K-Movie Watch List: The Joseon Magician
Jo Yoon Hee will be playing the lead role in the new movie: The Joseon Magician.
(You might know her from her last role was playing Kim Soo Hyun's first love and the reason he decided to become a producer in the drama "The Producers.")
In this film, she will be playing Bo Eum, a blind gisaeng. Gisaengs were the Korean equivalent of geishas. When most people (wrongly!) think of geisha as prostitutes, gisaengs actually had a better education in the arts than most women during the Joseon era.
They were well versed in poetry, dance, music, politics and other cultural arts, which they used to entertain noblemen and royalty. Playing a gifted woman living in Joseon era was not as difficult for Jo Yoon Hee as learning how to think and move like a blind person.
In an interview with the Korean media outlet TV Daily, Jo Yoon Hee spoke about the challenges that she faced in accurately portraying someone with a visual impairment. "To act as if I were blind, I visited schools for the blind and practiced using video footage," said Jo. "I tried my best to put my own personality into the role which is what the producer asked me to."
Go Ara is also in the film, which is set to premiere in December, and plays Princess Cheong Myong.
Who is planning on watching this one!?
