder (검은집, also called Black House) (2007) (original story from a Japanese horror novel by Yusuke Kishi which has also been made into a Japanese movie ”The Black House“(1999)), where he played a new insurance agent investigaing a death of a boy which leads him to a series of murder cases.   This is a thriller.  I am looking forward to this when I get a hold of it.  Actually, I am going to watch his first k-drama “That Fool” (그바보, 2009, KBS2) – I think it will be worth just by enjoying his performance.

Hwang Jung Min – a sweet charm in the heart.  A rare gem in the K-entertainment industry.   Highly recommended. 

Autumn, 111

Nov 1 is Park Shin Yang’s official’s unofficial birthday (according to his core fans, his birthday is not this day     ) but his core fans still celebrate this day with him (and leave this unofficial official bd to his family) – there will be a fan meeting on Nov 1, 2009 at Grand Hyatt Hotel @ Seoul – his fans are throwing Park Shin Yang a birthday party – this is going to be touching and meaningful – this is the first birthday party since his ban last year on Dec 5, 08.

Check out from his official fan sites (Korean / Japanese) for more details!

CODA, see that??   Many are still with Park Shin Yang.   The longer you drag onto this, the longer people will remember your “sxxpxxity”.  Reverse this unjust ban now – please?

Seoul International Drama Awards 2009 – the voting event for the Most Populars is officially closed.  The following is a glance of the results.

I started recording the stats at 11:05 am (Aug 30 Canada EST) when the event is closed for voting.  I knew it was closed because I tried to click the Vote button at approximately 11:02 am and I got a pop-up window saying the event is closed.   But I found that the vote count was still changing… and I really don’t understand why.  For the past days, when I voted, the vote count would change at real time – i.e. I see my vote immediately after I voted, and hence I thought the count was real-time.  So with that assumption, as soon as the voting event was closed, the votes shouldn’t change.  But I found that not the case.  For example,  Moon Guen Young’s votes increased from 6,370,464 (at 11:06 am Aug 30 Canada EST) to the final 6,381,709 by 11,245 votes.

Another abnormality – for at least a day, I saw Kim Hyun Joong appeared three times on the top-10 summary in the “vote result in Japan” page.  That means something’s seriously wrong on the back-end.

I also had a couple days that I couldn’t vote at all – to be more accurate, I could vote for all 3 categories, but when it came to the final confirmation page where it gathered your information, it gave me an error and I couldn’t complete the vote no matter what I provided.  Not to mention that the site was slow in loading and for 50% of the time, I had to refresh my session for my browser would time-out and give me an error.

Last but not least, tho there’s a rule forbidding an IP for voting more than once a day, did you ever wonder how could some candidates collect votes so fast…  Let’s do some math here.  This event was opened from July 13 - Aug 30 – a total of 49 days.  Take the Most Popular drama Boys Before Flowers as an example, the total vote was 22,269,957.  Assuming everyone started voting on the first day – that would still take 454,489 votes a day to make up the total.   Now think – are there t-h-a-t many fans of BBF out there?…  P-e-r-h-a-p-s…  but highly unlikely!   In fact, there are several ways to beat this “Per IP once a day” rule.  Using a different browser is one way.  Another way is if you’re using dynamic internet connections (where your connection is assigned a new IP when you reconnent to your ISP every time).  Not to encourage people doing this, I am not going to describe in details, but it can be done.  Good intention of the rule, but if there’s a known method on how to beat it, then I think the rule shouldn’t be imposed at all.  Afterall, if fans want to show how durable and loyal they can be by repeating this loop action package *connect->vote->disconnect->reconnect* for their idols, it should be allowed for people with dynamic or static connection…    just my rant.  I’ve got to give these fans some credits – for those who mobilized other fans to ceaselessly vote and for those who ceaselessly voted, you’re persistantly remarkable and amazing – you guys swept KBS (BBF) / Kim Hyun Joong (BBF) / Moon Guen Young (POTW) the SDA 2009 Most Popular Drama / Actor / Actress award title – great fight. 

