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In the Korean film and television industry, especially in the movie world, male actors are generally more prestigious than female actors. When it comes to Korean movie actors, the first ones that come to the audience's mind are mostly male actors such as Hwang Jung-min, Ha Jung-woo, Song Kang-ho, etc. Female actors can be few and far between.

One of the reasons for this disparity is that Korean movies tend to be male-dominated, especially in the crime, suspense, and thriller genres that Asian audiences have come to know and love, and that men are more capable of fighting evil and are more likely to deliver impressive performances.

Another important reason lies in the fact that women's status is far lower than men's in South Korea, as evidenced by the controversial and hotly debated 2019 movie Kim Ji-young, Born in '82. Although the film industry is already a relatively rational and much freer field when it comes to gender equality, Korea's y rooted gender culture still inevitably seeps into the creative attitudes of Korean filmmakers.

Even so, there are still a lot of great actresses who have made it to the audience through Korean movies, and here's a list of the 10 most powerful Korean movie actresses.

Yoon Jung-hee, born in 1944, is now 76

For young viewers today, Korean actress God Yoon Jung-hee is best known for her 2010 drama "Poetry," directed by Lee Chang-dong. This movie made Yoon Jung-hee the queen of both the Blue Dragon and Daejong awards in Korean cinema that year. The poster of the movie with Yoon's face as the main visual was praised by G Colon as "a piece of photography that touches the heart", which fully recognized the natural cinematic texture and storytelling of Yoon's appearance.

Born in Gwangju, South Korea, Yoon's elegant and distinctive demeanor began her career in 1967, and in the 53 years she has been a part of the growth of Korean cinema, she has come to epitomize the development of the Korean art-house cinema. She has appeared in more than 300 Korean films, including Death in Arms (1969), Daughter-in-Law (1972), and God's Bow (1979), and she has frequently won awards for actresses at the major Korean film awards, and she has been recognized as one of the three greatest beauties of the golden age of Korean cinema (the 1960s).

Lee Chang-dong's Poetry, the last film for Yoon, who is now living in France, is a beautiful, vivid movie in which Yoon gives a tear-jerking performance. She plays an Alzheimer's patient who wants to write poems, and there is a poignant poetic quality to her mannerisms. Yoon Jung-hee was 66 years old when she starred in Poetry, but she still gave a scale-breaking performance for this story, which shows the dedication of an actress.

It's also worth mentioning that there are a number of South Korean dramas featuring older women, such as Yoon Jung-hee's Poetry, Yoon Yeo-jung's Miss Wine God (2016), Roh Moon-hee's I Can Speak (2017), and Ye-soo Kyung's Old Woman (2019), etc. Compared to China, where older actors are almost always limited to supporting roles in movies, it's clear that Korean movies are taking care of the elderly, as well as the elderly. Korean movies are better at taking care of the elderly actors and actresses as well as being sensitive to the aging population of the society.

Yoon Eu-jeong, born in 1947, is now 73

Compared to Yoon Jung-hee, Yoon Eu-jeong, who is also a veteran actress, is even more surprising in her span of performances.

She's played an aging prostitute on the fringes of society in Miss Sake God, a 65-year-old who had a passionate relationship with then-34-year-old South Korean actor Kim Kang-woo in The Taste of Money, and a maid who observes the filth of a wealthy family and sheds a tear in the 2010 remake Dowager, but of course, Yoon's soft, friendly appearance makes her even more effective at portraying warm-hearted characters. She's also a great actress, and she's a great actress.

Born in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and a graduate of Hanyang University's Department of Korean Literature, Yoon is best known to Chinese audiences for her work in KBS's 1995 family comedy "Men in the Bathhouse," but the movie world has shown Yoon to be a much more versatile performer. Since her debut, she has won a number of awards, including the Korean Film Blue Dragon Award and the Best Actress Award in the movie category of the Korean Baeksang Arts Awards, and in 2011, she won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the Asian Film Awards for her role in "The Next Generation," beating out "Let the Bullets Fly's" Carina Lau.

Director Lim Chang-shu's Next Girl is not a great movie, and Yoon Eu-jeong's performance "overpowers" the stunning body of Lee Jung-jae in the lead role, which is the only thing that makes the movie so enduringly appealing. Yoon Eu-jung, who doesn't appear in much of the movie, is a restrained, full-bodied interpreter of the complex emotions of Korean women who feel sorry for each other in a scene where she looks at her victimized daughter, Jeon Do-yeon, and weeps, and it's unforgettable.

Yoon Eu-jung is still active in Korean cinema today, with her first major Korean crime drama in 2020, The Beasts Who Caught the Straw, featuring Yoon Eu-jung.

Three, Luo Wenji, born in 1941, is now 79 years old

South Korea's older actresses, Luo Wenji is the most familiar to Chinese viewers, because of the 2006 film is still in the Douban still maintain 9.6 points, **** 167 episodes of the family situational comedy "Funny Family" (also known as "The Family"). Funny Family" (aka "Unstoppable Highkick").

The show made and limited Lo Man Kei. Because her portrayal in the show was so y rooted, it was difficult for her to escape the influence of that role through other, completely different roles, and even more difficult to make the transition from drama to film until I Can Tell, the 2017 comedy film that blew up all of South Korea.

