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Moon So-ri
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'Taewangsasingi' Promo Event to be Telecast in Japan
A promotional event to publicize 'Taewangsasingi,' a Korean drama series starring actor Bae Yong-joon, will be broadcast live via satellite in a number of movie theaters across Japan. Bae's management agency BOF said the '2008 Taewangsasingi Premium Event,' which will be held at the Kyosera Dome in Osaka on June 1, will be screened in 13 movie theaters via live satellite telecast and that the event will be watched by an estimated 40,000 Japanese viewers. BOF said the satellite telecast was organized for fans who could not procure tickets to attend the promotional event. Tickets were sold out 18 minutes after ticket sales began on May 25. According to reports, the 80-dollar tickets were also sold on online auction sites for large sums of money. Tickets sales for the movie theater telecast began on May 23 at http://www.cnplayguide.com. The much-anticipated event will be attended by Bae, producer Kim Jong-hak, Lee Ji-ah, Mun So-ri, Park Seong-woong, Lee Phillip and Oh Kwang-rok. The drama series was aired in Korea in September last year and recorded an average viewer rating of 30%. The series was introduced to Japan in December last year on the BS High Vision channel, the satellite broadcast of NHK.
Movie captures Athens Olympics handball drama
Mee-suk (Moon So-ri), a 34-year-old veteran handball player, wins a semi-professional handball tournament, but the same day she hears her team’s going to disband. That’s bad enough, but it’s nothing compared to four years ago when she won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. When Mee-suk came back home proudly wearing her Olympic gold, the rest of the country seemed indifferent. Handball had not captured the imagination of the country. Mee-suk, starring in Yim Soon-rae’s film, “Forever the Moment,” which was released last Thursday, suffers even more setbacks. Her husband (Park Won-sang), a former handball player, runs away from debts brought on by a failed business, and Mee-suk starts working at a mall as a shop assistant. Mee-suk’s life takes a turn when Hye-kyung (Kim Jung-eun) takes over as the newly appointed national handball coach for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Hye-kyung persuades Mee-suk to come out of her retirement from the game and join the national team. Mee-suk agrees, only to find more tension when Hye-kyung gets ousted as coach. The younger team members dislike her coaching style. Hye-kyung is replaced by Seung-pil (Eom Tae-woong), her ex-boyfriend. Forever the Moment is based on the true story of the phenomenal story behind Korea’s women’s handball team. After the indifference to their gold in 1992 in Barcelona, the entire nation was transfixed when the team took on Denmark in the 2004 final in Athens. The game went down to a penalty shootout and the Danes held their nerve to win a famous victory. According to the Korea Film Commission, 558,213 people have seen the film as of Monday, making it the most popular film in Korea right now. What makes for compulsive sports viewing also makes for compelling cinematic drama, it seems. In 2004, most of the players were veterans in their early 30s. They were called the “ajumma squad,” or the housewife squad. Despite the gold in Barcelona, the Korean team was pretty much the underdog. There were only five semi-professional women’s handball teams in Korea back then, and players made just 20,000 won ($21.34) a day. The team even had to enlist retired players since there weren’t enough players for the Olympics. On the other hand, their rivals, Denmark, had 1,035 semi-professional teams. To make the story more authentic, the four lead actors ― Moon, Kim Jung-eun, Kim Jee-young and Cho Eun-ji (the goalkeeper) ― undertook hardcore training. They started last March, training at the Taereung Training Center and Helleniko Stadium in Athens, Greece. They practiced for three months, four days a week, seven to eight hours a day. They began with basic physical training and graduated to dribbling, passing and shooting. They even practiced difficult set plays. One of Denmark’s players even appears in the film, and when the Danes visited Korea last June to play at an international semi-professional tournament, they helped in the filming at the Samsan World Gymnasium in Incheon. “The film distinguishes itself from other sports dramas by bringing out the human story,” Yim pointed out. “Conventional sports-related films usually focus more on the dynamics that games provide,” he said. As coach, Eom also had to research his role thoroughly. “I constantly asked [the real] Coach Lim for advice,” Eom wrote in the film’s press release. “We [the crew and actors] went to many handball games so we could understand how the game works and how to move properly on the court,” Eom said. Reality was intensified by the involvement of two genuine commentators ― KBS announcer Choi Seung-don and Coach Kang Jae-won. During the 2004 finals, Choi and Kang said, “It’s a heroic battle between David and Goliath.” That struggle is captured in the film.
