Won Bin Shaved His Head in The Man from Nowhere, Then Left the Screen for 16 Years

Featured photo: Won Bin at an LG Electronics event, 2011. Photo: acrofan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Summer 2010: the clippers in front of the mirror

In The Man from Nowhere (Ajeossi), released in the summer of 2010, pawnshop owner Cha Tae-sik stands in front of a mirror before his final fight. After treating his wounds, he shaves off his own long hair with clippers. The scene was shot on the last day of filming, and Won Bin dieted and trained hard for that one scene (New Daily, June 9, 2010). People still recall gasps in the theater at that moment, and in 2015 a video of a four-year-old copying the scene by cutting his own hair with clippers went viral (Seoul Shinmun, February 3, 2015).

Despite an adults-only rating, The Man from Nowhere drew about 6.17 million viewers (Etoday, November 16, 2010) and became the year’s top-grossing Korean film (Wikipedia). Won Bin won Best Actor at the 47th Grand Bell Awards and the 8th Korean Film Awards for it (Xports News).

That scene became the last thing Won Bin showed us on screen. With only five films since his debut, he became Korea’s standard for a handsome actor, and since 2010 he has not released a single new project in 16 years. The gap did not erase his name. It pushed it toward legend. I am a fan who has not forgotten him once in those 16 years, and even when people say five films are enough, I am still waiting for the sixth.

Also read: Thirteen Years After His Runway Debut, He Won Best New Actor

1997: a supporting actor from a cable network’s open audition

Won Bin was born in 1977 (Money Today, August 6, 2026) and entered the industry in 1996 through the third open recruitment of the cable channel Jeil Broadcasting, now MBC Drama Net (Xports News). His first acting job was a supporting role in KBS 2TV’s Propose in 1997, followed by Ready Go! and Kwang-ki (Wikipedia). He started without a network audition win or a drama-school name behind him.

2000: from scolded rookie to the heir who said “I’ll buy it with money”

On the first day of shooting KBS’s Kkokji in 2000, veteran actor Park Geun-hyung scolded the long-haired rookie, whose lines were not clear. “What are you doing? Read it again.” The next day Won Bin came back with his hair cut neatly and read every line crisply, and Park praised him: “You could do it all along, so why didn’t you?” (Newsis via Financial News, June 28, 2026, recalling Park on MBN’s Kim Joo-ha’s Day & Night).

That fall, KBS’s Autumn in My Heart made him a star. In this melodrama starring Song Seung-heon and Song Hye-kyo, Won Bin played Han Tae-seok, a chaebol heir who loves Eun-seo (Song Hye-kyo) roughly, and the drama hit a peak rating of 42.3% (Xports News). “Love? Don’t make me laugh. Now I’ll buy it with money.” His line was parodied for years (same article). He was the second male lead, not the hero, yet the most famous line was his (OSEN). The drama won him Best New Actor (TV) at the Baeksang Arts Awards and an Excellence Award at the KBS Drama Awards (Xports News).

2004: the younger brother of a ten-million film

Won Bin did not stay a TV star. After his film debut in Guns & Talks in 2001, he played Jin-seok, Jang Dong-gun’s younger brother, in 2004’s Taegukgi. The film sold 11.75 million tickets to become that year’s top Korean film (Wikipedia), and Won Bin became a so-called “ten-million actor” (Xports News).

That same year in My Brother, he and Shin Ha-kyun played brothers.

By the numbers, he was the safest box-office bet among male actors. When Chaebul.com analyzed lead roles in films from 2001 to October 2010, Won Bin ranked first among male actors, averaging about 4.86 million viewers per film across his five leading roles (Etoday, November 16, 2010).

2005: a uniform, and UNICEF

At his peak, Won Bin enlisted in November 2005, served in the Demilitarized Zone and was discharged in June 2006 (Wikipedia). His first official activity after service was as a special representative for the Korean Committee for UNICEF in 2007 (Lady Kyunghyang).

2009: the face Bong Joon-ho chose

His first film in five years was Bong Joon-ho’s Mother. Won Bin played Do-joon, a son framed for murder, and Kim Hye-ja played the mother trying to save him. The film was invited to the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2009 (Wikipedia). The actor who set Korea’s standard of handsome walked the Cannes red carpet as the most pitiful of characters. The next year came The Man from Nowhere.

Where to watch: In the US, The Man from Nowhere streams on Prime Video, Peacock and MUBI, and Mother on Kanopy, Hoopla and Philo, with rentals on Prime Video and Apple TV (checked on JustWatch, October 28, 2026).

2010–2026: sixteen years without a film

After The Man from Nowhere, Won Bin’s name came back only in commercials, never in a new project (Tenasia, March 25, 2022). On MBN’s Kim Joo-ha’s Day & Night on June 27, 2026, host Kim Joo-ha passed on the reasons she heard from him directly: the image of The Man from Nowhere was so strong that offers of that caliber never came, and he keeps his hair long in advance “because I don’t know what role might come” (Newsis via Financial News, June 28, 2026). Park Geun-hyung, who scolded him 26 years earlier, said on the same show, “Actors like you need to come out and do the work” (same article).

What followed in the next four months was all commercials. In August, the home-services platform Ajeongdang cast him together with Won Bin of the K-pop group RIIZE (born 2002), and the reaction was “a rare handsome duo” (Money Today, August 6, 2026). In September, he appeared in a black suit in the first-anniversary video for the mobile game The Emperor’s Realm and became a talking point just by staring into the camera (Insight). On October 8, a health-supplement company announced him as its first official model (TV Report, October 12, 2026).

The online reaction split exactly in two. “Enough with the ads, make a movie. So what if it flops?” “It’s his life to live, he’s not hurting anyone. I support him” (same article). Either way, what people ask Won Bin has been the same for 16 years: what’s next?

The rookie who came back with his hair cut the day after being scolded on the Kkokji set cut his hair once more in front of the mirror in The Man from Nowhere. Sixteen years later, he is growing it out again for a role that has not arrived yet. Whatever role brings that hair back to the screen, I’m already planning to sit in the front row on that day.

Sources

• Xports News, May 29, 2022 · Etoday, November 16, 2010 · Wikipedia: Won Bin
• New Daily, June 9, 2010 · Seoul Shinmun, February 3, 2015
• OSEN · Lady Kyunghyang · Tenasia, March 25, 2022
• Financial News (Newsis), June 28, 2026 · Wikitree, June 26, 2026
• Money Today, August 6, 2026 · Insight · TV Report, October 12, 2026