Wednesday 4 November 2015

[LET'S GET TO KNOW] My Favorite Idol-Actors/Idol Turned Actors PART 2

Part 2 yo!








Baro

Don't be fooled by that cute face and colourful outfit, Baro is the very manly and dark-voiced the rapper of kpop-group B1A4, and when he isn't stealing hearts of fangirls through his charismatic rap, he kickass ass as an actor. He started his acting career as Bing Geu Re (korean: smiley) in the very popular Reply-series sequel Reply 1988 where he quickly became one of the fans favorite character. I personally however didn't start to pay attention to him before his next project in God's Gift - 14 Days (which I also consider his break-through role) where he portayed the role of the mentally disabled young teenager named Young Gyu. He blew mind with that role, and even if he wasn't even one of the main roles, his role was super important to the plot and the way how he portrayed his character, with so much passion and emotion, i feel like he truly deserves all the attention and love he gets as an actor. It's very difficult to portray a mentally disabled character, especially when it's such a sensitive topic and it's so easy that the acting can turn out awkward or just inhuman, but Baro did such an amazing job with the role. It felt so real, and I was completely absorbed into his story. His latest role was in the drama Angry Mom, where he portrayed one of the supporting/main characters (depends how you look at it) and that role was pretty different from any of his other roles. He hasn't really done much but I feel like for the roles he has done, he's portrayed them so well that he truly deserves to be on this list. I have nothing but praise in mind when I think of this guys and I can't wait to see how he'll develop as an actor. He has a very good future in acting ahead of him. 
 
Other dramas/movies that are worth mentioning:
Incomplete Life: Prequel (movie)
Woman Man (movie)

Yoon Eun Hye

Yes, Yoon Eun Hye, I don't really count this as cheating since tecnically she is an idol-turned actor xP Not a lot of people know this, but she  debuted as a member of Kpop girl-group Baby V.O.X and stayed with the group until 2005, before she decided to become a full time actress.
Now, she is considered one of Kdrama-land's biggest and most successful actresss. Her acting career started with the kdrama Goong (aka Princess Hours), a drama-adaption of a manhwa with the same name, which is kind of a parallell-universe type of story about how South Korea's society would look like if it was still a monarchy. Yoon Eun Hye portayed a young high school student who suddenly gets entagled into the issues of the royal family because of a promise her grandfather made with the late King. Apparently since birth. she's been betrothed to marry the future King, crown prince Shin, a guy she just simply can't stand. It was a very funny and cute story that gained a lot of love from all around the world. However it wasn't until she starred in the very famous and revolutionary (in my opinion) korean drama Coffee Prince, that she got her name truly out there. Taking on the role of the tomboyish girl Eun Chan, Coffee Prince is about a carefree bachelor chaebol who wants to avoid his grandmother's and mother's nagging about marriage so much that he decides to convince Eun Chan, thinking that she is actually a guy into playing the role of his gay lover. Eun Chan who is the sole moneymaker in her family agrees to this crazy idea and later also gets employed by the main guy to work at his cofee shop where all the workers are male and handsome flower-boys. Things get super complicated when the man guy, played by Oh-so-sexy-and-talented (<3) Gong Yoo, actually starts to develop feelings for Eun Chan while still thinking that she is a GUY. That drama was super deep on so many levels and I recommend everyone, EVERYONE to check it out. It also contains one of kdrama-lands most passionate kisses. Enough said, Coffee Prince was Yoon Eun Hye's big break-through drama and it became so popular that it is widely known as one of the kdrama classics. Her latest drama was in 2012, where she played the role of Soo Hyun in the very deep and psychological melodrama Missing You.

Eun Chan from Coffee Prince.Perfect cross-dressing
gender bender. I wish I could find a gif of how she sat and
spoke but yeah, she was just badass. She tackled and
wrestled with the guys and sometimes showed
an even more macho-side than the actual guy
(main guy). Epic!
One thing I truly love and admire about Yoon Eun Hye is how complex she can make a simple-looking role. She just knows what detail to add to her character, how to stand, how to look, how to talk to make the character fit the story perfectly. I still can't believe she managed to pull off the tomboyish look so perfectly well in Coffee Prince. I've showed a picture of Eun Chan to all my friends and almost everyone truly believed that it was a guy. She picked up those masculine features, how guys talk, walk, sit, eat, she just nailed it in that role and she is, still until this day, to me that one and only actress that managed to pull off the cross-dressing gender-bender look perfectly.

