Jung Woo-sung

Jung Woo-sung
Born	(1973-03-20) 20 March 1973 Seoul, South Korea
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1994 – present
Korean name
Hangul	정우성
Hanja	鄭雨盛
Revised Romanization	Jeong U-seong
McCune–Reischauer	Chǒng U-sǒng

Jung Woo-sung (born March 20, 1973) is a South Korean actor.

Career

After first finding work as a model, Jung Woo-sung made his film debut in the 1994 movie The Fox with Nine Tails, together with Ko So-young. He and Ko would go on to act in two more films together.^[1]

Jung found widespread fame in Kim Sung-soo's 1997 film Beat, in which he played a high school student who becomes caught up in gang life against his will. Since this film, he became known as one of Korea's top commercial stars. In the subsequent years he portrayed a young boxer in City of the Rising Sun, a naval lieutenant in Phantom: The Submarine, and a marathoner in Love.^[1]

In 2001, Jung took on one of his most high-profile roles in Kim Sung-soo's epic blockbuster Musa. Playing a long-haired slave, he acted opposite Chinese superstar Zhang Ziyi and received wide exposure abroad as well as in Korea. After spending time in 2002 directing a series of music videos and appearing in a large number of commercials, Jung took on the eccentric lead role in Mutt Boy, the fifth film by director Kwak Kyung-taek.^[1]

Jung's next roles would be in highly romantic roles that played off his established screen image. In the box office hit A Moment to Remember he plays an architect whose wife (played by Son Ye-jin) is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and in the Netherlands-set Daisy, he plays a hired assassin who falls in love with a street artist played by Jeon Ji-hyun.^[1] He portrays a happily committed fireman in Sad Movie, and rekindles a romance with an old friend in A Good Rain Knows.^[2][3][4] His big-budget martial arts films The Restless and Reign of Assassins would also have romantic elements.^[5]

Kim Jee-woon's "kimchi western" The Good, the Bad, the Weird would give Jung one of his most iconic roles, using his physicality to great effect as the Clint Eastwood counterpart in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Shortly after he would work again with the director in a short film for W Korea.^[6]

Given the hype regarding his return to the small screen after 15 years, Jung's spy genre drama Athena: Goddess of War (spin-off to 2009's IRIS)^[7] was a disappointment, failing to duplicate its predecessor's ratings. He made his Japanese drama debut with a guest appearance in episodes 6 and 7 of Good Life ~Arigatou, Papa. Sayonara~.^[8]

He followed that with another TV series Padam Padam... The Sound of His and Her Heartbeats which marked the establishment of new cable broadcasting station jTBC. Jung said he "decided on this drama because (he) was drawn to the way Noh Hee-kyung writes 'family drama.' Whether mother-son or father-son, the love and pain experienced by families is something (he)’d like to try portraying in a realistic way."^[9] He played a man who has recently been released from jail after serving a 16-year sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.^[10][11]

Jung was cast in the English-language 3D remake of John Woo's The Killer.^[12] The film will be shot in Los Angeles, and reunites him with A Moment to Remember director John H. Lee and Reign of Assassins director John Woo who will be producing.^[13]

In 2012 he directed and starred in the commercial for cable channel XTM.^[14][15][16] And a year later, Jung was among four celebrities who directed a short film using smartphone Samsung Galaxy S4 with the theme "Meet a Life Companion." His short Love explored the feelings of first love, and recorded 1.8 million views on YouTube.^[17]

Jung drew praise in his first villain role in Cold Eyes, an action thriller that became a box office hit in 2013.^{[18][19][20][21][22]}

He then directed another short for Samsung Galaxy S4, this time for the project "Story of Me and S4." In Jung's short Beginning of a Dream, Choi Jin-hyuk starred as an ordinary office worker who dreams of leaving his mundane existence and entering a world of fantasy; he is approached by a blue fish, rides a sports car at supersonic speed, sees a boy floating past holding a balloon, hangs out with a hippie band in their van, and meets himself as a young boy at a bus stop.^[23]

Jung next stars as a baduk player out for revenge in God's Trick.^[24][25]

Personal life

Jung grew up in Sadang-dong, then one of the poorest towns in Seoul.^[26]

He gave up studying to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, dropping out of high school after one year. It was controversial at the time that he did not conceal this fact but rather claimed that he did not regret his decision.^[27]

Jung is best friends with fellow actor Lee Jung-jae, whom he met while filming City of the Rising Sun. They are co-owners and co-investors of several businesses.^[15][16]

After they were photographed on a date in Paris,^[28] Jung confirmed in March 2011 that he was dating Athena co-star Lee Ji-ah.^[29][30] But after Lee's married and divorced past with top Korean singer-songwriter Seo Taiji became exposed to the public the following month, the Korean press reported in June that Jung and Lee had broken up.^[31][32][33]

Filmography

Jung Woo-sung on set in 2008

Film

Television series

As Director

Awards

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jung Woo-sung.

• http://jungwoosung.net/
• Jung Woo-sung at HanCinema
• Jung Woo-sung at the Korean Movie Database
• Jung Woo-sung at the Internet Movie Database