All eyes are on Kim Ji-won and Kim Soo-hyun
Since BinJin or Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin of “Crash Landing on You” (CLOY) in 2019, the local South Korea and global drama fans have never shipped any tandem as hard as they adore Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won or SooWon of the highest-rated TVN and Netflix drama “Queen of Tears,” and I was bitten by the bug.
Mind you, I did have the coverage of “CLOY” and I even had the chance to attend the reel-to-real-life couple’s endorsement for Smart here in the Philippines, but even though I adored how BinJin’s fairy tale love story turned out, it is just now that I understand and have immersed myself in a parasocial relationship with SooWon.
I even asked psychologist and “Face 2 Face” expert Dr. Camille Garcia to explain such a phenomenon, which has been ongoing for so long in the K-drama and K-pop community. It also generates millions of revenues for the Korean stars and leaves fans as what they call nowadays delulu or “delusional” in a good way most of the time.
Dr. Camille shared that “parasocial relationships are when people can feel a strong sense of connection and intimacy with their idol even though they have not seen them in person or have no interaction with them. Parasocial relationships provide a sort of emotional support and a sense of companionship, which relieves anxiety and depression for some. Those, who (experienced) loneliness and (felt) rejected, feel a sense of being loved by their idols.”
Which makes sense since joining the SooWon ship, that is still very much sailing as I write this. I have gained so many social media friends who I find myself chatting with each night until the wee hours of the morning just talking about Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won and making up theories as to why we all think and choose to believe that they are indeed possibly a real-life couple.
If they are (which we hope and pray), why would they work so well together as they naturally and fantastically executed their iconic roles as Hong Hae-in and Baek Hyun-woo in “Queen of Tears.”
Right now, even though the drama ended in May, there is even an ever-growing SooWon nation coming from all walks of life and countries from around the world that could relate to our kilig for the two.
We even have colleagues from the industry such as momshie Melai Cantiveros and Kapuso Aubrey Carampel, who share the same love for the two. I am speaking for a first-time hard core supporter because most of the time as a journalist, I am on the other side of the fence, interviewing the stars. Which I have done before by the way.
I did interview SooWon and the whole main cast of “Queen of Tears” and like any other stars that we interact with, we were just doing our job of sharing the story.
Sure, I thought the cast was marvelously cast. That is why I really requested Netflix if there would be a possibility for an interview for the said project, and that I would be interested.
Time went on, the show aired, and I already aired my story on TV as well, but it was when I got to episode five that things changed. I noticed that I was swayed by Ji-won and Soo-hyun’s natural banter, exchange of energy and talent which made me rewind all my interviews with them and a fan girl.
I reposted video interviews, analyzed all their other guesting answers, rewatched their challenging and much talked about Germany scenes together, that really left me hooked. Plus points because both stars have awesome feedback when it comes to their off-camera attitude.
We got word from Winston Llamas, executive producer of Wilbros Live who brought in the very successful KSH fan meet. Here is his personal feedback about working with Korea’s highest paid actor several times.
“We have worked with many Korean celebrities, and Kim Soo-hyun is one of the nicest Korean actors. We have also worked with his team in the past, so it was fun and easy to collaborate. Among Kim Soo-hyun’s fan meets in Manila, we can say that this recent one
Super fans of Soo-hyun who followed his career from the very beginning say that it is just now that they have been seeing changes in the antics of Soo-hyun when it comes to his leading ladies. They say that he was very different with Ji-won in terms of how he handled her and held her hands during the press conference of “QoT.”
Fans also noticed his active posts on his fan exclusive Bubble account and Instagram where he resembled the post of the actress. No wonder even trad media in Korea and major news outlets have also started to wonder about the two. Well, whatever is the real score between them, it is just the natural kilig that they give out from when they started working that really is giving millions of people a reason for their smiles, including mine.
See you at the “Be My One” fan meet of Kim Ji-won on Aug. 3 at the New Frontier Theater, Quezon City.
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