Jun Ji-hyun bets on her new identity

"My Sassy Girl" star Jun Ji-hyun is coming back to the silver screen again, this time not only for local moviegoers but for international audiences.
"Blood: The Last Vampire," starring Jun as the title character, will hit theaters in Japan on May 29, followed by releases in Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian markets in June. The Korean release is slated for June 11 and it will open in the United States in July.
"I felt a lot of pressure about whatever I did in Korea because the media here tended to overrate my performance, but when I was on the shooting set for 'Blood,' nobody paid particular attention to me," Jun said in an interview with The Herald Business.
"It would be very difficult for me to take up a vampire role in the Korean film market, and even if I got the role, I might be unable to shake off my old image, but I discovered my new identity thanks to the project abroad.”

Jun is an A-list actress in Korea and her profile stands out throughout Asia thanks to the enormous success of “My Sassy Girl,” a romantic comedy that helped fuel the Korean Wave.

However, in the handful of films she has starred in since “My Sassy Girl” were less successful, despite her continued popularity as a model for TV commercials.

Now, 12 years since her modeling debut, she aims to reconfigure her image through “Blood,” a remake of a Japanese animation of the same title that marks her arrival in Hollywood.

In Hollywood she is using “Gianna Jun” as her official English name, following advice that her Korean name is hard to pronounce.

Jun's decision to join the shooting of the Hollywood action film is not only for broadening her career outside Korea but also going beyond the limits of a language barrier. “Blood” centers around action sequences, helping Jun reach a broader range of viewers in English-speaking countries. But this came with a downside: The action scenes turned out to be fairly demanding.

"It was so hard that I thought I would never take a role in an action film again, but in retrospect I believe it was a good decision because the film helped reveal something new in me,” Jun said.

Inthe movie, she plays Saya, a human-vampire hybrid who hunts vampires for food. Jun went through new experiences such as wire action and martial arts sequences – a departure from her “Sassy Girl” image as an attractive woman who never hesitates to smash her boyfriend to hide her tender side.

Jun also brushed aside the mobile phone duplication incident involving her management agency, adding that she felt sorry for her agency’s staff members who had to endure negative media coverage.

But the real challenge is whether Jun can pull off a commercial success this time around with “Blood.” In recent years she has struggled on the big screen, despite her status as the most sought-after fashion icon who has won a slew of lucrative TV advertisement deals.

Last year, she played opposite award-winning actor Hwang Jung-min in “A Man Once a Superman” amid renewed attention for her film career, but the movie was not well-received.

Similarly, Jun’s other films such as “Daisy” (2006), “Windstruck” (2004) and “The Uninvited” (2003) received tepid reactions from moviegoers.

By:Yang Sung-jin
(insight@heraldm.com)