I not ashamed to let out a cat whistle upon seeing Lee Jun Ki‘s latest pictorial for Cosmopolitan Korea magazine. Wow wee is the man quite a specimen of athletic prowess coupled with chiseled model good looks. It feels like he’s hitting another peak in his acting career, Lawless Lawyer was a return to his specialty of intense emotional projection in his role and plenty of physicality onscreen. It’s still too bad that the K-version of Bu Bu Jing Xin that was Moon Lovers was such a hot mess, 4th Prince was such a perfect casting in tapping Jun Ki and could have been so iconic and yet that drama is so hard for me to justify rewatching even for his scenes alone. Lawless Lawyer helped fill in the disappointment finally.
More pic of LJK please.
37 and rocking honey.Thats what fine wine looks like in human form.Its a good pictorial.If I have to whine, I wish he didnt have to drape the green jacket in the first pic.I want to see both bare arms.Him in a singlet is a rare sight except of course if you risk your eyes to visit his instagram?.
As for acting, I think he has recovered quickly from last year’s mess.He is back to the momentum that started from his new career high in 2016.I am chanting, crossing my fingers, hoping, someone in kmovie land pulls the strings to get him on board this year.This man does only one project a year.So its going to be a good 6-7 months before we see him again.An announcement of a korean movie offer in between wouldnt be a bad idea.
I think the biggest revelation to come for his fans last year was that he was on a government blacklist. Thank god for that cloud lifting and him being in a good drama again.
I would love for him to do a movie, now that he did a successful drama. The King&the Clown still remains legendary, one of the best Korean movies ever made.
Great that Lee Joon Gi hot mess drama gained him so many fans. Hot mess drama isn’t bad at all. I’ve watched kdramas for more than a decade, just talking about production value, it’s one of the few best ones. And I think, Lee Joon Gi’s performance in that drama was the best thst has come out on kdrama. I still think it’s his best performance from the probably few dramas I’ve watched of him.
Why was it a hot mess, rating? It would be funny for me of people think Goblin was great because it gained good rating in Korea. Because that drama was a total hot mess in terms of production value.
I agreevwith your comments. I really love SHR, which I have watched repeatedly, 7x already. Even read around 20 fanfics about that.
I just didn’t get why Korean fans failed to appreciate his great work.
But I love all of his works because of the emotions that he invest in them.
@cyberacks why korean fans failed to appreciate SHR?Myriads of reasons.This was what they said;One, sageuk tone for some of the actors was off.Its like shakespeare play that uses old english to suddenly be acted uses modern english.I dont even know if its the accurate comparison.This make the drama feel amateur.Two, when a korean drama has a huge number of rookies/idols/models in significant roles.You are automatically cutting out korean demographic in half.The rating givers 30s-40s ones dont like idols in lead or significant supporting roles, unless they have been proven to consistently give good performances. It means mostly teens/twenties would be watching.Even those kids were watching “lovers in the Moonlight” on TV while monitoring moon lovers online.Three, editing was a mess .Rap music in sageuk is a no no unless maybe its cool and mixed with orchestra like in Chuno and even some of the vocal ost while nice didnt fit some of the scenes.Hae Soo was terribly written and directed.I feel for IU.But most importantly, its just that there are dramas were koreans and international fans tend to differ.This one was one of them.Just like how for example “My Golden Life” was a super hit in Korea but it had little to no buzz on the international arena.
Thank you Ruby Red always good reading your feedback and overview. However I guess with time I might go and watch ML somewhere in the near future. Like when I’m 80 in a resthome. Gosh I struggled majorly with Hwarang and that’s because I was following Seo Ye Ji and co. That was a tough watch.
@Ann Joel – yes Hwarang was a tough watch… haha… When you are ready to watch ML, may I suggest you start from the last episode and go backwards, the drama slowly got better towards the ending…. the beginning was just an editing mess and I honestly skipped most of the earlier episodes. ?
@Candycane: Thank you for the heads up and yes I will take your advice to start at the end and go backwards. I did mention in one of my posts that I would ‘never’ watch it but starting at the end makes it more palatable and less dramatic. Cheers for that ?
These so called drama critic sound like their experts in the field talking about editing mess and blah blah as if they are experts in the field but you read comments like ‘watch the drama from the end’…geez sounds like artistry is probably not a factor in the opinions. I tell you just stick with rom-com dramas. ?
till this day I still haven’t managed to get past episode 2 of Moon Lovers! Even his intensity couldn’t make up for the wrongs in that drama!
