SEOUL — At the Wednesday news conference for “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” it wasn’t Channing Tatum or Sienna Miller that caught the eyes of many Japanese fans who anxiously waited outside the hotel lobby to get a glimpse of their star. Instead, they all flew in to see the Korean actor Lee Byung-hun, who plays a supporting role in his first Hollywood live-action pic.

For Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor, this was a promising sign — one that suggests the potential benefit of casting an Asian superstar to attract regional ticket buyers when marketing a quintessentially American film.

The strategy seems to be on the rise with major Hollywood productions that once had limited roles for Asian actors. Aside from Lee (“The Good, the Bad, the Weird”), who plays the film’s charismatic Storm Shadow, other Korean actors are also participating in the trend.

After tasting bitterness with the boxoffice flop of his Hollywood debut “Speed Racer,” Korean singer-actor Rain is aiming to revamp his reputation through “Ninja Assassin,” another action flick produced by the Wachowski Brothers. Daniel Henney, a Korean-American actor with a strong Asian fan base, starred as Agent Zero in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Gianna Jun (or Jun Ji-hyun), an Asian darling from a hit romantic comedy “My Sassy Girl,” also known for its Hollywood remake, recently starred in a Pan-Asian, English-language film “Blood: The Last Vampire,” which many see it as Jun’s prelude to a Hollywood debut.

The trend largely owes to a phenomenon dubbed among the locals as hallyu, or a Korean wave, in which Korean TV dramas and movies became such a hit throughout Asia that the country’s entertainment scene suddenly became a new tourist attraction.

In the film circle, the idea was quickly picked up through organized meetings like Asia Pacific Actors Network during the annual Pusan International Film Festival, which was originally started in 2007 by prominent Korean actors like Ahn Sung-ki and Kang Soo-yeon, and quickly turned into a venue that encourages Asian actors to make inroads into Hollywood.

“For Hollywood, it (hallyu) is a sign that Korean actors hold major ticket power in Asia,” said Choi Min-soo, the head of marketing at CJ Entertainment, the importer of “G.I. Joe.” “It’s also a sign that the Asian market is no longer just ‘one of them.’ “

In marketing a Hollywood film featuring Korean celebrities, many distributors and importers are now developing a regional strategy focusing on local stars.

In “Wolverine,” the 20th Century Fox Korea prepared a separate poster image featuring Daniel Henney next to Hugh Jackman and a few other leads in the film; Henney’s character is not included in the North American version.

Fox Korea has also produced a separate trailer which has added clips of the Korean-American actor on top of the international version.

“It was simply more helpful to market a film (featuring a Korean celebrity),” said Mark Kim at 20th Century Fox Korea. “We do arrange a promotion tour of the cast or a junket before a film releases, but it’s different having the actor and their agent around in the country in terms of access.”

For Korean actors, though, common dilemma exists when they try to “make it abroad.”

Language is an obvious barrier. But for many, compromising their regional star power to play a relatively minor role in a Hollywood film often takes courage and commitment.

The pressure on the local actors is real and often immediate, given that Korean audiences are particularly sensitive about how the international market sees their idols.

Local Internet users, for example, questioned the significance of Lee’s role in his first Hollywood debut by making a fuss about the original poster for “G.I. Joe” that showed the face of Lee over a white mask. CJ explained that the company deliberately hid the actor’s face “to tease,” and later changed it with a different version fully showing Lee’s face.

In a country where national pride is often high, many Korean actors also worry about losing their local fans by choosing roles that misrepresent their country or present wrong ethnic stereotypes.

Kim Yun-jin, a Korean-American actress from the ABC series “Lost,” had made it clear in an interview with a Korean press that she did not want to start her Hollywood career through a geisha’s role, recalling her casting offer from “Memoirs of a Geisha.”

“It depends on how you approach it,” said Charles Kim, a producer for October Pictures, a production company based in Hong Kong, Beijing and Seoul. “Forget the amount of time the character appears on screen. The question is whether their role will have any impact in creating a strong impression of the actor.”

Despite some risks in dampening their reputation, many in the industry agree that actors like Henney and Lee have made the right move for a smooth landing in Hollywood through supporting roles.

On the flip side, companies share mixed views about whether the casting of Asian celebrities will have any direct impact on local boxoffice. There’s no real way of proving it.