Other dramas/movies that are worth mentioning:
Vineyard Man (drama)
Lie To Me (drama)
Marry Him If You Dare (drama)
Take care of the young lady (drama)

Seo In Guk

 
Seo In Guk is also one of those guys who you don't really know was/is a kpop singer, I personally have to admit I didn't know about it either until a few months ago ._. yeah fail (however he is my favorite solo singer now, and I have almost all of his albums, so it's all good. I think he'll forgive me x'D). But yeah, while Seo In Guk started off as a singer, he is definitely more famous as an actor. He started of his career as a cameo-supporting role in the kdrama Love Rain (Jang Geun Suk and Im YoonA as main leads), where he played the role of a quirky and funny comic relief side-kick/friend character. However the role that really got him going up the ladder of fame was when he took on the role as the main lead of Yoon Yoon Jae in the popular kdrama Reply 1997. The drama won the "drama of the year" award, Seo In Guk successfully made duet songs with his fellow co-star Jung Eun Ji, got his name both as a singer and actor out there, and voila. After the success of Reply 1997, he returned to the small screen through the drama The Master's Sun, which only boasted his fame even more. He's done quite a lot to be honest but the two roles I really feel are worth mentioning are his roles in the dramas High School King Of Savy and The King's Face. High School King of Savy is kind of similar to reply 1997, I felt quite a lot of similarities between the two roles, but I still feel like Seo In Guk managed to differentiate them from one another, especially since High School King of Savy is supposed to be a tiny bit more focused on the romance comedy and not thethe drama-coming of age-feel that Reply 1997 had. Playing the role of a high school student who ends up being forced to step in as his older brother and pretend to be him (because apparently they look identical) as he start working as the CEO for a big company where he falls for the silly and clumsy secretary who thinks that he is really the CEO. As if to add more to the already hilarious and silly plot, Seo In Guk's character constantly finds himself inbetween the two life-styles of a high school student and a CEO of a big company and while he tries to balance the two lives and keep his secret hidden, he ends up in situations that either make you queal in second-hand-embarrassment or laugh your head off.


On the contrary, his role in The King's Face is a more mature, emotional and a bit darker one. In this historical drama he took on the role as Crown Prince Gwanghae, a prince who ever since he was born got nothing but hatred and envy from his father who constantly felt that Gwanghae would one day become a threat to him and his claim to the throne. Now, of course there a re a lot of different versions of the story of Gwanghae (he was a real historical figure btw) and while in Hwajeong he was portrayed as a bit of a anti-hero, in this drama his story was shown out of the victim-perspective and where you really felt like he was one of the most tragic (in my opinion) beings on this planet and I can't praise Seo In Guk enough for his acting as the crown prince. He was hands down stunning! He had the perfect puppy-face expressions in the right moments when you were supposed to feel sorry for him and then in other scenes he was witty and clever and held his head high and mighty as he shouted out confident orders to his underlings. Playing in historical dramas is tough, especially if you want to make it look realistic, you really have to dive in, not just into the character but also into the setting and time-period and i feel like Seo In Guk really nailed that role, and it's especially admirable since that was his first in a historical.


Other dramas/movies that are worth mentioning:
No Breathing (movie)
Rascal Sons (drama)
Another Parting (drama)
I Remember You (drama)
 

 Hoya (Lee Ho Won)

Infinite's main dancer and rapper Hoya is also another idol-actor who got his fame rolling through the drama Reply 1997, or actually, the drama got it's fair amount of fame thanks to the actors Jung Eun Ji, Seo In Guk and Hoya. Taking on the very controversial and somewhat taboo role of a homosexual high school student with one-sided feelings, Hoya became, hands down probably the face of Reply 1997 (I dare anyone to say they disagree xD). The role was so unique and cute and gah feels, that fans even until this day wonder about that car scene from the ending of Reply 1997 (I won't spoil so yeah, watch it and you'll know xP). With the fame from the role and Reply 1997, Hoya came back with another drama in 2015, a melodrama named Mask where he played a supporting but important part. Taking on the role of main female lead Ji Sook's (Soo Ae) younger brother, Hoya was her emotional support, as he was one of the few people who knew about her secret. While the role wasn't a main one, I still felt like the drama wouldn't have been the same without him, and the fact that if it'd been played by anyone else but Hoya, I don't think I would've felt as strongly for his character. He really went all out emotionally in that one and I can't wait to see him play more main roles in the future!

 
Seo In Guk and Hoya as the characters Jun Hee and Yoon Jae.
The ship that made other ships sail and fangirls cry. Gah them
feels <3 I want a full drama just with the two of them! >_<
 
 
 
 
I hope you enjoyed this blog post :)
Do you agree with this list? If no, let me know who your favorite idol-actors/idol turned actors are, I'd love to know!
Well then, until next time ~

1 comment:

  1. nice list but i also like more for example shi won from Super Juniorhe was amazing in she was pretty, micky yoochun from JYJ ahhhh love him in everything he have done, D.O. from exo is also amazing actor! I really didnt know seo in guk is an idol nice to know!! Omg and Hoya was sooo cuuuute in mask liked him a lot!!

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