Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
It was recently announced that Eunjung would return to acting through an MBC drama called ‘All Kinds Of Daughter-In-Laws,’ which will start to air in April.
A representative of MBK Entertainment stated, “Eunjung has been confirmed to appear in ‘All Kinds of Daughter-In-Laws’ as Hwang Eun Byul. This is as a result of all her efforts in the acting industry.” Eunjung will play the role of Hwang Eun Byul, a ghostwriter and employee at a publishing company. Her character is said to have grown up having to constantly concede and accommodate to the needs of her twin sister, who has always been their mother’s favorite daughter. The sisters end up marrying into rivaling families, and the drama will follow the characters as they try to work through the conflicts created by the situation with communication and a positive attitude.
This is essentially her first main role since 2011, and given that her acting was never in question, it’s hard not to correlate the essentially six-year absence with the fraudulent T-ara “bullying” scandal. After all, Eunjung was a child actress and was coming off what seemed like a breakout build to her career, following turns in ‘Coffee House‘ and ‘Dream High‘ on the small screen, and then ‘White‘ on the silver screen.
As you probably know, despite Eun-jung‘s pop-star creds, she’s actually got a bit of acting experience in her earlier years and brings an engaging charm to Seung-yeon. She plays a familiar archetype in this bumbling type of heroine, but for once she’s not a slapstick klutz who bubbles with forced energy like a hummingbird on crack. She has a natural air, and her acting actually reminds me of the late Jung Da-bin (RIP), which I mean in a good way. Down-to-earth rather than over-the-top.
Excluding Eunjung, right from the start, the actors of “Dream High” were put on the chopping block for their poor acting skills, and the viewer ratings failed to live up to expectations. Under such gloom, what was the atmosphere at the film set like? She replied, “We discussed on how to improve ourselves as opposed to point out each others’ flaws. We’d give advice and praise, like ‘that face expression was good,’or ‘what do you think of this?’ It’s not a matter of winning or losing, everyone has to do well.”
Eunjung herself has been earning endless praises for her acting skills in the drama, and is on the rise to being the next best ‘acting idol.’ Many have rested their high hopes on her, as they believe that she could pull the drama out of its ‘last place’ viewer ratings ranking; they also believe her acting could make up for the lackluster efforts from some of her castmates.
Netizens (and certain drama fans) are predictably getting amnesia about all this. Regardless, the fact remains that on her path at the time, she would be at minimum enjoying a middling career as an actress right now if it wasn’t for the bullshit, and she certainly seemed on her way to something more than that.
Hopefully this is the start of making up for lost time.
