Lesser Known Korean Stars #2 – Han Eun-jeong/한은정
In September this year, this picture started appearing all over the Korean internet:
Paris Hilton needs no introduction of course, but the woman on the left is the subject of today’s post, 27 year-old Korean actor and model Han Eun-jeong (often spelt as “Han Eun Jung” if you want to find out more information about her yourself). At the time, Paris Hilton was in Seoul for a promotional tour for as part of her contract for Fila Korea, and if you’re interested, you can read about the details of her trip here and read bloggers’ thoughts on it and see many pictures here and here.
When this photo appeared during her visit many Korean netizens were left wondering why she had chosen to meet Han Eun-jeong rather than international celebrities like Lee Hyori and Jeon Ji-hyun instead, but as a quick 2 minute read showed, it turned out she didn’t - the Korean media were just so crazy about Paris Hilton during her week long stay, reporting on her every move, meal and choice of clothes, that they reported on any connections they could find between Hilton and Korea, no matter how old or tenuous. Actually, Han Eun-Jeong had met her two years previously, during her visit to the launch of Tommy Hilfiger’s “2006 SS Collection” in New York. Here is a photo of her meeting Tommy Hilfiger himself there:
And a quick report from the Korean media about her visit back then (available in Korean here):
Han Eun-jeong Meets Paris Hilton at the “Tommy Hilfiger 2006 Collection” Fashion Show!
On the 9th of September (2005), Actress and model Han Eun-jeong attended Tommy Hilfiger’s “2006 SS Collection” fashion show, and got a chance to meet and talk to many famous models and celebrities there, including Paris Hilton.
According to SK Nesworks, the company that imports Tommy Hilfiger jeans to Korea, “Tommy Hilfiger found the model Han Eun-jeong to have a flawless appearance and a strong sense of fashion, and made a special request for her to be a model for his first showing of his new collection in Korea later that month.”
After meeting Tommy Hilfiger, she visited the Tommy Hilfiger head office and spent 5 days and 6 nights taking in and meeting more people in the New York fashion scene before returning to Korea.
Unfortunately, other than that very short article there is no more information about her trip or a later Korean show available in Korean or in English, so I guess that Tommy Hilfiger didn’t open the show in Korea as planned. Despite that, that was some very successful networking for someone who just turned up unannounced to the show: as we shall see, she had only just become famous in Korea, and was still virtually unknown outside of the country!
Han Eun-Jeong’s acting career began with a small supporting role in the Korean drama Boss at the age of 19 in 1999. She would have many small roles in over the next five years, appearing in dramas such as Age of Innocence and Successful Story of a Bright Girl in 2002 and Scent of a Man in 2003. During this time she also appeared as a model in some advertisements, such as these ones for Coca-cola:
She also appeared in the comedy film Two Guys in 2004, and here is a link to a video of the photoshoot for the one of the movie’s posters below:
Despite appearing in nine dramas in total and two movies by this stage, Han Eun-Jung was still not well-known, and only finally became popular after she appeared in the drama Full House in 2004 alongside the already very famous stars Rain and Song Hye-gyo. She was only in a supporting role again, albeit one more prominent than in her previous TV work, and so fashion stylist Nam Ju-hee chose (in her words) to give her a “sexy underwear look,” with a lot of exposed skin and some lacy bras, taking full advantage of her “bodyline” to help her stand out against Song Hye-Kyo. Here are some of the results:
The tactic worked, and since then she has quickly capitalised on her popularity by appearing in many more advertisements. Here is an example of one for an energy drink below, and you can see hundreds more videos of her TV commercials by clicking here. Under that, there are some stills from and a video of the first half of her yoga DVD Core in Body that she made the next year, popular amongst Korean women who wanted a body just like hers! It was later that year that she went to the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show in New York.
Naturally, despite her popularity Han Eun-jeong still wanted recognition for her acting skills rather than just her good looks, and although she starred in the popular drama Wonderful Life in 2005, it wasn’t until she starred in Seoul1945 the following year that she finally gained recognition as a serious actor, and she even won an award for her role. This year, she appeared in the drama The Person I Love (often also known as My Dearest Love in English), which you can tell from the links, and the pictures below, definitely isn’t just about showing off her body in front of the cameras.