I am curious what’s wrong with the drama?
Yes, my thoughts also. What was so wrong with that drama?
I have not seen the Chinese version, so if it’s being judged against the Chinese version and it falls short. Then I cannot comment.
However, just on the drama alone, I was absolutely blown away and loved every minute of it. LJK’s acting was brilliant and he owned the Wang So role. IU was also very good as Hae Soo.
I really could not fault the drama and struggled to move on after. I was really hoping for a sequel. But it was not meant to be. I would love to find out why the negative feedback and why it was described as a hot mess.
Wang so was iconic and lee joon gi pulled the drama through hot mess. Horrible editing. Bland side actors whos expressions did not match the situation. Some side supporting actors characters saeguk speech was out of tone. AND the female character was made so dumb where as people were expecting a smart badass witty girl who used her knowledge of history to survive and to impress all the brothers because she knew who would be who in the future. She was smart little cunning lady and she did not dumbly get infatuated and fall in love with men that is the speciality of bubujinxin. Yes i watched original and by second episode when she said to wang wook i understand why you killed. I knew she was adumb character who cannot differentiate peoples characters from good to bad. She is like those girls If you are handsome perfect looking and polite then whatever wrong you do its understandable. Inshort dumb character. After that i only stayed to watch the villain queen mother and wang so performance.
I’m glad for his success this year. He created a great character, seems to have had fun on the set and the ratings came through. It must be particularly nice after a blah 2017 with a lackluster drama both in quality (well the writing in the 4 episodes I saw) and ratings and his relationship getting outed and then breaking up.
I would love to see him get offered a movie, but if that’s not in the cards, I hope we don’t have to wait until next year for him to accept another drama though he does tend to do one a year.
Happy for him and his LJK angels. 2018 has been a great year to date ?The mind boggles that so many fans of the SooSoo couple want them to reunite for ML season 2. Yeah…nah good luck if that petition gets through the first round. I won’t watch ML #1 ever because of those troublesome pesky rude shippers of IU and LJK plaguing LL with their delusional wishes.
Why wont you watch a drama because of shippers? LoL. Specially when you like the actress and actor in a drama? All you have to do is ignore them????
@satish borganker – Why does the sun shine; why is the moon round? I had a great experience watching LL only marred by dumb shippers re editing pics so I have my reasons and seriously why would you care? Plus I don’t want to torture myself watching the 4th Prince being massacred emotionally.
Lol okay
I am glad to watch Lawless Lawyer to forget all about yikes Moon Lovers.
Watching Lawless Lawyer makes me see why he is so popular.
Hopefully his next project will be as good.
I am so happy that finally has a legit hit drama, though performance wise, even BSP is great… Wang So is on another level. Lee Jun Ki made the role iconic.
I hope he will have more success with follow up projects and please dear lord, gain some weight (though i know he is perfectly healthy).
Hi Mz Koala thank you for your news post but do you know anything about Seo Ye Ji’s new movie ‘Blackout’?She plays a movie director wanting to make the world’s scariest horror movie. Or any kind soul out there that is up with K entertainment news. I was waiting on her movie ‘Believe’ but nothing has surfaced. Soo Ae apparently declined it.
Even I really dont understand why would people say that ML is a hot mess when in fact it was delivered very well. The actors acted good. Maybe the reason why they didnt like it because it was not a happy ending just like the other typical kdrama. It took me 1 week to move on after I watched the last episode of ML i thought there is still one episode even just one episode that will make me happy but the ending is really dissapointing not because of their acting but because the story itself is not a happy ending. Im still hoping fo a sequel of that drama.
LJK seriously looks so yummy in these pictures… the man takes hotness to another lever.
I love BSP so much… i still feel like something is missing in my life because LL ended. It was such a great drama, and i am so happy because it was a successful drama for LJG and rest of the cast and team’s sake
about MLSHR and Wang So. I can’t compare them to any other drama or character. i love the drama and Wang So so much that sometimes i can’t handle it…I’m still hopelessly waiting for a DVD or a hankie scene bts or something… and i don’t understand people who say that drama was a flop, i think most of the fans i know are his fans because MLSHR. I was already in love with LJG before MLSHR, but after Wang So I’m abosolutely crazy about him…
LJG you better do a movie or a new drama soon… pretty pleaseeeeeeeee