Park Shin Yang (Painter Of The Wind) – he’s on the 10th rank (out of 37) in Japan, 12th in Korea and 15th in Overseas and has pulled in a total of 5009 votes.

These 2 gents are on the jury-selected Best Actor category, to be announced on Sept 11, 09 on the SDA 2009 Ceremony:

1. Kim Myung Min (Beethoven’s Virus) is on the 4th rank on all charts, and has attracted 4,882,852 votes.  
2. Park Yong Ha (A Man’s Story / Slingshot) ranked 8th in Korea, 6th in Japan and 30th in overseas, has gathered 11, 871 votes.

Regardless of the results, congratulations to all – may your drama career advance to be next level and may more recognize and appreciate your (and your production team’s) effort and talent.

Please continue to support the K-entertainment industry – help make it a brighter and better place.   If you can spare 20 minutes now to join the Sept 2009 Email Campaign to help Park Shin Yang fight his unfair ban, please visit this – you can send your email to CODA today (no need to wait for Sept 5 as all material needed is ready for use!).   Thank you!

One year ago, 故이언 Lee Eon passed away in a traffic accident. 

That day, I missed him so much.  I still miss him today.  In a way, Lee Eon still lives – he lives in many’s fond memories.

What actually happened that night, I believe, it’s still a mystery.  It still remains an unresolved case.  Deep down in my heart, I just hope it’s not a dark dirty plot behind this.

I was very disappointed I couldn’t get his book last time I travelled to Seoul, Korea.  Communications break-down – I didn’t speak enough to get the book store staff to understand what I was looking for.  (Any one knows the ISBN of this book please?)

I wish his parents strong and healthy. 

An-nyoung.  An-nyoung.  An-nyoung.

Please treasure your favourite K-actors / actresses while they are around.   Please treasure Park Shin Yang – please vote for him @ SDA 2009, and join the Sept 09 campaign - help him fight this unjust ban.

This Korean movie, Thirst, was released in Toronto yesterday August 7th, 2009, along with other movies like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (with Korean actor Lee Byung Hun), Julie & Julia,  (500) Days of Summer etc.

I told my hubby last week about Thirst and G.I. Joe.  Thursday I started to see the Thirst ad (the N.A. version (the one on the left in this link) was actually banned in Korea; the one on the right is the Korean version) in Toronto’s newspaper.  I noticed it’s only screened in two theatres.  (I think Thirst has limited screening in Canada – only B.C., Ontario and Quebec currently.)  I asked Hubby if we could watch either one Saturday.   Friday evening I brought it up again. ” There are more theatres showing G.I. Joe…” I said.  “You’re kidding…” Hubby said.  Hubby even knew that there’s a Korean actor in it, tho he doesn’t know exactly the name, but he got the family name and the last character in the name correct.  Finally I said, either one.  Then half an hour later, he said, “Thirst.  At least, it has a 7.9 score… “  Thirst it was!  We watched it today! 

Director, writer and producer Park Chan Wook 박찬욱 - a name familiar to Korean movie goers.  His Vengeance Trilogy (3 movies:  Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) ), I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006) are highly received – many have won awards in international film festivals.   Park co-wrote Thirst with Jeong Seo Gyeong 정서경.  They have previously written Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK together.  Thirst’s cast includes Song Kang Ho 송강호 as Sang Hyun, Kim Ok Bin 김옥빈 as Tae Ju, Shin Ha Kyun 신하균 as Tae Ju’s husband, Kim Hae Sook 김해숙 as Tae Ju’s mother in law.

