South Korean actor Gong Yoo, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, yesterday expressed surprise at his popularity among Taiwanese fans and said he should have come earlier in his career.
The star of the hit South Korean film Train to Busan arrived in Taiwan on Thursday for a four-day visit and is scheduled to meet fans at Sinjhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City today in an event hosted by Mickey Huang (黃子佼).
The 5,500 tickets for today’s event were sold out within 10 minutes of going on sale on March 25, the organizers said.
Photo: CNA
Gong said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday that he was surprised when he heard the tickets had been snapped up so quickly.
Although he was once told by a Taiwanese fan at an event in Japan that he has many Taiwanese fans, he was still somewhat skeptical, until now.
“When I heard the tickets had sold out, I came to believe what the fan told me,” Gong said through an interpreter. “I feel I’ve waited too long to come here. I’m really sorry about that.”
The 37-year-old model-turned-actor made his acting debut in the South Korean TV series School 4 in 2001.
His breakout role came in The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, a 2007 TV drama that became a hit.
After a bit of a lull in his career, Gong rose to international stardom when he starred in last year’s horror-thriller Train to Busan, which tells the story of a group of terrified passengers on a suspicion-filled, blood-drenched train ride during a nationwide outbreak of a mysterious virus.
Gong plays a fund manager who sacrifices his life to save his daughter and other passengers on the train.
He also starred in the TV drama series Guardian: The Lonely and Great God last year, which was hugely popular across Asia.
Commenting on the phenomenal success of the film and TV series, Gong said he did not expect them to be such a big success when he took on the roles and felt lucky to have gotten the parts.
He said he would work harder to be a better actor and would like to play the role of a bad guy, which would be a new experience for him.
Gong wraps up his visit to Taiwan tomorrow.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS