Lee Donghae

Lee Donghae
Background information
Born October 15, 1986 (1986-10-15) (age 25)
Mokpo, Jeollanam, South Korea
Genres Pop, dance, R&B
Occupations Singer-songwriter, dancer, actor.
Instruments Vocals, keyboards
Years active 2005–present
Labels SM Entertainment
Associated acts SM Town, Super Junior, Super Junior-M, EunHae
Website twitter.com/donghae861015
Korean name
Hangul 이동해
Hanja 李東海
Revised Romanization I Dong-hae
McCune–Reischauer Yi Tong-hae

Lee Dong-hae (born October 15, 1986), better known simply as Donghae (or among his friends as "D-Dizzy"), is a South Korean singer-songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroup, Super Junior-M. He is also one of the first four Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage stamps.[1]

Contents

Biography

Donghae was born in Mokpo, Jeollanam on October 15, 1986 . Donghae initially wanted to become an athlete, but under the influence of his father, who once desired to become a singer, Donghae decided to train himself to become a singer.

In 2001, Donghae successfully signed a contract with SM Entertainment soon after he jointly won the Best Outward Appearance award with future band mate Sungmin on the company's third annual SM Youth Best Contest.[2] Under SM Entertainment, Donghae was put in singing, dancing, and acting lessons that same year. He was then recruited into a five-member boy band Smile, with future band mate Leeteuk, but the idea was soon dropped.

In 2004, Donghae- along with Leeteuk- was put into another boy band and formed Super Junior with ten other trainees. The group later became known as Super Junior 05, the presumed first generation of the rotational music group, Super Junior. Several days before the group debuted, Donghae made a brief appearance in November 2005 at SBS's Shin Dong-yup's There Is There Isn't panel.

On the 8th of August 2006, Donghae's father died due to cancer. The event still proves to be a difficult memory for him due to the close relationship they shared. In Super Junior's 4th Album (2010), Donghae's thank you is dedicated almost entirely to his father.[3]

His best friends is fellow bandmate Eunhyuk, whom he has known for more than 10 years.

Super Junior

Super Junior 05 officially debuted on November 6, 2005 on SBS's music program Popular Songs, performing their first single, "TWINS (Knock Out)".[4][5] Their debut performance attracted over 500 fans and also garnered oversea viewers from both China and Japan. A full studio album was released a month later, which debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts.[6]

In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group hit big after they released their first CD single "U" the following summer, which became Super Junior's most successful single in the music charts until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009.[7]

In late 2007, Donghae was put into Super Junior-M, the Chinese subgroup version of Super Junior.[8] Super Junior-M is the 1st international music group in the Chinese music industry to have members of both Chinese and Korean descent, and brought an influence in the mainland music industry to produce multi-national music groups.[9] Super Junior-M debuted in China on April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual Music Chart Awards with the release of their first single music video, "U". The subgroup released their first Chinese-language studio album, Me on May 2, 2008 to critical success. The album debuted #1 on many of China's and Thailand's music charts and Taiwan's G-music combo charts as #2.[10]

Donghae has tried his hand at composing and songwriting. In late 2009, his first self-composed and self-written song, "Beautiful" was released with Super Show 2: The 2nd Asia Tour. In 2010, Donghae had composed 여행 (A Short Journey), which is on Super Junior's 미인아 (Repackage) 4th album. Another one of his composition is a soundtrack for a Korean drama "It's Okay Daddy's Girl", which he also co-starred in, entitled "Just Like Now". This original soundtrack was released as a duet number with his fellow band mate Kim Ryeowook in December 2010.

To add to the list, Donghae also collaborated with One Way's Chance to compose 4 songs: "Strong Heart (Korean TV show) Logo Song", "Y" (from their 5th album: Mr. Simple), "I Wanna Love You" from Super Show 3, and "Oppa Has Risen" from Super Show 4.[11] Recently, he composed the logo song for ShimShimTamPa Radio as well.

Acting career

Donghae made his acting debut in Super Junior's horror documentary Mystery 6, broadcasted in early 2006. The documentary surrounds Donghae and his peculiar ability to see and feel ghosts.

In August 2006, Donghae played the role of a human turned cyborg in the Korean version of BoA's music video drama, "Key of Heart" his first lead appearance in a music video.

