News bites: December 20, 2014

by awcoconuts

• Lee Je-hoon (Secret Door) and Go Ara (You’re All Surrounded) have not only confirmed Detective Hong Gil-dong, but they’ve already started filming — hooray! Go Ara will play a Watson-type to Lee’s Sherlock-ish character, while Park Geun-hyung (awww, Geun-hyung halbae) will play the elusive villain that the otherwise successful detective has been tracking for twenty years. Kim Sung-kyun (Answer Me 1994) will play the man hunting the good detective for reasons yet unknown. Detective Hong Gil-dong will be released sometime in 2015. [Osen]
• Kim Sung-ryung (Heirs) has confirmed she’ll take the central character in the upcoming weekend drama Equator’s Flower, in which she’ll play a woman driven by greed and ambition. More details have been released about her money-hungry character: After abandoning her daughter and fleeing to the States, she returns to Korea and becomes a gorgeous star chef and the MC of a cooking show. [Osen]
• Equator’s Flower will focus on her reunion with her estranged daughter (Lee Sung-kyung of It’s Okay, It’s Love has also confirmed the role). Yoon Park (What’s With This Family) will play the second son of the chaebol food conglomerate Eden Group, who has no shortage of women falling for him, but he shuns them all and falls for Lee Sung-kyung’s character at first sight. They’re destined for romance, but wait — isn’t his hyung supposed to be married to her mom? Cue drama. [TV Report]
• Nana (of girl group After School) has also been cast in Equator’s Flower; her character is highly emotional and conceited, but her simplistic infatuation with Yoon Park’s suave chaebol heir is supposed to be charming. Equator’s Flower airs after Legendary Witch concludes on MBC in March. [XSports News]


Kim Sung-ryung, Yoon Park, Lee Sung-kyung

• Lee Soon-jae (awww, Soon-jae halbae) will be in KBS’s new Wednesday-Thursday drama Unkind Women in a supporting role. He’ll play husband to the matriarch of the family, and while Kim Hye-ja (Live in Cheongdam-dong) hasn’t confirmed the matriarch role yet, if she does, she and Lee will play a married couple for the second time, the first being 24 years ago in MBC’s 1991 drama, What’s Love. Unkind Women will tell the stories of three generations of women living under one roof, and will be a heartwarming show about the growth the ladies experience as daughters learn from their mothers and their grandmothers. [Star News]
• Jo Jae-yoon (Liar Game) has been cast in Blood, KBS’s upcoming Monday-Tuesday fantasy medical drama. As the chief of surgery at the top cancer hospital that sets the stage for the show, he’ll find himself being upstaged by the young and brilliant vampire surgeon played by Ahn Jae-hyun. Jo’s character is greedy and loves power, and we can expect a showdown to happen between the two. [XSports News]
• Newbie Lee Soo-kyung (she has a minor role in the upcoming Coin Locker Girl movie) has landed herself a role in Ho-gu’s Love, in which she’ll play a sloppy androgynous woman who’s only read about love in books. We don’t know much else about her character, but she’ll join Choi Woo-shik (Fated to Love You), who’s been cast in the title role, and UEE (Golden Rainbow), who will play Ho-gu’s first love and current friend and love interest. The comedic, youthful romance will air on tvN on February 9. [Joongang]


Kim Hee-ae

• Kim Hee-ae was to be reunited with the writing and directing duo behind Temptation and A Wife’s Credentials in SBS’s upcoming Monday-Tuesday drama Heard It As A Rumor, but now it seems it is likely she’ll step down from the show. The 32-episode drama needs to begin filming in mid-January in order to air after the conclusion of Punch in February, but Kim is said to have been concerned about changes to the script (it was to have been a period piece but the story was recently moved to the present day) and the lack of readiness to begin filming. It will be interesting to see who might step in in her place, and how much the story will continue to evolve. As of now, the show is to be about one of Korea’s elite households and the secret they wish to keep hidden. When the son in high school fathers a child with a girl his age, his parents will try to cover up the incident, and rumors will begin to spiral out of control. [Osen]
• Chronicle of a Blood Merchant’s Ha Jung-woo and Ha Ji-won will hold a talk concert (sort of like a panel to discuss the movie, with questions taken from audience members) on December 28 at 4pm and 7pm at Sungshin Women’s University. Lucky fans who have been waiting for the movie will be treated to a lengthy chat, covering a broad range of topics, with its two stars, and some surprise guest appearances from the cast. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant hits theaters January 15. [My Daily]
• The web drama Teleport Lovers is currently in the middle of a four-episode run and stars Bae Nu-ri (Sweden Laundry) and Lee Min-ho (the younger one, Prime Minister and I) as youngsters in love. It’s a mini-reunion for the Moon That Embraces the Sun castmates, though they didn’t act together in that show (or even in the same timeline). Lee Min-ho is a boy who can go (or teleport) anywhere, while Bae Nu-ri is a girl who can’t go anywhere — sounds like a combo ripe for teenage angsty romance. [Channel A]

Bae Nu-ri, Lee Min-ho

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