The story is about Sang Hyun, an orphaned, Catholic priest participated as a volunteer for a medical research project fighting a deadly virus which mostly attacks men that are sexually inactive; among the patients many are missionaries, hence the virus is called Emmanual Virus, EV.  During the course of his volunteer term, he got blisters all over his face and limbs.  At the end, EV caused him to cough blood.  He got blood transplantation on the surgery bed.  He’s certified (dead) by the doctor but he came back alive.  He returned to Korea as an infamous band-aided priest who’s the only survivor among 500+ volunteers who died in the project.  Many have come to ask for his blessings for their sick family members.  There he met his childhood friend and his wife, Tae Ju who was abondaned when she was very little in Tae Ju’s house.  Tae Ju then stayed with her now-husband and was arranged by the mother to marry her son.  Then the story continued along how Sang Hyun turned into a vampire (the Korean movie name means “bat”) and how he and Tae Ju murdered her husband and the aftermath.

This movie is rated 18A (Ontario/B.C.) (I originally thought it’s rated R).  It has blood sheds.  It has murders.   It has violence.  It has sex scenes and both the actor and the actress go nude.  It doesn’t have sudden scary / frightening scenes.  Park tells the story in a direct way – he doesn’t magnify or enhance or tweak these elements in a fancy way.  Don’t be mistaken that it’s within the ordinary – it’s not quite that!  He’s brutally and honestly presenting the mental (and eventually they physical) states of Sang Hyun to his audience – his pain, his guilt, his lust, his control, his let-loose, his falling, his awakening.  His take on vampire movies is atypical – it’s different than how other directors tell vampire stories.   Blood crave, the sun, plus some super power seem to be the few common denominators among vampire-themed movies; even when told, they are done differently.  There’s no vampire teeth to show here, and who has ever seen a vampire with blisters? 

Since the centre of the story revolves around a priest, there’s unavoidably a religious tone ringing throughout the movie tho not a heavy nor deep one.  In a quarrel scene, I’m subtly reminded of Adam and Eve – not sure if it is intentional or not.  I see the theme of rebirth – life transformation; however it’s the opposite direction as supposed to be a better person.  Instead of a spiritual struggle, perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that the discusion is about barebone human nature.  I also witness a new application of a ruler.  :O

Love the cast!  I’ll go back to The Host (2006) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance to follow up on Song Kang Ho.  I watched Sympathy for Lady Vengeance for Lee Young Ae but I don’t remember him nor know about Park.  Thirst is the fourth collaboration (hope I didn’t count wrong) between Park (director/co-writer) and Song (co-writer).  Certainly look forward to future ones.  I watched I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK because of Im Su Jeong and Rain (Bi), and I didn’t know about Park either.  I’ll try to catch Oldboy.  Kim Ok Bin is also good.  This is a tough role to play.  Especially enjoy her post-transformation part – she seems stronger (and crazier) but she’s actually the weaker one.   Song and Kim compliment each other nicely here.   Of course, Shin Ha Kyun who plays the half-guilty/half-framed sicky husband, and Kim Hae Sook who’s the frantic and depressing Mother-In-Law help!  The credit also goes to Park as well.

Park is not just straight forward and serious.  He can be amusing (humorous) too - some scenes made me giggle.  When did I last giggle in a vampire movie?  Sang Hyun tried to finish his bat-like life twice - I found both sequences comical in a way.  If you’ve watched I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, then you shouldn’t be surprised.  I am also impressed in how he handled the post hubby-murder scenes.  So humorous, so daunting, so real and so sad!  He’s done a good job in balancing the tone of the movie.

Hubby asked me a trivial question after:  how was the Mother-In-Law able to move her finger?  (She was paralyzed during the movie; I just thought she wasn’t so paralyzed so the story could develop further… but hey, my hubby gave a perfect reason!)   Any one?

If you haven’t watched Thirst, give it a try.  I consider myself lucky that I don’t need to wait for it to be released on DVD before I can watch it.  Let me know what you think of it.  -yo (please).

