Unbowed (부러진 화살, Bureojin Hwasal) 2012

In June of this year, two Korean actors will be feted at the famed Grauman’s Chinese theatre on Hollywood Blvd., where they will have their hand and footprints cast in the pavement; the first Asian performers to be honoured in such a way. One is Lee Byung-hyun who, rather than being one of the nation’s best or most long-standing thespians, is the one with the highest international profile. He is making a name for himself in the US industry and will soon be seen in G.I. Joe 2 and then the sequel to Red (2011). In fact, the former will be opening mere days following the aforementioned ceremony so his selection does smack of opportunism.

However, the second star has all the hallmarks of greatness that such a distinction would indicate, and then some. Ahn Sung-ki is a legend in the Korean film industry and is probably its most respected star. One of his earliest roles was in Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid (1960) and he starred in a series of classics starting in the 1980s, such as A Fine, Windy Day (1980), Im Kwon-taek’s Mandala (1981), Whale Hunting (1984), Park Kwang-su’s Chilsu and Mansu (1988), The Taebaeck Mountains (1994, also Im Kwon-taek), Lee Myeong-se’s Nowhere to Hide (1999) and many, many more. Even now he is still one of the country’s top working actors and earlier this year he proved that he could still draw in the crowds just as well as anybody. He has won the Grand Bell Award (the Korean Oscar equivalent) no less than six times but he seems almost certain to pick up his seventh accolade later this year for his latest performance.

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