Lee Jun Ki’s Photobook

Having just performed in Taipei on the 26th, Lee Junki’s busy schedule took him westwards towards Bangkok, Thailand, where he attended the launch of his new photo book, Sawasdee Khrab on 27th September.

The launch event was held at Central World, where over 100 journalists and 1,000 fans were awaiting his presence. The event was marked by Lee Junki handing over the 1st issue of his photo book to the Thai government while government officials presented him with a plaque to thank him for raising Thailand’s profile in the world.

This photo book was produced to commemorate the 50th year anniversary of the Korea Thailand Communication Centers (KTCC). With the backdrop of the best sights in Thailand, it will show Lee Junki promoting the idea of being able to relax and let loose from his hectic lifestyle. Following the launch in Thailand, Lee Junki will be promoting it from 5th October onwards in Korea, Japan before ending it in China.

source: coolsmurf

 

Lee Jun Ki’s The Best in China

Korean actor Lee Jun-ki has been voted the top Hallyu star in China, according to his agency on Friday.

The actor came in first, beating Rain and actress Song Hye-kyo, in the “2009 Most Popular Korean Star” survey held by CRI Online, a major portal in China, Mentor Entertainment said in a press release.

Lee is also receiving attention in Taiwan with more than 80 media companies on Wednesday attending Lee’s press conference for a fan concert set for tomorrow. His Taiwan concert was delayed indefinitely last year due to a typhoon.

“The foundation of Lee’s popularity in the Chinese market is more solid than any other Hallyu star syndrome,” an official working at a Taiwanese broadcaster was quoted as saying. “I don’t think his popularity will decline anytime soon.”

The 27-year-old actor rose to stardom playing a woman-like male clown in the 2005 hit film “The King and the Clown”.

He is set to appear in the MBC drama, tentatively titled “Hero”, which will air in Korea in November.

Source: asiae.co.kr

 

MBC’s Hero Cast Update

Hero, MBC’s upcoming drama and Lee Junki’s next television role, has lost Han Ji-min as its leading lady and picked up Kim Min-jung (New Heart) in her place. It has also cast Ji Chang-wook, newly famous from his role as youngest brother Mi-pung in KBS’s Sons of Sol Pharmacy.

This’ll be a great opportunity for Ji Chang-wook to jump from one high-profile project to another, and change his image as well. In Sol Pharmacy, he’s a tender-hearted nice guy, but in Hero, he’ll play a “spiteful” and “opportunistic” reporter with a chip on his shoulder and a propensity for lying. (This probably sets him up as a natural rival to Lee Junki’s character, who works as a reporter at a third-rate newspaper. And then there’s also the “elite” reporter played by Eom Ki-joon…) Ji said, “In order to gain respect for my acting, I have to take on diverse characters and broaden my acting spectrum.”

Hero (the articles note that “Hero” is still a working title) will enter filming once it has completed casting its supporting actors. It will follow Heading to the Ground on MBC in November. Its cast has me curious (also listed on the roster is Bbaek Ga) more than the plot, but this could be an interesting series.

source: Sports Khan, OSEN
Translations: dramabeans

 

Kim Hyun Joong’s Number 1

SS501’s Kim HyunJoong has been chosen for the 1st place in the Male Actor category for Seoul Drama Awards. Kim HyunJoong won the greatest number of votes from netizen and will take his winning on the Total Best Male Actor from the total votes from Korea, Japan and Overseas category, at ‘Seoul Drama Awards 2009’ to be held on 11-Sep at Seoul Bangee-dong Olympic Park’s Olympic Hall.

Kim HyunJoong received a lot of popularity through the role of F4 Yoon JiHoo in KBS 2TV ‘Boys Over Flowers’ which is also named the best drama in this award. With SBS drama ‘Iljimae’, actor Lee JunKi’s votes are just behind Kim HyunJoong.

Meanwhile, in the female actress category, actress Moon GeunYoung won first with SBS TV ‘Painters of the Wind’ while Han HyoJoo with SBS TV ‘Iljimae’ won second place.

Credits : jiwon221@joongang.co.kr + SS601.com + (English Translation) xiaochu @ Quainte501.com

 

F(X)’s Leader

SM Entertainment has finally released information on the last member and leader of their Asia Pop Dance Group f(x)!