** Updates on Sept 5th (source from dramabeans):  “Thirst” brought awards to the following in the 17th Chunsa Film Festival :

     Park Chan Wook – Director Award

     Song Kang Ho - Top Excellence, Actor

     Kim Hae Sook – Supporting Actress

     Park Hee Joo – Lighting

     Congratulations!!  ***

How many 41 years old can one live?  …………365 days.

How much time did CODA rip Park Shin Yang off for living his 41 years old to its fullest?  ………… 9 months and still counting.

You can help to lift this unfair ban.  Please join “Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang” today for their August 2009 Campaign.  Join them every month on the 5th until his ban is reversed.

Without watching his films or dramas, I’d think Lee Jun Ki (or Lee Joon Ki) is probably one of the Korean teen idols who sells cuteness, wackiness and youth.  When he smiles, his eyes become exactly like those eyes in the cartoons – they become two cashew nuts (like Kim Jung Eun’s smiling eyes!)  I even think there’s certain “strangeness” in his look.  He occasionally looks like a fox (ah fans of Lee Jun Ki out there, please forgive me) – just personal opinion – I mean no harm at all.   I feel really strange that I see a guy with such association.  I didn’t and wouldn’t have any expectations of his acting skills.  At least that’s what I thought – initially.

Then I picked up Iljimae (SBS, 2008).  At that point I was in a sageuk (Korean historical) drama fever.  I  was watching Strongest Chil Woo (KBS2, 2008)  and  Hong Gil Dong ( KBS2, 2008) and I bumped into this drama by Lee Jun Ki.   Iljimae is a Korean’s Robin Hood story.  So I thought, “Han Bun Hae Boo Ja…  (Lemme give it a try…)”.

Then my impression on him changed.  In this drama, his character has two distinct personalities – a market thug by day and a masked hero fighting the corrupted by night.  I won’t go deep into the details of the story but his acting reminded myself once again that I should look at a person’s work before I give a score based on initial impression.  I love his role as Iljimae and I think he nailed it right.  Actually the cast gave me great surprises.  I especially love his adopted dad, Lee Moon Shik, in the drama.  Boy oh boy, when I looked up at the age of this “dad”, my jaws dropped.  He’s not old at all.  I have a lot of respect of him as an actor.   That’s my Chapter One of Lee Jun Ki.

Then I became curious on Lee.  I wanted to see if his Iljimae performance was a fluke or not – perhaps the director, the script and the role helped.  So I picked up his movie, Virgin Snow (2007, Korean/Japan Movie).  In this movie, he played a son who travelled (from Korea) to Japan as his father became a lecturer in pottory in Japan.  There he met a girl.  They developed from friends to lovers but he had to leave Japan for his grandmother who was very sick back home.   A simple love story.  A refreshing performance by both Lee and the actress.  I was impressed on Lee Jun Ki’s acting skills once again.  That’s Chapter Two.

Today, I watched The King and the Clown (2005 Korean movie) (Korean title’s literal translation is “The King’s Boy”).   This is a story about how Lee and his closest friend and partner who worked as country clowns entered the Palace and how they left the tyrant King.  A difficult subject to tell.  Some scenes are challenging to act.  Considering his professional acting life only started not too long ago (he debuted in 2004), I found a promising Lee Jun Ki then.  And I am glad he has improved a lot since then.

With Chapter Three ending with my nods again, my conclusion:  Lee Jun Ki, not just a flower boy!   He had his music concerts in Japan (check this out for details) just last week.  I saw some concert photos.  A new look (new hair style).  A hard working young fellow.  I hope you enjoy your work, and produce more good quality work for many of your hot fans, and this ajumma here watching from the back seat row, cheering for you silently. 

Mentor Entertainment – please treat Lee Jun Ki like your own son - be fair to him, nourish him to become better, don’t work him to the ground and don’t rip him off please.  He’s not just the material for an idol of a short entertaining lifespan.  Let’s build a win-win-win situation.  Cheers!

Is he the original singer of Flower’s Message (Hwa Shin) of Iljimae’s theme song, any one?