Lee Min Ho Confirmed for Noir Gangster Movie Gangnam Blues

Striking while the iron is hot, Lee Min Ho wrapped up Heirs this week and his agency promptly confirmed his long rumored casting in the upcoming gangster noir thriller Gangnam Blues. Lee Min Ho was offered the script back in September and he’s been considering it ever since. I think it’s a no-brainer choice to say yes. The script was first offered to Hyun Bin but he’s done gangster noir before in the criminally underrated and magnificent K-drama Friends: Our Legend. So Binnie went the sageuk route with A King’s Wrath and this plumb role landed in Lee Min Ho’s lap. Directing is famed directed Yoo Ha, himself no stranger to the noir gangster genre having helmed A Dirty Carnival with Jo In Sung, where he finally shed his pretty boy image, and even earlier did Once Upon a Time in High School with Kwon Sang Woo. Yoo Ha also wrote and directed the famous erotic sageuk A Frozen Flower also with Jo In Sung and that one netted Joo Jin Mo a Baeksang for Best Actor. The bare-bones synopsis of Gangnam Blues surrounds the rise of the land development boom in the Gangnam area of Seoul in the 1970s. No word on what type of character Lee Min Ho will be playing (straight up hero fighting corruption? Anti-hero finding redemption?) but the setting will involve shady corporate and mafia power struggles to gain control of the prime real estate in Gangnam. The movie starts filming in early 2014 and will mark Lee Min Ho’s first headlining movie as well as his first big screen project in six-years. He said prior to Heirs that the drama would be his last time playing a high school student and I’m sure everyone has an opinion as to whether he was believable as one. I thought he was easier to watch as a high school student than I expected, too bad Kim Tan was not a well-written character. I’m looking forward to Lee Min Ho taking another step in his career away from fluffy fare and challenging himself more.