Actor Hong Kyung captivated the hearts of the audience with his refreshing charm in the youth romance film ‘Cheongseol’. He is showing a new charm that is 180 degrees different from the character he showed in his previous works ‘D.P’ and ‘Weak Hero Class 1’, which dealt with violence in the military and schools, respectively, and is gaining enthusiastic support, especially from young female audiences.

In ‘Cheongseol’, which was released on the 6th, Hong Kyung, who plays the main character Yong-jun, delicately and purely portrays the figure of a 26-year-old young man who falls in love at first sight with Yeoreum (Noh Yoon-seo) whom he meets by chance while working part-time as a deliveryman.

When Yeoreum and he meet by chance again, he does not miss the opportunity and actively approaches her, showing the spirit of a 20-something who ‘gos straight ahead’ in love, but at the same time, he shows a thoughtful side that respects the other person‘s feelings and intentions first without ever crossing the unpleasant line, and is drawing even more attention by showing a different determination from the macho male characters that have been pouring out in Korean movies recently.

Not only a pure romance, but also a character who has just graduated from college and entered the job market, but is The audience’s praise continues for naturally incorporating even the worries of youth living in this era, which they don‘t know what to do with, into the character. Regarding this, Hong Kyung explained, “I wanted to play a character that I could understand and empathize with more as a person in my 20s.”

Thanks to these responses, the film recorded a high actual audience rating, receiving a CJ CGV Golden Egg Index of 96%. In particular, the enthusiastic response from female audiences in their 20s continues. In fact, according to CGV’s audience analysis, 63% of the total audience who actually watched the film were female, which is 1.7 times more than the 37% of male audiences. The viewership rate for those in their 20s was 36%, which was overwhelmingly higher than the viewership rates for other age groups.
Ahead of the release of this film, Hong Kyung garnered attention in the advertising industry as Dongsuh Foods Maxim TOP, which Won Bin had modeled for for 16 years, was selected as a new face. In order to target MZ consumers, Dongsuh Foods recently replaced many of its representative product models with young actors, and the ‘young blood’ that they chose was none other than Hong Kyung.

Attention is also focused on Hong Kyung‘s next works, the Netflix films ‘Good News’ and ‘This Star Is Needed’. ‘Good News’ is a film about a suspicious operation in 1970 where people gather together to land a hijacked plane by any means necessary. Hong Kyung plays an Air Force lieutenant who is deployed for the secret operation, and acts alongside Seol Kyung-gu and Ryu Seung-beom. ‘This Star Needs’ is the first Korean full-length animation produced by Netflix, and it is the first time that he has taken on the challenge of dubbing acting by voicing the main character.


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com