Meet Victoria! Victoria was signed in 2007 in Beijing and was attending a dance school over there. She is said to be an amazing dancer.

Victoria has already been featured in many music videos, cf’s and other ads. She was featured in music videos for Kangta, Super Junior-M’s “U” and SHINee’s “Noona is so pretty.” She had also filmed the Anycall CF with Rain, called “Anydream,” for the Chinese market. And finally, she also posed for Spris with Lee Junki, as well as modeled for Samsung’s LCD TV’s.

Stay tuned for f(x)’s showcase debut on September 2nd, 2009.

credits: allkpopo

 

Jun Ki vs. Hyun Joong

In to its 4th year, Seoul Drama Awards 2009 (below indicated as SDA) will be held on 11-Sep at Olympic Park’s Olympic Hall, Bangee-dong, Seoul.

The organizing committee for SDA held a press conference at Press Center on 19-Aug at 11am. They revealed “The leading popularity awards for male and female category for this year’s SDA are Lee JunKi and Moon GeunYoung respectively. Popular production seems to be SBS ‘IlJiMae’. Especially in male popularity awards, there is a fierce competition between ‘Iijimae’ Lee JunKi and ‘Boys Over Flowers’ Kim HyunJoong.”

The voting for popularity is held through website yahoo Korea from 13-Jul to 30-Aug, and at the current status on 19-Aug, netizens from 50 countries worldwide participated casting more than 1.5million votes in a day, confirming SDA’s status worldwide.

In addition, Kim MyungMin (mini series), Park YongHa (feature film), Antony Starr from New Zealand, Akira Kume from Japan were nominated for male actor award. Moon GeunYoung (mini series) and a diverse nationality of female actresses were nominated for the female actress award.

There will be fanmeeting, drama premieres, congratulary events, etc, held from 4~ 13-Sep, a total of 10 days, at KwangHwaMoon plaza for the citizens.

Credits : Daum.net + SS601.com + (English Translation) xiaochu @ Quainte501.com

 

More Beef For G-Dragon

Big Bang GDragon gets slammed with another round of plagiarism accusations.

After all the stir caused by plagiarism accusations for his upcoming solo album title song ‘HeartBreaker’, GDragon’s ‘HeartBreaker’ album cover has also become the subject of the plagiarism talks.

The 30s preview to the title song ‘Heartbreaker’ was released on 11th August through GDragon’s me2day account, and he was accused of plagiarising Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’ for that song. YG Entertainment also came out to speak about the plagiarism accusations.

There were also subsequent accusations of plagiarisms for the song ‘Heartbreaker’ relating to Oasis’s ‘She’s Electric’. And the song ‘Boy’ was also accused to have plagiarised that of Katharine Mcphee’s ‘Not ur girl’.

With that fresh accusations of plagiarism arose that GDragon’s album cover looks too similar to English band Spiritualized’s 2001 album ‘Let it come down’ jacket. Also there was also debates about how GDragon’s concept for his album jacket looks similar to the concept of Lee JunKi’s ‘JStyle’ album photoshoot.

Earlier, GDragon has also been criticised for the top he worn on to 2NE1TV showing the picture of a naked woman.

Netizens’ responses to these are:

* “Isn’t this like exaggerating on GDragon’s capabilities?”
* ku*****, “If there are no problems, there are always accusations for plagiarism when such albums come out”
* dr*****, “I always thought that he is a genius, but with all these accusations, I have my doubts about it”
* nu*****, “This is not something illegal. Isn’t all these accusations too much for a young singer like him who has so much potential?”

source: kbites

 

Lee Jun Ki & Han Ji Min Lined Up For Hero

Finally, some news on Lee Junki’s new drama, Hero [히어로], which was announced last year but has remained rather quiet. The drama was first titled “Strange Heroes,” then “Unseen War,” and is now back to “Hero,” although the production indicates it is a working title.

Cast as the female lead is Cain and Abel’s spunky Han Ji-min, who plays a passionate reporter with a strong sense of responsibility who often grows furious at social irregularities. Lee Junki’s a reporter who rushes recklessly into accidents and incidents without fear; he’s also a guy “who doesn’t have much, nor does he want much.” As ordinary citizens, the reporters stand up against the inequalities between society’s masses and its very elite.

