A week from its premiere, KBS’s new Wednesday-Thursday drama Man of Honor held its production press conference, with its main cast in attendance: Chun Jung-myung, Park Min-young, and Lee Jang-woo take the main three roles. Already I can see the Baker King-esque dynamic in the stills; nothing like a rich-boy-poor-boy rivalry in childhood to up the ante in adulthood, is there?

(Side note: Nice of them to keep the same hairstyles for their childhood counterparts, for ease of identification — but I’d hate to be the kid who stuck with the same haircut for over twenty years.)

Chun Jung-myung plays the Young-kwang of the drama’s title (it means honor), a former baseball star — the kind who delivers a home run with bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th inning and two outs — who has been pushed back to second string. Given the sports milieu, the role calls for some action. Chun unfortunately suffered a fall from a horse while shooting his recent drama The Duo, damaging his spine, knee, and leg, giving him difficulty walking. It was a pretty bad accident and at the time, he’d undergone both medical and naturopathic treatments to get in shape to resume filming.

He said, “I was a bit worried because I’m not entirely recovered yet. I like physical exercise, but for a few months after the accident I wasn’t able to do much. Young-kwang is a pro baseball player so I would need to get my body comfortable with his movements, so I worried that my physical condition wouldn’t be up to it.”

Yikes. Although he says all is well now, I’m not sure I believe that’s possible, considering he needed constant treatments and physical therapy. He said, “After suffering a severe injury, I’m more mindful of needing to take care of myself. And I have to do that in order to get fully into the acting.”

Park Min-young plays Jae-in, a nurse’s aide with a bubbly, energetic character. She only had two months off after City Hunter ended before taking on the new role, and admitted she was a little nervous about the time squeeze. “But I enjoyed the script so much, and really trust the director and writer.”

She also cut her long hair off for the first time in 14 years, in order to play up Jae-in’s bright personality. She’d been enthusiastic about the change, and found the thrill of chopping off her hair so exciting that she’d asked for a shorter cut.

Lee Jang-woo plays the other leg of the love triangle as Young-kwang’s rival In-woo, “with lots of fighting scenes with Chun Jung-myung and Park Min-young.” He added, “In most of my scenes, the scripts indicate, ‘Dismissively, not listening.’ Aside from his father, he treats everyone rudely, and acts like he’s king.” You may as well just call him Ma-jun v.2.0, while Young-kwang gets to be Tak-gu the Second.

Lee Jin plays a cool, confident design manager in an outdoor apparel company. Her character went to school with Young-kwang and has feelings for him, making her a romantic rival with Jae-in. Naturally, where Jae-in is plucky and poor, Lee Jin’s character is chic and fashionable. Because it would just be too much to have two nice women vie for the same guy, right? One has to be bitchy so we know who to root for, yunno, just in case promotional billing hadn’t made that clear.

Meanwhile, the supporting cast includes Choi Myung-gil, Kim Sung-oh, Lee Moon-shik, Sohn Chang-min, and Kim Yeon-joo

Man of Honor replaces Princess’s Man and premieres October 12.

Credit:
http://www.dramabeans.com/2011/10/man-of-honors-production-press-conference/

Here’s a first look at Chun Jung-myung and co-star Lee Jang-woo for their new drama Man of Honor, where they play rival sluggers on a pro baseball team. Okay, if they go sports drama with this, I might be suckered in, despite the impending melodrama.

Chun plays the washed-out once-great hitter, and Lee the golden boy who upstages him at every turn. I love stuff like this. Couldn’t we just forget about the other plots with chaebols and conglomerates, and just do this story about the two boys and their competition as teammates and rivals? I want it to be a sports drama so badly, but I feel like they’re going to move past the potentially awesome stuff really quickly, and land in the drama safe zone of boring business deals and obvious birth secrets. No! Less makjang, more baseball!

Both guys have been training rigorously for the last three months so that they can shoot without body doubles for the baseball scenes, which is pretty cool. I just hope the drama makes full use of it and throws its all into the tears sweat and glory of a good sports rivalry instead of wasting it. C’mon, rivals in love, rivals at the plate… can’t you just feel the tension? Sigh. I’m getting my hopes too high. I should just watch the first season of Friday Night Lights and call it a day.

Man of Honor premieres Wednesday October 12 on KBS.

 
Credit:
http://www.dramabeans.com/2011/09/the-boys-slug-it-out-in-man-of-honor/

Upcoming drama Man of Honor (also Young-kwang’s Jae-in, in the puntastic version), starring Park Min-young and Chun Jung-myung has cast its second leads to round out the main cast. ‘Cause yunno, it can’t be a k-drama without a love square. Lee Jang-woo (Smile, Donghae) and Lee Jin (Hon, Hometown of Legends, also of ye olden k-pop group FinKL) will be rivals and love interests to complicate things, and keep Man from Honor. Or is it the other way around?

The highly anticipated comeback drama by the writer-PD combo behind Baker King Kim Tak-gu is described as a Romeo and Juliet story about young people who overcome their fates to journey toward their dreams. Chun Jung-myung will be playing a second-string baseball player, while Lee Jang-woo plays the first-string, better, richer rival.

He’ll be competing with the hero in baseball and in love, as they vie for Park Min-young’s affections when they both end up in the hospital for injuries where Park plays a young nurse’s aide. The second lead, Seo Inwoo, is described as a cynical and prickly young heir, set to inherit his father’s clothing company someday. After his pro baseball career? So basically, he’s the golden boy, while Chun’s character Young-kwang is the struggling underdog, described as the type of guy who is confident and talks a big game, despite being an innocent kid.

Lee Jin has been cast as the rival to Park Min-young’s Jae-in, and she’ll be returning to television after a two-year hiatus to play the frank and easygoing Cha Hong-joo. She’s a designer, which will probably connect her to Lee Jang-woo’s character through work, and though the reason isn’t described, she feels competitive with the poor but plucky heroine. Because it’s the law of kdramas? Because otherwise you won’t do things to sabotage her budding romance with the honorable Romeo? Because her pert and bouncy hair makes you angry?

I’d almost rather they go all the way with one concept, like the baseball thing, and just turn it into a sports drama. Why does there have to be a chaebol and a clothing company? We could bring back the old school sports drama. We could have another Last Match! C’mon, you made an entire drama about baking, for pete’s sake. Bring back the sports drama. You know you want to!

Man of Honor follows The Princess’s Man and premieres October 12 on KBS.

Credit;
http://www.dramabeans.com/2011/08/man-of-honor-casts-second-leads/