Top actresses return to big, small screens
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Actress Won Mi-kyung / Yonhap
Actress Choi Ji-woo / Yonhap
Actress Lee Mi-yeon / Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
Once-famed top actresses are returning to the big and small screens this month and highlighting this month’s cinematic lineup.
Actresses Lee Mi-yeon, 44, and Choi Ji-woo, 40, feature in the upcoming romantic comedy “Like for Likes.”
The film features love stories of three couples who meet online and become couples. It pairs Lee with “Veteran” star Yoo Ah-in and Choi with Kim Joo-hyuk.
The two stars were top actresses in the 1990s.
Lee had been the“sweetheart”of the big screen, drawing young male fans with her looks since her 1987 debut.
Though she regained her popularity after featuring as the grown-up Deok-seon (Hyeri), on the recently finished smash-hit drama “Reply 1988,” she has starred in many films and dramas since the 2001 TV drama “Empress Myeongseong.” This time, she plays a veteran TV drama writer who falls in love with Yoo’s character who plays the role of a top actor.
“Winter Sonata” star Choi plays a flight attendant in the film. Her last film appearance was in 2009 with “The Actresses.” It remains to be seen whether she can make a big hit once again, following last year’s hit cable drama “Twenty Again” and season 4 of travel reality show “Grandpas over Flowers.”
Actress Son Ye-jin also returns with the action-comedy flick “Bad Guys Always Die” this month.
Following the success of period action flick “The Pirate” (2014), the 34-year-old actress plays the role of a mysterious woman who might be an assassin in the suspense road trip film. Set on Jeju Island, this film is co-produced by China and Korea, also featuring Taiwanese actor Chen Bolin and Korea’s Shin Hyun-jun.
Top ‘80s actress Won Mi-kyung, who had starred in many films and TV dramas back then, also returns to TV.
In an interview with a local monthly magazine, Won said she hopes to grow old with her original fans.
“I would like to grow old together with my generation. It should be unnatural if an actress keeps looking young. I think aging is beautiful. I hope fans who haven’t seen me for a long time would think that I am not the only one growing old through watching me perform,” Won said in a Jan. 26 interview.
Making her acting debut in 1978 after winning the Miss Lotte pageant, Won had been on the screen on and off, featuring in a slew of films and TV dramas. With her 1979 debut film “The Trappings of Youth,” she was awarded Best Rookie Actress at the Grand Bell Film Awards and Baeksang Arts Awards.
In 2003, she began a 14-year break from her career and lived in the United States with her family. She will feature as the wife of a Chinese restaurant owner in the upcoming MBC TV drama “Happy Home.”
Later in the year, actress Lee Young-ae will finally make her comeback after 11 years, taking a lead role in “Saimdang, the Herstory.”
The 45-year-old actress is mostly known for her role in MBC’s “Jewel in the Palace,” the biggest hit TV drama of the 2000s with an average viewer rating of 41.6 percent in 2004. She put her acting career on hold after taking a lead role in director Park Chan-wook’s 2005 crime thriller “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.”