News bites: June 27, 2015

by awcoconuts

Oh Ji-ho, Jeon Hyo-sung, Ha Yeon-joo

• The return of Ghost-Seeing Detective Cheo-yong has secured a time slot. In its first season, the show scored the second best viewership of all OCN’s original programming, and thus Oh Ji-ho has been brought back to reprise his role as an officer with an unusual talent. Now that his colleagues know about his ability, the season will focus on Oh using his powers (with the full support of his team) to unravel difficult cases. Most of the original cast will return, but Ha Yeon-joo (My Secret Hotel) will step into the shoes of the female detective played by Oh Ji-eun in the first season. Cheo-Yong 2 will air after My Beautiful Bride beginning on August 20 on Saturday evenings. [Maeil Economy, Joongang]
• Veteran actor Han Seok-kyu is positively considering a return to the silver screen with Father’s War, based on the death of Lieutenant Kim Hoon at Panmunjom in February 1998. Although his death was deemed a suicide, his father, Kim Cheok (Lt. General, Army Reserve) found the official ruling suspicious, and the film will be about his struggle to uncover the truth. The film is still in the early stages of pre-production, but Han would be amazing in the role of the grieving (versus ragemonster of a) father. [News 1]


Han Seok-kyu, Kim Sae-ron

And, on to the web drama portion of news bites (there are several!):

• Kim Sae-ron (High School: Love On) will play the lead in We Become Stars, a fantasy youth romance about a boy band that is on the verge of debuting, but the day before the young men hit the stage for their big break, they time-slip into the past. Kim will play a calm and wise person in the past who helps the boys debut safely. (I wonder if it’s Kim’s slightly ethereal looks that land her these fairy godmother/guardian angel-type roles?) The web drama began filming a few days ago and will run for 12 episodes of ten minutes each. We Become Stars will be broadcast on portal sites and via other channels in August. [Sports Worldi]
• YG Entertainment recently released a preview for the web drama We Broke Up via YouTube. It features Sandara Park (of 2NE1) and Kang Seung-yoon (of Winner) playing a happy couple — until they break up but are still forced to live together. In the clip, they sing a cute duet together called The Two of Us, and the two-episode web drama will air both episodes on June 29 via various portal sites. [Ten Asia]
• The web drama Romance Blue (mentioned here) is currently nearing the end of its run, and the two dating and romance experts, Park Min-woo (Modern Farmer), and Kim Ji-an are starting to find it’s impossible to escape fate’s efforts to keep them together. Romance Blue began airing one episode each day for six days beginning June 22 and will air its final episode on June 27 on Naver TVCast. [Ten Asia]
• Nam Gyuri (Heartless City) and Yu Xiao Tong have been cast as the leads in the upcoming Chinese-Korean web drama Swan. Nam is a plastic surgeon who is blessed to look like a model herself. She was previously married to Yu’s character, also a plastic surgeon, but they got divorced. While not so successful at a romantic partnership, they’ve discovered they make excellent business partners, and they’ve set up a clinic together in Korea. Yu is a brilliant plastic surgeon who’s aloof but has an eye for aesthetics and is able to turn clients into newly beautiful individuals. Fei (of Miss A) and rookie Jo Min-sung have also been cast in supporting roles, and Fei will play a 2nd-year resident who hides her own ablity so that she can stay close to Yu (she even follows him to Korea) and Jo will play the head of consultations at Nam and Yu’s clinic. He’s got a winning smile but he’s a bit heodang, and he’ll stay close to Nam and watch over her. Filming will begin next month and will take place in both China and Korea. [Kookje]


Nam Gyuri, Yu Xiao Tong, Fei, Jo Min-sung

• The web drama About Love, which was scored by pianist/singer/songwriter Yoon-han and which aired on Naver TVCast in March, will be aired again on KBS — it’ll be broadcast June 27 during their web drama special time slot. While the musician has contributed to previous OSTs (Sungkyunkwan Scandal, I Need Romance), this is the first drama for which he oversaw all of the musical direction. The four-episode, omnibus-style short drama features Dong-joon (of ZE:A), Chinese actress Yurina, Kevin (of U-KISS), and ZN (Bae Jin-ye of LABOUM) as they figure out the meaning of young love. If you happen to catch it, keep an ear out: Yoon-han combined Bossa nova, jazz, pop and classical styles for the soundtrack and uses music to show the emotions of the characters. [Enews 24]
• Naver’s most popular web novel of 2015 has been selected to become a web drama. In Noble My Love, Sung Hoon (Faith) has been cast as the male lead, while Jaekyung (of Rainbow) will play his costar. Production has opened a funding page via tumblbug to help with the budget, and a release is being targeted for the latter half of 2015 on Naver TVCast. [Ten Asia]


Sung Hoon, Jaekyung

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