Jo Hyun Jae

I watched a spate of Korean movies lately and it made me wonder: “How come ’G.P.506′ didn’t do better at the box office in Korea?”  I’d rather not mention the titles of these movies, quite frankly, I can’t remember some of them.  The movie that tops the blockbuster list in Korea last year is a disaster epic (tsunami.)  Such a formula never fails to draw people to the cinema, but I could not finish watching this one because the first hour or so that lays the groundwork for the various threads is so utterly disorganized and boring.  Then there is the movie which stars Soo Ae as Queen Myeong-Seong in love with a palace guard called “The sword with no name”.  Soo Ae won 4 best actress awards (for “Sunny”) - 3 in 2008 and 1 in 2009 for which she defeated Kim Hye-Ja who is simply marvellous in “Mother” (with Won Bin.)  Soo Ae is the same age as JHJ and she looks good for a woman approaching 30, but she still acts like she does in “Love Letter”.  Another film with an actress in the lead role is about a female painter 250 years ago in Korea who has to disguise herself as a man in order to learn from the royal court art master (Kim Young-Ho who plays Buyeo-Seon in “Seo Dong Yo”.)  This isn’t a bad film but it contains lots of graphic sex scenes.  I have never understood why the relationship between men and women in Korean drama is chaster-than-chaste, but in movies is often depicted in prolonged X-rated scenes that leave nothing to the imagination.  There are 3 or 4 other films that do not merit a mention here.

To go back to my original point about “G.P.506″, it is, when all is said and done, a movie with a perfectly intelligible storyline, great actors, and superb atmosphere (even if I don’t like the way the plot kills off the JHJ character.)  It debuted in Korea at #1 in April 2008 and stayed on top for a couple of weeks which was no mean feat, all things considered (namely, competition from big-budget foreign films showing at the same time), bringing in nearly 1 million audience.  Compared to the movies I mentioned in my first paragraph, it is a much superior film.  Problem is: it is a genre that does not appeal to half of the human race, that is, women.  If JHJ had not been in it, I would have given it a miss too.  And you can judge by the second poster (on the right) above that it’s not for kids either, since it is billed as a “horror” movie.  True, JHJ made a breakthrough in his acting in “G.P.506″, but it did not bring him the recognition he deserved. 

The Official JHJ Fan Club in Japan held a get-together earlier this month and the above photos were distributed to attendees.  We are members but for obvious reasons we could not be there, not the least of which is we do not live in Japan.  I look at these photos (which must have been taken before he enlisted) and marvel how little JHJ has changed in the 1 1/2 years he has been in the military (compared to his latest army photos.)  Even his skin is as fine and smooth as ever, maybe thanks to all the skin care products supplied by CAFE and EVER, or more likely, just good genes.  Photo 2 shows the only man on earth in a sleeveless shirt wearing a necklace and a bracelet that I do not find sissy.  All others please refrain from this fashion style.

I’ve been brooding over something recently which I find quite puzzling.  It has to do with our website’s ranking on Alexa that I mentioned in our February 15 post “Happy anniversary.”  We are ranked 1 million something which is good, according to my knowledgeable brother Michael.  On a lark, I checked out the rankings of some other JHJ websites, in various languages.  To my (honestly) great surprise, I found we’re head and shoulders above the rest (I’m a little shell-shocked!)  Our nearest “competitor” is ranked 50,000 places below us.  The most popular website in the most populous country in the world is (golly!) nearly 5 million places below us!  A leading Korean website is 11.5 million places below us (I could not believe this at first, so I checked and double-checked.)  The official website is 3.4 million places below us.  My first reaction was: this must be because we are the only English website (among those I checked), and English is an international language, so we have an advantage.  But hey! Alexa Traffic Rank (a measure of a website’s popularity) is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and page views over the past 3 months.  The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1 (and that is, of course, Google.)  So this has nothing to do with the language medium at all; it is statistics, straight and simple.  The only conclusion I can draw from this is: JHJ has more fans from outside of Korea and Japan faithfully following his every move!  This is really surprising!  He is truly an international star!   

There is something which has been irking me since July 2008.  JHJ’s fan meetings in Osaka and Tokyo drew 1,500 and 2,100 fans respectively, but the one in Seoul was attended by only 600.  Does that mean JHJ is more popular among the Japanese than the Koreans?  A Korean fan explained to me that Koreans do not display their affection for their idols as openly as the Japanese.  She has of course bought all the JHJ souvenirs there are, but she has to hide these (which are normally on display) when her family visits.  Different cultures indeed!  Now, if JHJ is more popular overseas than in Korea, would that have any sort of inverse effect on his career?  In other words, would his popularity with foreign fans gain him any traction in the Korean entertainment industry?  I would certainly hope so, for if single eyelids have their way in Korea, then our JHJ may have to go to Hollywood (God forbid!)

(Credit: JHJ photos courtesy of EVERjohyunjae.co.kr.  Thanks!)