Jung Ryeowon is an Australian idol and actress of Korean descent currently active in Korea. Born in Korea in 1981, she and her family immigrated to Australia at the age 11. She returned to Korea as an exchange student, and it was while playing a dance arcade game that she caught the attention of singer and producer Lee Sangmin who was passing by and was cast as one of the members of the K-pop group Chakra. She passed the auditions, and before she knew it, she was debuting wit...More

Jung Ryeowon is an Australian idol and actress of Korean descent currently active in Korea. Born in Korea in 1981, she and her family immigrated to Australia at the age 11. She returned to Korea as an exchange student, and it was while playing a dance arcade game that she caught the attention of singer and producer Lee Sangmin who was passing by and was cast as one of the members of the K-pop group Chakra. She passed the auditions, and before she knew it, she was debuting with the group in 2000, much to her parents’ surprise.
Although she participated in the historical musical film <Emergency Measure 19> and a few TV series, she decided to dedicate herself solely to her acting career after Chakra disbanded in 2004, making one of the first cases of a K-pop idol moving to acting. Following a supporting role in the romantic comedy <My Boyfriend Is Type-B> (2005), Jung landed lead roles in the fantasy sitcom <Goodbye Francesca> (2005-2006) and romcom series <My Lovely Sam Soon> (2006) and went on to star in <Two Faces of My Girlfriend> (2007). This romcom film failed to draw in crowds, but it still was an important step in her career as her performance in it led her to win Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2009, she took on her most iconic role as a recluse in the zany romcom <Castaway on the Moon>, alongside Jeong Jaeyoung. 2011 saw her take on two roles, in the period comedy drama <In Love and the War> and the melodrama <Pain>, playing opposite Kwon Sangwoo. Her next role was in the 2012 romcom <Never Ending Story>, and she also co-starred Lee Beomsu in the comedy thriller series <History of a Salaryman>. After a couple years of slump, she returned to form in 2017 when she received the lead role in the courtroom drama series <Witch’s Court>, which helped her carve a niche for herself in that subgenre, as she followed this up with <Diary of a prosecutor> (2019-2020) and, more recently, the Disney + original series <May It Please the Court> (2022). Her next film project, <Gate> (2018) underperformed, but she found success headlining the thriller film <The Woman in the White Car>, as she won Best Actress in Korean Fantastic upon its premiere at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.
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