Finally, for anyone interested in the drama, all the episodes of The Person I Love are available on Youtube. They don’t have the best picture quality, but they do have English subtitles! Here is the first episode below.
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funny how being seen with famous people makes you famous as well…looks like she capitalized it well with other appearances and the cola advertisements. Paris Hilton better reinvent herself soon cause it seems like her star power is dwindling..or maybe its just my opinion
Wow, fantastic coverage of this starlet. Matt makes a good point about being “famous by association” it might get you in the door but it wont take you far.
in my opinion, people in hollywood find it amusing to make their celebrities look funny and stupid by bad publicities instead of showing the good side of them and the sad thing is they allow the press to make them look bad like what happens to paris hilton and britney spears unlike in korea were celebrities are more careful of their privacy and are more discreet in public..so i think it took a lot of guts for ms. han to appear with paris…..and i should say i also admire actresses like ms. han for they don’t mind doing supporting roles in dramas…for some stars know that success can’t be achieve overnight in some cases…
Great article James. I liked her in Full House.
Wow, this blog will turn into magazine if posts continue with such great quality and coverage.
Yeah, impressive detective work there, James. I’m surprised that I was aware of most of the stuff she’d been in but wouldn’t have recognised her or known her name. I’ll be able to pick her next time, though.
Sam: My thoughts exactly..
Thanks for the compliments again guys.
Personally, I first saw her in ‘Wonderful Life,’ but I didn’t like it because I found the storyline…an ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend, now with new lovers, are forced to split up with their new lovers and marry, because she was already pregnant before they originally split up…just too implausible to take the drama seriously. But I think I might check out ‘The Person I Love.’
has that ha ji won look to her, pretty hot
[...] (한은정) – which you would have too if you’d seen the videos and pictures of her in this short bio I wrote - then it was damn well going up regardless of what niceties a second look [...]
Ohh she is really pretty, I’ve seen here a few times on the web. I gotta add her to my site! She is getting pretty big, but slowly. She is even hotter than Paris Hilton!
[...] As for me, I think I’ll throw mine away to make sure it doesn’t get into an impressionable newbie’s hands! In the meantime, I did buy 3 more books that day which I intended to talk about in this post, but you’ll be happy to know that I’m going to try to stick to a limit of 1500 words per post from now on, and while this post’s 2000 words means that I’m not off to a good start, it’s much better than the 5248 one I did recently. I have some thrilling blog tidying-up to do as well, but I’ll still try to do Part 2 tomorrow, and it’ll probably be much shorter because all 3 books are very good and so I have less to rant about. After that I’ll try to do Parts 2 and 3 of Flatting, Premarital Sex and Cohabitation in Korea next week as promised, but I also have to write my next 6 posts for ZR5 Asian News before I go on vacation, so sorry, but that means that there won’t be time for many pictures of attractive Korean women for a while. If you can’t wait though, you could do much worse than checking out my second post there on Han Eun-jeong/한은정. [...]
AS for me,at the first time i saw Han Eun-Jeong ,i really like the pretty women.She had got a lot of wards a few years ago.Athough she is 28 years old now,i think she was likely a 18 girl.Smile~~
She’s so gorgeous!
I believe she is a very good actress! I watch her in “The Person I love” that really well done by her. She did a very good job along with the whole casts! Gosh, I still hated the guy who is suppose to be her husband. He is such a jerk. I felt to sorry for her. Anyway, nicely done here! I like this article! Thanks for the information.
you face loke like my friend, pretty and cute!
we agree about it. Sad to say, we saw her movies and we both know shes doing excellent, in behalf of it. Do we have any rights to fuss against those in the hollywood? For me, shes very Good, and shes have a charisma and something different from other artists ive known. But, i dont know behind the scene. You? do you know about it. tell me something about her. thx.
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