I Can Say is a movie almost exclusively made for Roh Man-hee.

For Roh Man-hee, the movie allowed her to maintain a fixed image and inspired her acting potential in tragedy from the depths of history; and for the movie, it was not for Roh Man-hee - a movie based on the real-life events of comfort women in South Korea (in 2007, South Korea Two elderly people went to the U.S. Congress and Senate to attend the hearing on comfort women, telling their own experience of comfort women, that was the first time the U.S. Congress held a hearing on comfort women, at which passed the "Japanese comfort women apologized resolution"), said that it is a comedy, but it is also a historical tragedy, Luo Wenji's image and style of performance, are related to such a "tragedy in comedy". The image of Luo Wenji and her style of performance perfectly match the nature of this "tragedy in comedy".

The movie also made Luo Wen Ji won the Blue Dragon Award, Daejong Award, Baek Thought Art Award movie category three Korean film awards for best actress. There aren't many actresses who have won all three awards in the Korean film industry, and even fewer who have done so with just one movie, and Roh Moon-hee is one of them.

This is a great opportunity to see the world's most famous film director. .

So when it comes to Korean movie actresses, Jeon Do-yeon is one that can't be bypassed. Her acting style is calm and cool, but also very easy to release the full, surging emotions, the character emotional portrayal of the precise at the same time, but also effectively lead the audience's joy and anger, so it can be said that perfect synthesis of the "method school" and "experience school".

Mi Yang, directed by Lee Chang-dong in 2007, and Birthday, directed by Lee Jong-yeon in 2019, are the two films that best represent Jeon Do-yeon's acting style. In both films, Jeon Do-yeon plays a grieving mother who loses her beloved son; in Mi Yang, she navigates between the anguish of her heart and the pleas of her spirit, and her extremely tense and detailed portrayal of the situation led to her eventual Cannes Film Festival win; and in The Birthday, Jeon Do-yeon unleashes her grief, and the power of her performance, which swallows the audience like a mountain of water, is so powerful that she can't stand the sight of the audience.

Since her official debut in 1999 at the age of 17, Son Ye-jin has starred in a number of films, including If Love Has a Heavenly Will, Wife Married, Pirates, and Deok-hye Woong-mu, and has won one Cheongryong Award for Best Actress, two Dae-jong Awards for Best Actress, and one Baeksang Art Awards for Best Actress in the Movie Category, making her one of the best actresses of the Korean film industry in the 80's and beyond.

Sun Ye-jin's acting style, in fact, also relies on her outstanding appearance, mostly for the audience to interpret the tender, sad, strong female characters, although the theater is not as wide as Yoon Eu-jung, Jeon Do-yeon and other "predecessors", but it is clear that Sun Ye-jin has already been in their own field of specialization in the ultimate.

Sim Eun-kyung, born in 1994, is now 26 years old

Born in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, South Korea, Sim Eun-kyung is the best of South Korea's post-1990s actresses, similar to the Chinese mainland's Zhou Dongyu, but Sim Eun-kyung is two years younger than Zhou Dongyu.

South Korea's three major film awards have not been very "treat" 90-year-old actresses, on the one hand, young Korean actresses are busy shooting TV dramas, in the movie lack of acting polish, on the other hand, the South Korean film awards inherently favor "time on the actor's sculpture "On the other hand, Korean movie awards are naturally favorable to actors who have been sculpted by time, so it is difficult for actresses who lack experience to make a name for themselves in the three major movie awards. Under such circumstances, Shim Eun-kyung still won the Best Actress in the movie category of the Baeksang Art Awards for the 2014 hit Korean movie "Strange Her" and was nominated for both the Cheongryong Award and the Daejong Award, and she also won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the Daejong Awards for the 2011 comedy "Romantic Paradise" directed by Jang Jin.

Seven, Ha Ji Won, born in 1978, is now 42 years old

Among Korean actresses, Ha Ji Won, who has a unique temperament, is known as a " chameleon-like actress", meaning that her image and roles are extremely versatile.

She has played the roles of a woman who fights, a pure-hearted woman, a gold-digging woman, a boxing woman, etc. For Chinese audiences, Ha Ji Won's most memorable roles are Yin Hyo, the schoolgirl beauty in Yoon Ji-Kyun's "Sex is Empty" in 2002 (of course, the star of the movie, Im Chang-Din, also impressed Chinese audiences), and the top artist in the Korean historical drama "Hwang Jin Yi" in 2006. Hwang Jin Yi" in the 2006 Korean costume historical drama "Hwang Jin Yi", the highest geisha, in addition to this, in 2010, she and Hyun Bin starred in the romantic sci-fi drama "Secret Garden", which has become a classic of the Korean drama.

Since her debut, Ha Ji Won has won 17 awards in the TV category and 13 in the movie category, including the Best Actress Award at the 30th Cheongryong Awards in 2009 ("My Love Is By My Side"), and the Best Actress Award in the movie category at the 46th Baeksang Arts Awards in 2010 ("Haeundae").

