Kim Go-eun
By William Kustiono
A Muse is a South Korean film adaptation of Park Bum-shin’s novel Eun-gyo. On June 29th, the movie premiered at Lincoln Center in New York at the New York Asian Film Festival. The movie is directed by Jing Ji-Woo, it has earned numerous accolades including Best Film at the Build Film Awards and eight Best New Actress awards for Kim Go-Eun’s performance.
The story revolves around Lee Jeok-yo, played by Park Hae-il, a seventy years old national poet, and his thirty years old assistant Seo Ji-woo, played by Kim Mu-yeol. The assistant has recently published his first work, a novel with psychological insight, which is a bestseller hits. He becomes greatly indebt towards his teacher and master, Jeok-yo. When the young high school girl, Eun-gyo falls asleep on a chair on Jeok-yo’s house, Jeok-yo falls smitten by the beauty of Eun-gyo. He agrees to give her a part-time job as a maid in his house. They spend time together and Eun-gyo eventually awakens Jeok-yo’s long lost feeling of love and youthfulness. Jeok-yo begins to transfers his feeling to a story about him imagining a sexual relationship with the young and lively young woman. Ji-woo is completely jealous at Jeok-yo’s relationship with the young woman and his writing. As the story goes on, he decides to act on his own which later amuses the audience who watch the movie.
The movie is based on the novel called Eun-gyo. This film starred a young actress, Kim Go-eun, who was never casted any movies before. This movie marks her first debut in the Korean film industry. Kim Go-eun is a drama major at Korea National University of Arts. She never received any kinds of acting or drama role in the television. The movie director, Jing, described her as an innocent girl who acted normal in front of camera. She did not impress anybody nor acted cute during the audition. This gave director Jing an idea for Go-eun to be casted as the innocent character, Eun-gyo. Although the movie was heavily criticized for having a story about a seventy years old guy having a sex with a high school girl, the film sold more than 1 million tickets in the following months after the film opened on April 25, 2012.
During our interview with Kim Go-eun, she told us that she is very surprised to be this year’s recipient of New York Asian Film Festival’s Star Asia Rising Star Award. She also told us how much she loves shopping in New York and can’t wait to come back and to spend more time visiting all the places she has seen in the movies.
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