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| Birth Name(s) : Jang Jin Young |
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Full Jang Jin Young Biography
Jang Jin-young (born June 14, 1974) is a South Korean actress and former model. She began her career as a model, and participated in the 1993 Miss Korea beauty contest, before making the switch into acting. Since making her film debut in 1998, Jang has received critical praise and won a number of awards for her work. She became only the second winner of two Blue Dragon Film Awards for Best Actress, having won in 2001 for Sorum, and again in 2003 for Singles. As of 2006, Jang was one of the highest paid stars in the Korean film industry, earning in the region of ₩300-350 million per film.
Jang began her career as a model, and represented the Chungcheongnam-do province at the 1993 Miss Korea beauty contest. After making the transition into acting with appearances in a number of TV dramas, she received her film debut with a supporting role in the 1998 fantasy Ghost in Love. In 2000 she appeared in Kim Ji-woon's The Foul King, one of the biggest domestic hits of that year, and Jang's tough image in the film drew attention from critics, with Derek Elley of Variety saying that she "makes an impression as the lightly romantic, not-so-fragile daughter". Also that year, she had a role in the fire fighting film Siren.
Jang's first starring role was in the 2001 psychological horror film Sorum, in which she was cast against type as Sun-yeong, a chain smoking abused wife. The part required her to look badly bruised and dishevelled, and she found the regimen of three packets of cigarettes per day to be quite gruelling, despite being a smoker herself. Both the film and Jang's performance received praise from critics, with Peter Y. Paik of The Film Journal commenting, " Jin-young is utterly convincing in her portrayal of a battered wife, conveying both vulnerability and grit." Jang won Best New Actress at the Pusan Film Critics Awards, Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and also found success overseas, with award wins at several European film festivals.
In 2002, Jang co-starred with Lee Jung-jae in Over the Rainbow, a romantic comedy film in which her character helps an old college friend to recover his lost memory, and she was praised in a review at Koreanfilm.org for giving a "lively performance". The following year, Jang appeared alongside Park Hae-il in the more dramatic Scent of Love. Her next film, also released in 2003, was the light-hearted comedy Singles, based on a novel by Japanese writer Kamata Toshio. Jang headed an ensemble cast as Na-nan, a down on her luck woman on the verge of turning thirty, who she described as being "very close to my actual real-life self" in terms of her personality. Singles proved to be one of the big hits of that year, and also found favour with critics, with Jang in particular being lauded for her performance. Derek Elley of Variety wrote, "With her effervescent, ingenuous goofiness, Jang dominates the movie, and twins well with ". Jang again won Best Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, becoming only the second actress to win the award twice, and also received the Popular Star award.Jang (right) and co-star Kim Joo-hyeok in Blue Swallow, a biopic of aviation pioneer Park Kyung-won.
For her next project, Jang was cast as the lead in Blue Swallow, a ₩9.7 billion biopic of aviation pioneer Park Kyung-won, which reunited her with Sorum director Yoon Jong-chan, and Singles co-star Kim Joo-hyeok. She worked on the film for some 15 months, during which time she was required to learn Japanese and overcome her fear of heights, and later said, "At every moment, I was pushing my limits. My experiences as taught me a lot and made me work even harder to live my life to the fullest." Released towards the end of 2005, the film found itself the subject of strong criticism, with Park seen by many as having been a pro-Japanese figure during the Japanese colonial rule of Korea, and it subsequently sold a disappointing 600,000 tickets at the Korean box office. Nevertheless, Jang received several award nominations for her role in the film, and won Best Actress at the 2006 Critic's Choice Awards.
In 2006, Jang appeared in the film Between Love and Hate, the directorial debut of actor/screenwriter Kim Hae-gon. She played the role of Yeon-ah, a carefree bargirl who embarks on a tumultuous love-hate relationship with slacker Young-woon (played by Kim Seung-woo), despite him being engaged to another woman. In order to give a realistic portrayal of a bargirl, Jang spent time touring underground bars and room salons, but had difficulty identifying with her character, saying, "I couldn’t easily understand why she had to act that way... I was embarrassed at times to stand in front of the camera and act like that." Her performance won Best Leading Actress at the Korean Film Awards, and she also received nominations at the Blue Dragon Film Awards and Baeksang Arts Awards.
In 2006, Movie Week magazine compiled a list of Korea's 25 most beautiful faces, which named Jang as the sixth most beautiful woman. The results were taken from a poll of 86 of the top domestic photographers.
Jang was one of the guests at the "Curtain Call" section of Star Summit Asia, a side event of the inaugural Asian Film Market to showcase established Asian stars for the international marketplace. Speaking at the press conference she professed a love for action films, and expressed a desire to one day star in a Chinese action film. |
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