`Forever’ Loses Its Own Game
It's sweaty and teary, and preaches self-challenge. After a seven-year hiatus, director Lim Soon-rye (``Waikiki Brothers'' makes a comeback with ``Forever the Moment,'' the world's first handball movie inspired by the women's match at the 2004 Athens Olympics. So you expect it to be another adrenaline-pumping sports movie, with a coach or athlete nursing some sort of wound (heartbreak, injury, etc.), comic-relief teammates and a big hurdle to overcome. Usually, team spirit magically pumps up muscles and the main character scores the winning point. Add a few slow motion scenes zooming into the sweat and tears with dramatic music. Lim, however, asks audiences to forget typical Hollywood conventions for sports dramas. The main characters lose the big game at the end, and there is no fancy camerawork. Korea and Denmark had shared four Olympic titles for women's handball from 1988 to 2000, with the Danes winning the latter two. The two dueling teams met again as finalists in 2004, and the pulsating game continued long and hard with a tie score leading to two killer overtimes and a penalty throw showdown. Korea lost, but won what many call a silver medal that shines more brightly than the gold. At the time, Korean women's handball was at its worst state ever, and players who should have been retired joined the national team to face the indefatigable Denmark. It was a miraculous achievement _ ``the greatest moment of our lives'' (the film's title in Korean). ''Forever'' gives an account of the events leading up to the Olympics, though the characters are fictionalized. Hye-kyeong (Kim Jung-eun) is called to coach the troubled national team. In desperation, she recruits retired players, including her good friend and longtime rival Mi-suk (Moon So-ri). Mi-suk had been But various problems push Hye-kyeong out of her coaching position. To add fuel to the fire, Hye-kyeong's ex-boyfriend and handball star Seung-pil (Uhm Tae-woong) is appointed as her replacement. This time Mi-suk convinces Hye-kyeong to join the team as a player. Lim focuses on the individual lives of characters, and most of the action does take place outside of the court. This works mighty well in the first half of the movie. Want it or not, however, ``Forever'' is deeply rooted in the classic formula. The main drama inevitably involves coach-player conflicts and other problems inherent to the world of sports. As the movie kicks and thrashes about to defy conventions of its genre, the painful struggle becomes much too apparent. While traditional sports movies may be formulaic, it makes viewers fall in love with the featured sport. Characters in ``Forever'' desperately speak of their love of the game _ Mi-suk shouts at the top of her lungs how she returned to play only three weeks after having a baby while Hye-kyeong foregoes her pride to go from coach to player _ but the film doesn't actually show it. The most gripping parts of the film are issues rarely seen in sports films, such discriminations faced by female coaches and the burden of menstruation cycles for female athletes. This is also the source of team bonding, but the film touches upon it rather superficially. The final game scene is superbly crafted (the actual Danish team makes an appearance) but it's just a striking reenactment of the 2004 game. Ironically, it is dishearteningly realistic, and the film loses its dramatic touch. The most compelling part of the two-hour flick is the snippet of interviews and photos from actual team members that accompanies the film credits. Nevertheless, the leading ladies deserve a standing ovation for their convincing jumps and throws (though they remain a bit supermodel thin), and the moment of defeat is beautifully captured. As the film loses its dramatic edge, it reminds us more of the bitter loss of the gold than the glorious win of the silver. Lim deserves credit for her attempt to make an unconventional sports movie, but she ends up breaking her own game rules. In theaters Jan. 10.
The return of the King of TV drama
Koreans often say it’s better to have too much of something than not enough. That seems to be true when it comes to the Korean actor Bae Yong-joon. From the early stages of his career, Bae has enjoyed a wave of popularity that has turned him into a living legend. If Bae’s name doesn’t ring a bell, you’re either very new to Korean soil or you make it a rule to skip the entertainment sections in newspapers and magazines. You might know Bae as Yon-sama, the name given to him by his devoted Japanese fans. Sama is used in Japanese to bestow the utmost level of respect. Bae’s star turn in the TV drama, “Winter Sonata,” a phenomenal hit in Japan in 2002, made him a virtual living god to Japanese fans, many of whom were middle-aged housewives. To be honest, I really don’t like the actor or the trite Winter Sonata and its anodyne love story so typical of many Korean TV dramas. But I know my trifling viewpoint will do nothing to diminish Bae’s Asian fandom. But Bae must harbor some concerns about his fans’ excessively high expectations. He often appears in films and TV commercials, but he has long delayed his return to TV dramas. Last September, however, he made a stately return with the MBC-TV’s ambitious “Taewang Sasingi (The Tale of the Great King and the Four Gods.)” Playing the Great King seems a fitting return, giving Bae the chance to break free from his image as the tender lover in Winter Sonata. The budget is a whopping 43 billion won ($46 million), and the show drips money: glamorous costumes, lavish sets and spectacular war scenes. The story is based on a mix of legend and historical fact. It tells the story of the Great King Gwanggaeto of the Goguryeo Kingdom (37 B.C. to 668 A.D.) The story is very relevant today, striking a chord with Korean audiences mindful of history. Manchuria, the setting for the tale, is the subject of an intense territorial dispute between China and Korea. I’ve been procrastinating about writing about the Great King since it was first broadcast, but my conscience allows no more delays. The drama is hugely popular, with an audience rating of about 30 percent. And I have to come clean. The reruns on Saturday afternoons are now part of my weekend routine, and I try to rush home on Wednesdays and Thursdays to catch the 10 p.m. showings. Bae stars as the Great King, a respected sovereign who cares very much for his people. His rival is his friend-turned-foe Yeon Ho-gae (Yoon Tae-young), and he has a love-hate relationship with Seo Gi-ha (Moon So-ri), a messenger from the gods. I take a mean pleasure at Bae’s face, now more wrinkled with dark circles around the eyes, but I have to admit this big-budget drama is very appealing. Bae gives a strong performance as the Great King, but the success of the show is also due to the well-structured story line and excellent performances from the supporting cast, in particular Moon So-ri, whose biggest weapon is not just her looks but her acting ability. What’s also interesting is how this period drama blends fantasy into the narrative, instead of getting bogged down in historical accuracy. Magic spells and legend fill in where historical facts are hazy, which is why the Great King offers great entertainment rather than a dull history lesson. Bae, though, is the star and the reason many tune in. His return to the small screen has been a triumph and frees him of the shackles of the “living legend” tag. I still don’t like the girlish bangs that Bae sports in the show, but what can I say? His Japanese fans adore him.
Tour to Filming Sets
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Dramatic Legacy Still Goes on Locations Nationwide By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter Does a mega-hit drama or film leave a tourist attraction behind it? Even after dramas end, their legacy seems to remain through film sets. Since the set....
Miscasting Controversy
Giha (Mun So-ri) carried the fainted Damdeok (Bae Yong-jun) to a refuge camp to save him from his enemy. Giha affectionately looks at the sleeping Damdeok. She leaves at dawn, leaving a letter behind…. After waking up, Damdeok reads the letter a....
