In the film, she is wicked, bitchy and abusive. In reality, Jun Ji-hyun, the leading actress of My Sassy Girl, said she's just a 21-year-old who is still taking acting classes in college.
Tall, thin, and with fair skin and a delicate face, Jun gained swift popularity in Korean TV dramas before going on to films two years later. The success of My Sassy Girl moved her forward in the list of top Korean actresses. She won the Best Actress and Most Popular Actress categories in the recent Korean Film Awards and was also selected as the Most Representative Korean Actress this year by Korean film magazine Screen. Recent media reports in her native country say that her take-home pay per film has risen to over 300 million won (US$244,000). For making a commercial, her salary has reached a similarly high 700,000 won.
Perhaps because of the bossy girl she plays in My Sassy Girl, which is distinct from the mostly submissive female roles in Korean films, Jun has been labeled as the new image for women in Korean film.
PHOTO: LI WEI-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
In one scene in My Sassy Girl, she plays a futuristic warrior, in another she's a martial artist, shooting, hacking and flipping over her enemies. Off screen she is similarly agile. She says she does all her stunts herself. "I'd love to try a role like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. I like Angelina Jolie a lot," she said.
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
Eric Finkelstein is a world record junkie. The American’s Guinness World Records include the largest flag mosaic made from table tennis balls, the longest table tennis serve and eating at the most Michelin-starred restaurants in 24 hours in New York. Many would probably share the opinion of Finkelstein’s sister when talking about his records: “You’re a lunatic.” But that’s not stopping him from his next big feat, and this time he is teaming up with his wife, Taiwanese native Jackie Cheng (鄭佳祺): visit and purchase a
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The People’s Republic of China (PRC) last week offered us a glimpse of the violence it plans against Taiwan, with two days of blockade drills conducted around the nation and live-fire exercises not far away in the East China Sea. The PRC said it had practiced hitting “simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities.” Taiwan confirmed on Thursday that PRC Coast Guard ships were directed by the its Eastern Theater Command, meaning that they are assumed to be military assets in a confrontation. Because of this, the number of assets available to the PRC navy is far, far bigger
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