Hi, and welcome to my first post on ZR5!

When I suggested to Andy last week that I could provide translations of articles about Korean stars for the blog, he readily agreed, and has given me free reign over my choice of subjects and style of posts. So, since then I’ve been thinking about how I can best be of service to readers, and I’ve decided I should use my Korean skills to let readers know more about Korean stars that are very popular and famous in Korea, but little known outside of the country (especially to English speakers). On that note, without any further ado let me introduce the actor Go Ara (고아라 in Korean), whom Andy has already briefly mentioned on the blog with some pictures here and a video of her dancing here. Many people thought that she danced a little awkwardly in that video, but as you can see in this commercial, she’s really not a bad dancer at all:

(The link to enlarge the video doesn’t appear to be working, so see here if you want to see a bigger version)

Here is a video (in Korean) of the commercial being made:

And here is another commercial of hers that played earlier this year, the first time I personally saw her on TV. Love it or hate it, once you hear that song you’ll never get it out of your head!

(That youtube video is very good quality and so sometimes takes a little while to load. If you can’t wait, see a quicker version here)

She has starred in many many more commericals on Korean TV, and if you’re interested you can quickly find most of them on youtube here. Her most recent was this one below with Jeon Ji-Hyun, whom I’m sure ZR5 readers will already be very familiar with! And like the photo underneath that shows, she also appears to have been a model of Abercrombie, but unfortunately I can’t find any more photos from that shoot.

After seeing all of those, you may be very surprised to learn that she’s still only seventeen! Despite her youth, she’s already been acting for four years, and was very popular amongst teenagers for her role as Lee Ok-rim in seasons one and two of the teenage drama “Sharp” in 2004 and 2005, and then as Yoo Da-mi in the more adult drama “Snow Flower”or “Snowflakes” in 2006. In that same year, she beat over 30,000 other candidates to win the part of Kuran, a warrior woman and Genghis Khan’s Lover in the Japanese-Mongolian movie “The Blue Wolf” which was very popular in Japan when it was released in March this year. You can read more about the movie itself here, and here in the video below is an interview with Go-Ara about her role. As you can see from that, Ara already speaks fluent Japanese, and has an official Japanese blog:

Earlier this month it was announced in the Korean media that Go Ara would star in a Japanese, Korean and Chinese movie called “Subaru,” to be released in 2009. Here is my translation of the Korean article where I first read about it, available here for those Korean speakers amongst you:

Go Ara to Star in the Jointly Asian-produced Movie “Subaru”

The actor Go Ara, affiliated with SM Entertainment in Korea, is to be transformed into a gifted ballerina in the movie Subaru, jointly produced by 4 media companies in 3 Asian countries. Subaru is based on the ballet-themed comic book of the same name by Masahito Soda, and is the name of its main character, played by the South American-Japanese actor Meisa Kuroki. In the movie, Go Ara plays the role of Liz Park, a rival of Subaru’s.

Liz Park has a very confident and wild and unrestrained personality, and this will be the first time that Ara has played such a character like this. When asked why he cast Go Ara for such a part, producer Bill Kong said that she “has a lot of potential and ability as an actor, and has a unique charm and attractiveness that the whole of Asia can fall in love with.”

In the comic book, all the characters are Japanese, but as we can tell from the name of her character in the movie, Ara plays a Korean ballerina. In the movie Liz Park is the best ballerina in the world, and she plays a much more important role in the movie than in the comic book.

Subaru will be produced by Bill Kong, most famous overseas for producing “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hero,” and will be directed by Lee Chi-ngai, from Hong Kong. The movie will be a jointly produced by SM Entertainment in Korea, AVEX Entertainment and Warner Japan in Japan, and EchoFilm in Hong Kong.

On the 6^thof November, several major media outlets including SanKae Sports, Nihon TV, and Sports Nippon, were invited to the set in Shanghai and at the press conference Bill Kong confidently said “I think Subaru will have an appeal to Western as well as Asian audiences, and considering the actors’ abilities, the quality of staff working on it, and how moving the original comic book was, then I would really like to ensure that the movie gets shown to as a wide an audience as possible.”

Showing off her fluent Japanese, Go Ara said “Thank you for coming to Shanghai. Most of the actors in this movie are Japanese but we have a director from Hong Kong and staff from several countries, so we usually speak a mixture of English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean when working together. At first, this was very awkward, but ultimately its become a new fun and rewarding experience.”

The movie started shooting in Japan in September, and they plan to finish shooting the climax in Shanghai in December. It will first be shown in Japan in 2009 and then released across Asia.

Here is picture of some of the cast from the press conference in Shanghai. From left to right they are Maeda Ken, Emi Kurara (can’t find any information about her in English, sorry), Sano Miku, Producer Bill Kong, Kaori Momoi, Meisa Kuroki, Director Lee Chi-ngai, Go Ara, and finally Hiroka Yuta.

On that note, thank you for reading all of my first post! I’ll only be posting every weekend, and when I do I’d like to let readers know as much about about the stars as I can, so as you can see my posts will be a little longer than Andy’s. I’m also very new to ZR5, so I welcome any constructive comments and criticisms about my posts, but this is still only my first…so please be nice! Finally, if there’s any Korean stars you’re having trouble finding information about in English, please make sure to let me know and I’ll see what I can do.