Jo Hyun Jae

I saw Lee Byung-Hyun on CNN’s “Talk Asia” last week.  LBH speaks fluent English and is very suave and looks completely at ease in the half-hour interview.  He is perfectly charming to the female Caucasian reporter who has obviously fallen under his spell.

What I really want to mention here is — halfway through the programme 3 of LBH’s childhood photos are shown.  These photos of LBH at ages (educated guess) 2, 4, and 6 of a skinny, dark-skinned boy bear no resemblance to the superstar of today.  Is LBH an “ugly duckling”?  Can a not-good-looking boy grow up to be such a handsome man?

As soon as I saw LBH’s photos, I thought of Jo Hyun-Jae’s childhood photos.  If you were asked to match stars’ childhood photos to their present-day photos, you’d have no problem getting it right with JHJ.  The child JHJ is a mini-version of the man, his fine features (although not fully formed) are all there already. 

Someone told me that in an interview JHJ once said he could not afford cosmetic surgery because his family was too poor.  (I haven’t seen this interview myself, so you’ll have to take it on trust.)  I suppose you all know it’s an open secret practically all Korean actresses (and some Korean actors too) had their faces “improved”.  You only have to compare the way they look in earlier and later dramas to see the BEFORE and AFTER.  Examples of actresses who have gone under the knife are too numerous to be cited here.  As for actors, Song Seung-Hun looks different after his stint in the army; before he resumed his acting career, he must have “enlarged” his eyes.

On my first trip to Korea six years ago, our local guide (a Chinese who has lived in Korea all his life) tells us all Korean girls go through these 3 stages of cosmetic surgery (in this order): (1) double eyelids, (2) nose job, and (3) paring the jaw bones (most Koreans have square jaws.)  He says it’s standard procedure: all girls save money for these facial operations which start right after high school graduation so they can prepare themselves for the world.  Now I don’t know whether he’s exaggerating, but all the Korean actresses I’ve seen are without exception beautiful (natural or not.)

To go back to JHJ, if he really said he could not afford cosmetic surgery because his family was too poor, I’d like to know which part of his face needs to be altered.  How can even the finest cosmetic surgeon in the world improve on perfection?

But another JHJ fan told me the other day that her Korean friend told her Koreans like actors with single eyelids.  That’s why the most popular actor is So Ji-Sub.  Then it struck me like a bolt of lightning — JHJ’s perfect looks is a handicap!  In any part of the world, good looks is always an advantage, but apparently in Korea it could work against you.  If your eyes are bigger, your nose is straighter, your mouth is cuter, your ears are more perfectly shaped, your forehead is higher, in short, your whole face is prettier than 99.9% of your compatriots, you might seem a little alien.

Good looks could also cause JHJ to be typecast.  There could not be another Andrea or Han Yee-Jun, but casting directors might hesitate to cast JHJ in the Lee Byun-Hyun role in “Iris”, for example, even though JHJ would have no problem playing that character.  If you’ve seen him in “G.P.506″ or even the way he glares at Eun-Jae (remember the glint in his eyes?) in “Only You”, you know JHJ is capable of playing a tough guy, even a bad guy.  He is that good an actor.  His chances to display his acting abilities, however, might be handicapped by his perfect face.  Such irony!

Some people may feel it is a pity JHJ’s acting career is interrupted by his two-year military service.  But from the little we have seen of him during this absence, he seems to be taking his duties very seriously and to have adapted to life in the barracks with no problem.  While most other actors became entertainment soldiers, JHJ opted to remain as an ordinary soldier.  These two years should make him tougher, brawnier, fitter, and more manly.  So I’m betting his comeback role will not be in a romantic drama but rather something in the vein of “Iris” (which does not rule out romance.)

To conclude, I’d like to mention that my best friend’s daughter Christina bought an “Iris” OST for me during a recent business trip to Seoul.  Christina takes care of Auntie M; she’s gotten me quite a few JHJ souvenirs.  The CD comes with a 48-page booklet of photos of the singers and the actors in the drama, but most are of LBH — very stylish, exquisite, and resplendent in gorgeous colours.  And I thought: when will our JHJ get this kind of superstar treatment?  I have JHJ OSTs but they’re nowhere near as well-packaged as this.  Still, there will be time, and there is hope in the future.

(Editor’s note: The title of this post is from the Ancient Roman orator and statesman Cicero [106-43 BC] whose quote goes like this — “The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.”  I was trying to decide between the Cicero quote and another of my favourites by Oscar Wilde — “A man’s face is his autobiography.  A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” )