Friday, April 17, 2020

My Reintroduction to Ju Ji Hoon

One of the things that I have been doing to distract myself from the gravity of the whole quarantine/COVID 19 situation has been watching K-Dramas. One of the shows that I watched on Viu was an old favorite, Princess Hours (also known as Goong). Here's a trailer of the Tagalog-dubbed version:
 


Princess Hours is one of the first K-Dramas that I watched and is one of my favorites, mostly because I loved the chemistry between the leads Ju Ji Hoon and Yoon Eun Hye. Both were still newcomers at the time and as kilig as it was to see them together, it was fairly easy to tell that Ju Ji Hoon was still a bit stiff and that there was still (a lot of) room for improvement. It was a good thing his role called for a character that did not show emotion that easily so his obvious lack of acting experience was excusable. Watching the show many years later made me realize how problematic this whole love story was. The fact that Ju Ji Hoon's character had the tendency to shout at and just grab Yoon Eun Hye's character in several scenes is a big no-no in real life. I guess when I was younger I overlooked these things in the name of kilig but now that I am older and (probably) wiser, I was disappointed that I liked Ji Hoon's character when I first watched it. I have heard of the Netflix show Kingdom when people were going crazy over it during its first season. I never watched it because historical-themed K-Dramas are not my thing. Now that season 2 is here, I finally forced myself to watch the trailer and was surprised to find out that Ju Ji Hoon is one of the lead actors of this show. I hardly recognized him but when I did, I was really impressed!

 


The last time I heard about Ji Hoon was when he was involved in some drug-related scandal. Not sure about the details, but I remember being sad and thinking that the scandal was the end of his career. I'm happy to find out that it wasn't the case and that he has bounced back spectacularly by being in a show that is popular all over the world. Now that Ji Hoon has bounced back from his scandal, I would love to see Eun Hye do the same. She had her own share of issues with a show she did in China (again, I don't know all the details) and she hasn't gotten back on track with her career in a while. I would LOVE to see her do a reunion project with Ji Hoon one day. They did a rom-com with Princess Hours, maybe this time around they can do a drama since they are both older. After seeing Eun Hye in Missing You, I know that she can pull off heavy drama as well. However, with the success of Kingdom, I don't know if that is possible. I know season 3 hasn't been announced yet but considering the feedback on season 2, another season seems likely. Ji Hoon looks so good now that he is older. His face has matured and has changed, his Princess Hours days make him look like a baby compared to how he looks today. It was such a surprise, but it was a very pleasant one!

 


Just on the knowledge of his involvement in this show alone, I will definitely be catching up on the Kingdom train. I've also learned that he has another show, Hyena, on Netflix as well. My niece was also telling me about these movies called Along with the Gods that are also on Netflix which -- surprise! -- also star Ju Ji Hoon. What rock have I been hiding under that I wasn't aware of all this? I guess now anyone can guess what I will be doing during my free time in this quarantine.


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