Donghae's official debut as an actor was in July 2007, with the release of Super Junior's debut film, Attack on the Pin-Up Boys. Donghae stars as a class mate and close friend of Kim Kibum, a high school student who investigates on a mysterious attack on pretty boys in various high schools in town.

In late 2007, Donghae was featured in Girls' Generation's "Kissing You" music video. Also, he and Kyuhyun appeared and sang for facial wash product commercial "Happy Bubble" with actress Han Ji Min. A full music video was released on August 19, 2009. He appeared in Ariel Lin's music video for "螢火蟲" (Firefly), with fellow groupmate, Siwon as his best friend who is dating Ariel's character who happens to be Siwon's ex-girlfriend. He played Zhang Li Yin's love interest on her music video, 晴天雨天 (Moving On), released on October 19, 2009.

Donghae starred in SBS drama, It's Okay, Daddy's Daughter as Wookgi, one of three brothers in the drama, which was aired in mid November 2010. He is scheduled in April 2011 to film Taiwanese drama Extravagant Challenge (Chinese: 華麗的挑戰) with Ivy Chen and fellow band member Siwon as the three main characters. It is a live-action adaptation of Japanese shōjo manga Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura to be shot in Taiwan.[12]

Sponsorship

Donghae is the brand ambassador for Maxim Colours Contact lens worldwide.[13] A press conference appointing him the brand ambassador was held in Thailand, 21 June 2010.[14]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
2007 Attack on the Pin-Up Boys Lee Dong-hae, the best friend Supporting role, ensemble cast
2010 Super Show 3 3D Himself 3-D concert film

Television dramas

Year Title Role Notes
2006 Mystery 6 Himself Leading role (6 episodes)
2006 Super Junior Mini-Drama Donghae Supporting role, ensemble cast (5 episodes)
2009 Stage of Youth Donghai Cameo appearance (Episode 12)
2010–11 It's Okay, Daddy's Girl Choi Wook-gi Supporting role
2011–12 Skip Beat! Shang Jieyong / Bu Po Shang Leading role

Music video appearances

Year Song Artist(s)
2006 "Key of Heart" BoA
2008 "Kissing You" Girls' Generation
2009 "Summer Story" Ariel Lin
2009 "Happy Bubble" with Kyuhyun, Han Ji-min
2009 "Moving On" Zhang Liyin
2009 "S.E.O.U.L." Super Junior & Girls' Generation
2010 SBS Strong Heart logo song with Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk

See also

References

  1. ^ "Super Junior-M to appear on postage stamps" (in Korean). Newsen: p. 1. 2008-12-08. http://www.newsen.com/news_view.php?news_uid=281401. Retrieved 2008-12-08. 
  2. ^ 李东海个人资料_CCTV.com_中国中央电视台. Ent.cctv.com. Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  3. ^ Donghae’s Thanks To his Father from 4th Jib « Super Junior | EV3RLA5TING. Sup3rjunior.com (2010-05-14). Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  4. ^ 2005年Super Junior正式出道(图)_音乐_金鹰网. Ent.hunantv.com. Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  5. ^ Arirang News | Photo News. Arirang.co.kr (2005-10-27). Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  6. ^ "Album Sales of December 2005" (in Korean). Recording Industry Association of Korea: p. 1. http://www.miak.or.kr/stat/kpop_200512.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 
  7. ^ SuperJunior重磅推出第三辑 – 京华时报·京华网. Epaper.jinghua.cn (2009-03-14). Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  8. ^ Super Junior-M出道中国 新碟引爆内地歌坛_影音娱乐_新浪网. Ent.sina.com.cn. Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  9. ^ (Chinese) Jinhua.cn. Super Junior debuts today, Han Geng as group leader April 8, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
  10. ^ (Chinese) Top in Music
  11. ^ ENG 111212 MinWook talking about Eunhyuk & Donghae single + EunHae as guests in KTR. YouTube (2011-12-12). Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  12. ^ (Chinese) 聯合新聞網udn.com 「華麗」4月開麥拉 敲定陳意涵 4 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
  13. ^ Maxim Colours Contact lens. Maximcolors.com. Retrieved on 2011-12-25.
  14. ^ [ประมวลภาพ ดงแฮ (Dong Hae) แห่ง ซุปเปอร์จูเนียร์ ในงานพรีเซ็นเตอร์ 'Maxim Contact Lenses']. pingbook.com June 22, 2010.

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