Ha Ji Won's extraordinary beauty between her eyes and demeanor is her most powerful acting "weapon", and she has the professionalism necessary for a good actress, and for the filming of the work, she learned a variety of "skills" such as traditional Korean dance, gymnastics, Zen martial arts, boxing, etc.

Ha Ji Won is the best actress in the world, and the best actress in the world. "

Hyun Bin, Jang Dong Gun, Cha Tae Hyun, Ha Jung Woo, Hwang Jung Min, and other South Korean actors commented that Ha Ji-won "is a trustworthy, reassuring, and persuasive actress".

Eighth, Kim Min-hee, born in 1982, is now 38 years old

Despite being only 38 years old, Kim Min-hee has already become a monumental legend among Korean actresses.

Kim Min-hee is blessed with a beauty that is doubly seductive, but instead of relying on her beauty, she tirelessly pursues the fulfillment of her soul and spirit. That's why she chose to break up with male ex-boyfriends like Jo In Sung, Lee Soo Hyuk, and Lee Jung Jae, and ultimately decided to get together with Hong Chang Soo, the number one writer-director in South Korea and 22 years older than herself, and has since become Hong's inspirational muse, starring as the female lead in each of his subsequent films.

Hong Chang-soo has stuck by Kim Min-hee, the only real girlfriend Jo In-sung has ever publicly acknowledged, for seven films despite public pressure. Because of the support of Hong Chang-soo, who often appears in three major European art film festivals, Kim Min-hee has become one of the few young Korean actresses who have gone global. Hong Chang-soo's "Alone at Night by the Sea" and "The Woman Who Got Away," which were directed by Hong Chang-soo, put Kim Min-hee on the Berlin Film Festival's post-film throne twice in 2017 and 2020 , and at home, Kim Min-hee has also had a great track record, as she*** has won 10 Korean film awards, including the Cheongdragon Award for Best Actress (Miss), the Baekseung Arts Best Actress in the movie category at the Baeksang Arts Awards ("Passionate" and "Temperature of Love").

So how good is Kim Min-hee's acting?

Not only steady, but unique. In Hong Chang-soo's movie, Kim Min-hee highlights her literary goddess temperament through her lazy attire and weary demeanor, but in Park Chan-wook's Miss, Kim Min-hee unleashes her enchanting, agile, and determined side, and just these two differently oriented temperaments are enough to prove that Kim Min-hee's performance is not a bad one.

Nine, Jung Yoo Mi, born 1983, now 37

Until 2019, Jung Yoo Mi was an average presence in Korean cinema, but in 2019, she starred in a pretty important movie, Kim Ji-young, Born in '82, directed by Kim Do-young.

It's a topical movie that was collectively boycotted by a lot of Korean men, and Jung Yoo-mi became one of the bravest Korean actresses in recent years for her starring role in it. Prior to this, Jung Yoo-mi has appeared in major Korean films such as The Melting Pot, We Seon-hee, and The Busan Journey, and has had a relatively high level of buzz due to her repeated collaborations with Gong Yoo, but unfortunately she has not been recognized with one of the more heavy-hitting awards.

"Kim Ji-Young, Born in '82," on the other hand, gave her her first Best Actress award at one of the three biggest Korean film awards, the Daejong Award for Best Actress. Jung's appearance and temperament are similar to Jeon Do-yeon's, but her performance in Kim Ji-young, Born in '82 is profoundly different from Jeon Do-yeon's. Jung's performance is much more nuanced, and can be said to have completely hooked the audience in the details.

Ten, Jeon Ji-hyun, born in 1981, is now 39 years old

Jeon Ji-hyun is one of the most recognizable South Korean actresses, and the field of performance across the TV series, movies, so the inventory of South Korean actresses, have to mention Jeon Ji-hyun.

In 2001, Jun Ji Hyun became a first-tier actress across Asia with My Sassy Girl, and since then, she has starred in such fine films and TV shows as You Who Came From the Stars, Daisy, and Assassination, and even though she's married, she's always maintained her position as a first-tier actress in Asia.

This is due to her beauty, her vision in choosing works, her enviable real life, and, her notable acting skills. Since her debut, Jeon has won more than 30 awards in various categories, including two Best Actress awards at the Korean Film Daejong Awards (My Sassy Girl and Assassination). Jeon Ji-hyun's performances, relaxed and free of baggage, have been a very charismatic presence throughout the Korean film and television industry, and her performances have become more mature in recent years, making Jeon Ji-hyun one of South Korea's most influential actresses, without a doubt.

In addition to the above ten, South Korea in fact, there are a lot of face, art, excellent movie actresses, such as 1987-born Choi Hi-Seo ("Park Lie"), born in 1965 Cho Min-Hsiu ("Sacred Gothic"), 1969-born Yim Jung-Hwa ("Montage"), 1978-born Kim Ha-Na ("Blind Witness"), 1980-born Lee Jung-Hyun ("Honest Country of Alice") and so on. Alice"), among others.

These actresses are often less impressive than their male counterparts, either because of their own beauty or because of the neglect of women in Korean society, but their contribution to Korean cinema cannot be ignored, and it's because of them that Korean cinema has been so consistently glamorous.