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Explosive Rise of New Generation of Actors as Dramas Capture Global Streaming Market 

New talents always emerge in the Korean entertainment industry, and their meteoric rises to global stardom are hardly a new phenomenon. Yet with Korean dramas capturing the attention of viewers around the world as the global streaming wars reached fever pitch during the pandemic, new actors are reaching superstar status at even more dizzying speeds.

At the start of the pandemic, few people would have been familiar with names like Han Sohee and Kim Seonho, but their hit dramas The World of the Married and Start-Up, available to view internationally on Netflix through international deals struck by local cable channels JTBC and tvN, swiftly turned them into household names the world over.

Yet even the unprecedented speed at which they rose to fame pales in comparison with the latest Korean star, model-turned-actress Jung Hoyeon. Until September 16 this year, she was largely unknown. A few weeks later, thanks to the staggering success of Squid Game, her acting debut, she now commands 22 million followers on Instagram.

Traditionally, there has been more prestige associated with films compared to dramas in Korea, which has led rising stars to sometimes parlay their drama popularity into a film career. In today’s market, given the broader global audience for dramas and more lucrative salaries, not to mention the Covid slowdown of film productions, some of that luster has disappeared. Nevertheless, we can still expect many of these bright small screen lights to emerge on the big screen before long, especially as pandemic fears subside and audiences return to multiplexes in the near future.

We will start with a name that has gone from anonymity to stardom over the past year and is currently thrilling Netflix subscribers the world over.

Han Sohee 

Ulsan native Han Sohee debuted in a SHINee music video in 2016 and landed her first small-screen role in the 2017 drama Reunited Worlds. After diligently sticking to her craft, everything changed for her when she landed a major role in the JTBC show The World of the Married. Playing the ‘other woman’, Han was quickly noticed as the affair drama became the highest-rated drama in Korean cable television history last year.

Han rocketed to fame and next appeared as the lead of the college romance Nevertheless opposite Song Kang, another JTBC program. Though it performed poorly at home, the show was embraced by a wide audience around the world this summer. Han next bulked up and trained to play the lead in the action revenge drama My Name, which debuted on Netflix this month and as of this writing, has reached the third rank among the streamers’ current TV rankings.

Ahn Bohyun 

Han’s My Name co-star, playing her narcotics detective partner, Ahn Bohyun has already been around for a long time, initially debuting as a model in 2007 before starting his acting career in 2014. Handsome, tall and square-jawed, Ahn has often been cast as tough characters, including a soldier in Descendants of the Sun and one of the villains in Itaewon Class.

After years of impressing viewers through supporting roles, Ahn graduated to a leading man late last year in the thriller Kairos. Busy in production throughout this year, the 33-year-old suddenly burst onto screens in two shows this fall, opposite Han in the aforementioned My Name, in which he shows off his action bona fides, and alongside Kim Goeun in the romantic comedy Yumi’s Cells, in which he plays a goateed and charming game designer.

Jung Hoyeon 

No doubt the ‘actor of the moment,’ Jung Hoyeon is another performer who kicked off her career as a successful model, including a stint on Korea’s Next Top Model in 2013. Venturing into acting, Jung was able to land a big role in a Netflix show as her debut, but no one could have known just how big a break that would turn out to be.

On September 17 this year, Jung became immortalized as ‘No. 67’, the North Korean defector-turned-pickpocket participant in Squid Game. Jung’s tough and nuanced performance belies her screen inexperience, and she quickly became the breakout star of a show that soared past Netflix’s previous viewing record, as 142 million accounts tuned in over the show’s first four weeks. With her massive social media following and brands reportedly seeking her out as an ambassador en masse, the world is waiting to see what projects she will sign onto next.

Lee Dohyun 

Chung Ang University graduate Lee Dohyun kicked off his career playing the younger version of Jung Kyungho’s character in Prison Playbook in 2017. After a few youth dramas, Lee landed a supporting part in the hit Hotel Del Luna in 2019 and then took on his first leading role in the body swap romcom 18 Again the following year.

Lee’s star rose significantly higher later that same year when he appeared in the Netflix hit Sweet Home, as one of the residents trapped in a derelict apartment block when monsters appear on earth. The young actor gained a lot of attention as one of the heroes of the action-horror series. This year he appeared in the period youth romance Youth of May in the spring, and he will next act opposite Lim Soojung in the romantic melodrama Melancholia. With his composed screen presence and versatile acting, Lee will surely scale more heights before long.

Go Minsi

Co-starring with Lee Dohyun in both Sweet Home and Youth of May, as his brother and romantic interest, respectively, Go Minsi is another name that is quickly gaining attention. Before Sweet Home, she had already appeared in an earlier Netflix series, the romantic drama Love Alarm, reprising her role as a petulant wannabe in season two earlier this year.

Compared to the other names on this list, Go has more commercial film experience, notably having played Kim Dami’s best friend in The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion (2018), as well as appearing in the war film The Battle: Roar to Victory in 2019. Go is back on screens as a ranger in the hotly anticipated mountaineering action-drama Jirisan alongside Jun Jihyun (aka Gianna Jun). Meanwhile, her film career should get a major boost soon as she recently completed filming Smuggling (translated title), the next film of hit filmmaker Ryoo Seungwan.