ACTRESS: Song Hye-kyo

Song Hye-kyo

Song Hye-kyo is a South Korean model and actress. She gained popularity through television dramas such as Autumn in My Heart (2000), All In (2003), Full House (2004), and The World That They Live In (2008). Song debuted in the entertainment industry in 1996 when she won the Grand Prize in SunKyung Smart (a school uniform company) when she was finishing her third year in junior high school. It was not long until she starred in her first drama, Merry Morning. Since then, she would continue to star in a string of various dramas and sitcoms but it wasn't until the KBS drama Autumn in My Heart in 2000 with Song Seung-hun and Won Bin that she rose to fame throughout Asia. In 2003, her popularity continued to climb when she played a leading role alongside Lee Byung-hun in the gambling drama All In. The following year, she co-starred with singer Rain in the hit romantic comedy series Full House. After the pan-Asian success of Full House, she made her big-screen debut in My Girl and I (a Korean adaptation of Crying Out Love in the Center of the World She returned to acting in 2007, as the kisaeng Hwang Jini in the film adaptation of [[Hwang Jin Yi "Hwangjini only held one man in her heart"] A year later, she made her American debut in the Hollywood indie Make Yourself at Home (formerly titled Fetish), a psychological thriller about a girl who was born to a shaman mother and tries to flee her fate by becoming an immigrant bride in the U.S. She made her TV comeback in late 2008 with The World That They Live In, a series set at a broadcast station in which Song and Hyun Bin play drama PDs who work together and fall in love. In 2010, she starred in Camellia, an omnibus pic made up of three feature films directed by three Asian directors. Each episode is set in the past, present and future of the city of Busan, Korea. In the film's final segment Love for Sale, Song and Kang Dong-won play former lovers who forget their memories about each other which later leads them to a fatal destiny. Chinese director John Woo announced Song's casting in his film 1949, but the project was cancelled. Wong Kar-wai then cast her in a supporting role in his biopic about Bruce Lee's kung fu master Ip Man. Titled The Grandmasters, Song learned Cantonese and martial arts for the film. Considered one of Korea's most beautiful woman, in early 2011 Song released the photobook Song Hye-kyo's Moment which was shot by top photographers in Atlanta, New York, Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Paris, the Netherlands and Brazil. In 2010, she was ranked no. 18 among the most beautiful faces in the world by Independent Critics. She plays a documentary producer who finds the strength to forgive the 17-year-old boy who killed her fiance but instead of redemption finds only greater tragedy in A Reason to Live (Korean title: Today), which after several delays was released in October 2011.[14][15] Song was a huge fan of the director and had actively sought her out,[16] and though she had difficulty getting into character,[17] Song said she fell in love with the script and felt her acting had matured. She considers the film "a turning point" in her life.