Although various factors determine a film’s success or failure, the local boxoffice of “Wolverine” didn’t do as good as its previous film. “Blood: The Last Vampire,” failed miserably in the local boxoffice as well. It’s now is up to “G.I. Joe,” which opens here Thursday.

THR Asia

From Xanga to Myspace to Sconex to Facebook and most recently WordPress. Why Yakiisoba you ask? Those in Brotherhood know, I’ll make sure to mention the origins of this name in a future post =].

With the help of a friend by the name of Dennis Oh,
I have officially made my first non-xanga blog and it has been way too long since my last post, when I was a pubescent preteen whining about trivial things. Like women.

Kidding =]. Women are important to me. But hopefully, my future posts will be more meaningful than what I used to write back in the day. Stuck in this purple bubble of mine (more about the lovely Williams College in future posts), I have started this blog for myself. This blog will be my life, my thoughts, and me at a more personal level than most of you are used to. However, feel free to come into my world and be fascinated, enticed, maybe even seduced. How so you ask? You obviously do not know my capabilities… heh.
Hoping this will be a great experience for all of us, I am looking forward to sharing my stories with you all.

So here it is, my life.
To be completely unoriginal, I will start off with a short bio..

Name: Mark Kim, 김명인
Date of Birth: June 22, 1990
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Nationality: Korean
Religion: Christian
Height: 5′7”
Weight: 165
Blood Type: B
Education: P.S. 104, Mark Twain JHS, Stuyvesant HS, Williams College

I realize that this does not say much about me, unlike those wack surveys on Facebook. I will refrain from telling you my favorite foods or my top ten places I want to visit. I will say that if you continue to visit my page, my life will be revealed to you. MY LIFEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! So I encourage you to come back =].

To spice up this uneventful but ENTERTAINING, introductory post…

The bros at FKCB Winter Retreat 2008

Also, if you are a friend and have a blog, please comment just so I know that you have one!!!

Now back to Boys Over Flowers……..
Peace.

It’s back!!! Top Gear Season 12 begins on BBC2 tonight …. FANTASTIC!! 

Check out the preview below :

Also, here’s a picture taken by Mark – Fantastic colours in the background  

Check out this amazing photography of Volcanic action in Hawaii. CLICK HERE

The photographer is Brad Lewis and he has been photographing the firery molten magma which explodes from the active volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island for 25 years. The images are amazing.

Also check out my good friend Mark Kim’s photoblog. He really has a good eye for photographing people. The above picture is just one example of Mark’s photography. Check it out HERE

Police said Eva Daley, 30, knew her son and the others planned to kill Jose Cano when she drove them to the park June 26. She is now back in jail at the Century Regional Detention Facility Center in Lynwood after a brief court appearance where she pleaded not guilty to murder in front of Judge Mark Kim. Her bail has been set at $1 million. Her next court appearance will be on Aug. 22. If convicted, Daley faces 35 years to life in prison for committing murder as part of gang activity.

According to reports Eva Daley drove her 14 year-old son and six of his friends aged 14-17 yrs-old, to 14th Street Park, Long Beach to kill 13 year-old Jose Cano in retaliation for a previous dispute. Milagros Mendoza, 14, a friend of Cano, was with him, his brother and a group of friends when they were attacked by another group of boys who ran out of an alley and came up behind Cano:

“They ran over, chasing him, and he tried to jump a fence, and he couldn’t,” she said. At that point, the boys descended on him, beating him with their fists, she said.

Cano managed to get away and started walking across the street, gripping his chest, Mendoza said. When he reached the edge of the park, she said, “he fell to the ground and all the guys ran back to the alley.”

Cano’s brother ran to help him while Mendoza called 911. But when an ambulance failed to appear after half an hour, a family friend drove the teenager to the hospital where he was pronounced dead after arriving at St. Mary Medical Center’s emergency room.

It appears as if Cano was a gang member, even though his family denies it. Both the police and prosecutors have identified him as such. He was sent to the Los Angeles County Probation Camp system and was enrolled in a school through the probation department. Whether or not Cano was a gang member should not matter his family insists:

“(Daley) took her kid to kill (Cano),” she said. “More than 15 people attacked him and stabbed him over and over … and she took them there to do it.”

Eva Daley is being held at the Century Regional Detention Facility Center in Lynwood while her son, and the other six youths, are all being held without bail at various Los Angeles County Juvenile Detention Centers, according to the DA’s office.