Potential drama coupling: Jung Il-woo and UEE

by javabeans

Good news, bad news: Jung Il-woo is in talks to take on his next TV role, but it’s in a weekend family drama. My response is both “Fifty episodes, groan” and “But on the upside, I get to see him for six months…”

The drama is MBC’s Gold Rainbow, which recently offered its leading lady role to UEE, who is still considering. The show is about seven orphans who grow up together and form their own family, with UEE playing eldest sister to the brood.

Speaking of whom, the drama actually went full Dickens and named the poor orphan girl Baek Won, which sorta cracks me up and sorta makes me groan, seeing as how baek won means a hundred won, which is about the value of a dime. (It was also briefly a nickname for IU’s character in You’re the Best, Lee Soon-shin, since the admiral Lee Soon-shin is the man on the coin, and Jo Jung-seok would teasingly call her “Hundred Won” — at least until the public put on its petty outrage hat and complained that the show was disrespecting a legendary war hero. Insert eye-roll.)

The role being offered to Jung Il-woo is of a prosecutor named Do Young, although now I kind of want the show to stick with the People As Monetary Values shtick and name him something like Chun Man, or maybe Chun Eok if they’re feeling really ambitious. (Chun man won = ten grand, chun eok won = 10 mil.) ‘Cause where there’s a Candy-esque orphan heroine, a rich dapper hero can’t be far away, no?

I do like the match-up, since Jung Il-woo and UEE seem like they’d make a cute romantic pairing — it would be enough to get me to try the show out, despite not finding the writer’s May Queen credits all that compelling. And while they haven’t worked together before, maybe my brain thinks the combo sounds familiar because Jung Il-woo’s last drama role, Prince Yang-myung in The Moon That Embraces the Sun, was a character initially to be played by Joo-won, who was still juggling his role in the weekend family drama Ojakkyo Brothers, where he romanced UEE. (They were adorable and sweet and definitely a main source of that show’s addictiveness.) I don’t find Jung Il-woo or Joo-won to be the least bit similar in acting style or vibe or image, but they do sort of fit in the same category of young leading men. So it makes sense.

Gold Rainbow will finalize its casting decisions soon and begins script rehearsals early next month, to replace Scandal in November.

Via TV Report

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