Lee Jun Ki and Yoon Eun Hye take over Bae Yong Jun and Choi Ji Woo as the King/Queen of Korean

There’s media analysing that its almost time for a generation hand over in the Korean scene. Bae Yong Jun, Choi Ji Woo, Lee Young Ah, Lee Byung Hun have always been the main stars responsible for the promotion of Korean culture overseas and alot of people are in anticipation over who will take over their places. The are alot new generation Korean stars who are popular overseas, but Lee Jun Ki and Yoon Eun Hye are stars that have more “potential”. Lee Jun Ki and Yoon Eun Hye’s popularity can be seen by popularity voting poll which was held recently. Being an Award ceremony which is jointly organised by the 3 TV stations in Korea and with 33 countries in the world taking part in the “Seoul Drama Festival 2008″, an online voting poll, mainly aimed at the Korean and Japanese netizens was held and Lee Jun Ki and Yoon Eun Hye managed to take the top spot, beating the other strong contenders. The voting will be held for about 20 days and about a million netizens took part in the voting. Up to the afternoon on the 24th, Lee Jun Ki got 51.8%(317 600 votes) and Yoon Eun Hye got 34.1% (208 700 votes) of the votes. Before this, even though Lee Jun Ki is very popular in China, but his popularity is not as high in Japan. But there seems to be a complete turn of events and almost half of the people are in support of Lee Jun Ki. With the drama Coffee Prince, Yoon Eun Hye’s ever rising popularity managed to edge over Nam Sang Mi, the female lead in Time between dog and wolf by a 3.5% difference. (the last para seems to be a rambling by the author about why the poll is only for Japan and Korea, but not China. He mentioned that Lee Jun Ki’s lead in the poll should be within the fan’s expectation and he likes Yoon Eun Hye and Coffee Prince. )

Celebrating an early birthday in Japan

Currently in between dramas, Yoon Eun-hye headed to Japan to celebrate her 24th birthday (25 in Korean terms) with Japanese fans on September 19.

The party was a little premature — her actual birthday isn’t until October 3 — but she took the day to interact with approximately 1,400 Japanese fans in attendance at Tokyo’s Nakano Sun Plaza Hall. Among the activities were a “question corner,” a dance-off with fans, and photo and handshaking time. Her recent CF jingle “Salad Song” was played, and Yoon sang a Japanese ballad originally recorded by Jpop duo Kiroro, “Nagai Aida.”

Toward the end of the event, Yoon explained, “I should have worn comfortable shoes — I regret wearing these. My legs hurt and I’m sorry to be showing you a tired appearance. Next time, I’ll come wearing comfortable shoes. I heard I received more than ten boxes of gifts — when I get back to the hotel, I’ll have to open them.” She said she enjoys being in Japan and promised to return.

Her popularity in Japan may not be on par with other Hallyu stars or even proportional to her fame in Korea, but she enjoys a sizable fanbase due to her two largest hits, Goong and Coffee Prince (the event had been planned to host 2,000, but only 1,400 attendees signed up, and Yoon explained that Hallyu men tend to command larger fanmeets than the ladies). Goong, which was an early 2006 show in Korea, aired in Japan last year, while Coffee Prince was also a big hit in Japan; in fact, this event progressed in talk-show format taking the concept of a “Coffee Prince Store #2.”

Yoon Eun Hye Shows Her Solo Singer Potential

The sight of Yoon Eun Hye singing again was revealed to the public recently.

The video was revealed on Pandora video sharing website on 23rd August was seen in simple clothing recording a song with her bright vocals. Netizens who saw the video expressed, “I can see an image of a singer from Eun Hye”, “Is Eun Hye going to come back as a singer?”, “I hope that she is not going to be the backup vocals for someone but singing her own songs”. Most hoped that Eun Hye can make a come back as a singer if possible.

In the video, Eun Hye was singing a “Salad Song”, a form of electronic music. Her bright and cheerful voice was oozing female charisma and it showed that many netizens still holds hope that Eun Hye can come back as a solo singer someday following the disbandment of her former group, Baby Vox.

The number of views for Eun Hye’s “Salad Song” video is staggering and has occupied the top position on Pandora video sharing website since it’s release.