Lee Junki and Han Ji-min have both had very good luck with their last few projects; his Time of Dog and Wolf and Iljimae were both action hits, while her Cain & Abel and Yi San both enjoyed good ratings. We’ll see if that luck continues when they combine forces in this latest project.

Hero will begin filming in September when it finishes casting. The series will air on Wednesdays and Thursdays on MBC this fall.

source: dramabeans

 

SNSD Popular in Russia

The popularity of Girls’ Generation has skyrocketed among Russian young people. A growing number of young Russians has become interested in Korean pop culture these days. More than 100 fan cafes dedicated to Korean pop culture have opened on the Russian networking site “V Kontakte” as of July 31. Their membership rosters range from as little as hundreds to as many as thousands of members, as more and more Russians are becoming the fans of Lee Hyo-ri, Rain, Wonder Girls, Girls’ Generation, 2NE1, 2PM, 2AM and SHINee.

Each cafe features the latest video materials about their favorite singers. Russian fans even vote on K-pop cafe charts every month to pick the best K-pop song.

Many Russians are also big fans of Korean TV shows and movies. They also vote for their favorite shows. Some cafes even offer access to illegal downloads. Cafes dedicated to actors Lee Jun-ki, Kong Yoo, Kang Dong-won, Kim Ah-joong and Song Hye-gyo have hundreds of members. The latest Korean TV shows, such as “Boys Over Flowers,” as well as shows that aired years ago enjoy enormous popularity in Russia.

Many Russian Internet users laud Korean TV shows for their original soundtracks, while others give credit to actors and actresses for their pretty looks. Fans of Korean movies have set up cafes dedicated to directors Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-deok.

It has been only two years since the Russian youth, who are big fans of Samsung mobile phones, began taking interest in Korean pop culture. Once, many Russians admired Japanese culture, with Japanese sushi being all the rage among affluent Russians. Young Russian women imitated Japanese hairstyles and watched famous Japanese anime films. But recently the popularity of Japanese culture has been on the decline, giving way to Korean pop culture.

College student Anastasya Petuhova, 20, said, “Korean songs are very exciting. The choreography is also unique and stylish. The music industry in Korea is highly advanced because many groups compete for popularity.”

One Korean professor who teaches Korean in Moscow said, “A growing number of students want to study Korean. The popularity of Korean culture in Russia will contribute to the development of both nations.”

source: KBS

 

Whose Cyworld Has Bigger Hits

A survey was done from 19th till 26th July on CyWorld visitors on artistes minihompy visitor hits ranking and 2NE1 members Sandara Park, Park Bom and Gong MinJi was in the top 10 chart, all 3 of them have gathered over 480K visits to their minihompy on Cyworld.

Other than 2NE1 on the chart, other artistes’ minihompy on the top 10 ranking are Amy (who wrote about the pains she is going through amidst all the gossips and rumours she has gotten into lately) and Lee EulJung (especially since after she revealed photos of her boyfriend who is 7 years younger than her).

Another survey was also done at the same time on popular background music for Cyworld minihompy. And 3 of 2NE1’s songs are up on the top 10 chart with ‘I Don’t Care’ on #1.

Star Minihompy visitor hits:

1. Sandara Park (238,505 visits)
2. Lee Eul Jung (223,108 visits)
3. Amy (173,918 visits)
4. Park Bom (151,574 visits)
5. Han HyoJoo (120,722 visits)
6. Gi SeongYoung (120,027 visits)
7. Kim HeeChul (114,090 visits)
8. Gong MinJi (93,633 visits)
9. Lee JunKi (88,430 visits)
10. Lee Teuk (84,126 visits)

Minihompy background music:

1. I Don’t Care – 2NE1
2. NaengMyun – MyungCaDrive
3. Words more beautiful than love – MC Mong
4. Will You Marry Me – Lee Seung Gi
5. Let’s Dance – Future Liger
6. Abracadabra – Brown Eyed Girls
7. I Hope – FT Island
8. In The Club – 2NE1
9. Pretty Boy – 2NE1
10. Indian Boy – MC Mong

source: kbites