Actress Jun Ji-hyun faces second heyday with 'Assassination'
Actress Jun Ji-hyun
Actress Jun Ji-hyun was once called "box-office poison" despite her presence as one of the hottest stars. For a decade since the domestic comedy "My Sassy Girl" became a sensation, her follow-up titles ranging from "The Uninvited" (2003), "Daisy" (2006), "A Man Who Was Superman" (2007) to "Blood: The Last Vampire" (2009) experienced box-office failure.
It was "The Thieves" (2012) by director Choi Dong-hoon that helped her derail her long box-office free fall in a single strike. She was showered with favorable reviews for her role as "Yenicall," a foul-mouthed, professional cat burglar.
So, Jun decided to be in Choi's follow-up film "Assassination" even before the script arrived.
"I had not a tinge of worry about the decision," Jun said during an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul Monday.
"When I filmed 'The Thieves,' I worked in perfect harmony with the director, even in terms of what I like, dislike and don't know what to do. So I often felt great joy about my acting career thanks to the bond of sympathy."
Her career upturn continued with "The Berlin File," a 2012 action flick directed by Ryoo Seung-wan, and the 2013 television series "My Love from the Stars" which became a runaway hit at home and in China. Positive reviews of the two titles had a positive influence on her acting in "Assassination."
"I think confidence is the most important for acting," she said. "If I had done 'Assassination' before 'The Berlin File' or 'My Love from the Stars,' I would have felt more burden. I think the timing was good."
In the new film set in Shanghai and Seoul during the 1930s when Korea was a colony of Japan, Jun plays An Ok-yun, a female sniper from the Korean independence army in Manchuria, northeastern China. She is sent to Seoul as the leader of a plot by the provisional Korean government in exile in Shanghai to assassinate the commander of the Japanese troops in Korea and a pro-Japanese Korean business tycoon.
The 33-year-old actress says she wanted to play the character "very well."
"I thought it's a character that can hardly be found in Korean films and a rare chance for me to play it. As an actress, I didn't want to be a flaw for the character."
Jun said she is happy with acting because it is the only thing in the world that makes her really focus on something.
"Sometimes, I'm so engrossed in acting that I don't know whether I'm hungry or sick, and this makes me feel good."
Now in her 30s, the actress says she cares about her looks not that much.
"I'm not 20s now, and people all know what I look like," she said with a laugh.
She said having less interest in her appearance enables her to take on the challenge of a wider spectrum of roles, ranging from the comical in "My Love," where she does a crazy dance in hair-rollers, to a shooter in an action-packed film.
Jun married in April 2012, just before "The Thieves" rewrote local box-office history, attracting an audience of about 13 million.
She said it was not herself but the audience who appear to have changed after her marriage.
"Before, people used to see me just as a star, not an actress. In other words, they applied a strict standard on me. After marriage, they seem to have come to take me more comfortably than before." (Yonhap)