Park Bo Gum Modernizes Korean Traditional Garb for Bazaar Korea October 2025 Edition as the Face of Tourism
I long ago stopped believing that stars I like are necessarily good human beings in real life, I sure hope so but keep my expectations low. But it’s always a harsh reality when any popular star turns out to have skeletons in the closet and it also ruins any ad campaigns with said star. Which is me saying that brands picking stars for campaigns really need to be careful, and it goes without saying if one is the face of an entire country’s tourism campaign. That would be Park Bo Gum who this year is the face of South Korea’s tourism push, and this month he’s in the cover and pages of Bazaar Korea magazine looking absolutely on fire and sooooo handsome modeling traditional hanbok looks with modern twists. The pictures are being used by SK for various promo pushes so expect to see him in airports and tourism ads. Please just let him be as wholesome in real life as he is in the advertisements for him.
I do love this guy alot… He is one of the nicest in the industry.
Nice or not in real life, I do love his acting on screen. I don’t care so much about what ppl say about celebs’ private lives as long as they are good actors. And I think he is.
He is out of that cult and that is pretty much the only eh thing I knew about him. But really, we can never know what these people are like irl. Hell sometimes we don’t know what us hiding behind the facades of our loved ones.
Just enjoy the pretty and don’t get too attached.
🤣
As much as I like PBG a lot both acting-wise and visually (which is very important lol), his comeback drama Good Boy after military service was a huge disappointment. I hope he picks better scripts in the future.
When life gives you tangerines was his first drama after the military and it was great.
Same with Kim So Hyun. At least PBG benefitted a bit from the drama, or at least doesn’t appear to have been affected negatively by it. He still has brand deals and is now Korea’s face of tourism. But it seems the projects KSH were taking starting from Love Alarm have been doing nothing for career and the characters she’s been playing recently have been contributing to people disliking her (new KDrama fans, especially). Good Boy really was a disappointment. I was hoping for something great considering how talented the cast were and the writer/PD combo. Sigh. Both leads need better projects next, but especially KSH, her career is basically nonexistent nowadays, which pains me to say, as someone who has liked her since I Miss You
So true. I actually thought that her career would take off after good boy because, on paper nothing could go wrong with that drama with such brilliant cast and the writer but the writing was so baf and KSH’s character was also not written well. I think she need a revamp of her career, so she need to accept either a supporting role or a character that is completely different from her real life. Doing a negative character might be a good change. Her roles lately has been quite similar.
KSH stagnating career is something she chose for herself. Not just her choice of scripts but also her choice of agencies and marketing teams she has picked for herself shows she does not want to break out of her comfort zone. She does mind a few challenges like action but nothing that breaks her overall mould and pushes her to reach further into her acting arsenal. It was surprising to know she didn’t pick any acting classes while she was enrolled in University but KSH has often stated she hates improv and can’t function without a script so its not a complete surprise. This is speculation but haven’t seen KSH eat properly in any of the ‘variety shows’ she’s been on in the last few years. She only nibbles on a few items and I don’t know if its because she is excessively image conscious or has an eating disorder but its not a good sign either way. Would love to see her in a variety show like 3 meals because I wanna see her actually eating like a normal person for once. There’s not much hope for her acting career at this point since the competition is too tough and she’s once again in the wrong agency but if she at least did other things to stay in the public eye it would help recover some of her image and she should move to supporting roles or minor roles in good dramas instead of being the main lead in bad dramas. She’s clearly not at the level to be a main lead in a good drama since those offers aren’t coming to her.
@magins yeah it would be too tough for her if she doesn’t show much personality, because the younger audience are looking for authenticity and relatability from their celebs. not just the younger audience actually, even the older ones. one of the reasons why celebs like hyeri and song ji hyo are so popular in Korea is that they’re not afraid to look less pretty doing silly things and they show a lot of personality while still staying likeable. now I’m not saying KSH should do silly stuff if she’s not the playful type, just… you know, show some personality lol. but as you said, maybe she’s too self-conscious.
and yeah her choices have been so disappointing. i’d really like to know how that agency got such a chokehold on her that she can’t leave it lol
PBG needs a cliché chaebol role.
KSH needs to get rid of her bangs and let go. KGE went bob cut for her role. Actresses don’t always need to look pretty. It gets boring.
@Cadence @Jimmy I agree with you both. And yes at least PBG is still in-demand, but I need both him and KSH to pick something new. I think both have been typecast, PBG as the golden retriever “green flag” type who is super kind to everyone and worships the female lead and doesn’t have much depth and complexity beyond that. While KSH had been typecast as the beautiful, stoic, tsundere type of girl who both the main and second male leads compete intensely over. Her recent roles have been like that mostly.
And yes Good Boy started off strong (that fighting scene at the end of episode 1 was so fun!) but became boring (at least to me) eventually. Neither Dong Ju nor Hana have much depth and dimensions tbh and neither were fleshed out characters much or written well. Well, I like both actors, so best of luck to them in their next projects! PBG has nothing to worry about anyway, he’s still so loved in Korea and still in-demand, all he need to do is pick a great script, which will be easy as I’m sure he gets lots of offers anyway lol
Agree. There is just so much competition between young actress in kdrama that it will be hard for her. She should have left this agency and joined another agency because I don’t see it doing anything for her career. She just needs that one drama where people can see that she can act and not doing her usual thing. Just one breakthrough supporting role in a drama can be career changing. For eg, Glory villain (both younger and older actress) their career completely changed after that drama. Nowadays, the type of character she plays seems so similar to her rl that it’s hard for me to take her acting seriously, so I really hope she does something different. Maybe doing a movie could be a good change.
I’m curious about the ornament hanging below his chest. It looks heavy, won’t the sash droop down when he’s walking? Or there’s something else to support the weight?
They’re mostly joseon-style though… I think I like the goryeo and pre-goryeo (goguryeo?) more.
Damn PBG looks majestic in this. I saw all of his pics from this photoshoot and he looked majestic. I could feel the aura from him lol. He could play a ruthless king in a historical drama. He would look so good. I was always indifferent towards him but I have been liking him lately.
He is already at the top of the game, and I don’t see anything can make his popularity come down, even bad dramas. His title Nation’s Boy(or something similar) is truly apt.
His Joseon looks here made me rewatch his Boombastic dance from Moonlight era, it is still such a hoot 10 years on.
I have never heard anything but good things about PBG. I like to believe such people exist in the world, and would also like to think he is so genuinely nice that any haters will leave him alone.
What is funny to me is that these are some of the least “wholesome” pictures of him I have seen. I have always thought of him as the “nice guy’ from dramas and his show. Cute. Sincere. The kind of person(a) that I’d want my daughters to date. But honestly, this spread is HOT. I think this might be the first time I thought of him as HOT.