One of the movies which is extremely high on my anticipations list is the upcoming vampirish thriller "Thirst" by Park Chan-Wook, starring both Song Kang-Ho and Shin Ha-Kyun. It will be the third time these three major talents are gathered together for a film, and with the first two being "Joint Security Area" and "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" I can say my anticipation is deserved.
Song Kang-Ho already got his turn here at the ScreenAnarchy-O-Meter, but today let us look at Shin Ha-Kyun. His specialty might be portraying quirky and likeable characters, but nearly every role he played had far more meat on it than normally expected for a "funny guy". Shin Ha-Kyun uses his comic talent and flexible mug to endear us, and that makes it hit all the harder when tragedy strikes. Given a good script and a good director, I don't think there is anything he cannot do. He is that good.
Take his role in "No Mercy for the Rude", where he plays a caricature of a killer-for-hire. The character is mute and often wears big sunglasses (no eyes visible), so all Shin Ha-Kyun had to work with was bodylanguage and timing. Not only does he pull it off, he does it subtly.
So once again I'm going to use a turn in the ScreenAnarchy-O-Meter to do a gallery of 5 close-ups of one of my favorite thespians. Guess which 5 movies they're from.
No competition, no prizes, just for fun, try to see how far you get without using IMDB.
And I'll post the answers on Tuesday (earlier if someone has all 5 of them right).
Good luck!
Shin Ha-Kyun is ready for his extreme close-up, Mr deMille!