Jun Ji-hyun close-up, 2026

The Night Park Chan-wook Hugged Jun Ji-hyun at Cannes

by

Featured photo: Jun Ji-hyun at the Colony press screening in Seoul, May 2026. Photo: Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).

Just after midnight on May 15, 2026, on the red carpet outside the Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes, the jury president of that year’s festival, director Park Chan-wook, walked out to greet Jun Ji-hyun and wrapped her in a hug (Star News). The roughly 2,300 seats had sold out early, and when the previous film ran long and pushed the screening back about 30 minutes, the audience stayed put (My Daily). As the credits rolled on Colony, a 122-minute zombie film, the room stood for about seven minutes. The loudest cheer came when her name was called, and Jun answered it visibly moved. “Just seeing a Korean-language film get applause in France was moving,” she said (Segye Ilbo).

It was her first Cannes red carpet, 30 years into her career. Colony was her first film in 11 years, since Assassination in 2015, and it drew 5.95 million moviegoers in Korea (Digital Times). The applause that night went to a woman who started as a teenage model dancing in a printer commercial in 1999, and who had climbed to the top three times and waited out two long stretches to get there. I’ll be honest: watching the footage, I choked up right along with her. As a fan, it was applause I had waited a long time for.

1999: one printer ad, and Korea’s “Techno Girl”

It started with a magazine. As a high school student, Jun debuted as a model for the fashion magazine Ecole in 1997 and began acting in 1998 with the SBS drama Steal My Heart (Topstar News, OhmyNews). What made her famous was a 15-second commercial. Her techno dance in a 1999 ad for Samsung’s MyJet printer earned her the nickname “Techno Girl” (Maxmovie). That printer ad went on to become a launchpad for unknown actors; Kim Tae-hee later took the same spot and became a star herself (Korea Economic Daily, 2012).

Also read: Life After miss A: Suzy Swept the Charts Alone

2001: My Sassy Girl crosses Asia

Her first peak came at about 20. My Sassy Girl (2001), opposite Cha Tae-hyun, held No. 1 at the Korean box office for six straight weeks and drew 4.88 million viewers, then a record for a Korean romantic comedy (Sisun News). The film crossed borders. It topped the box office in Hong Kong (Newsen), and before an official DVD even came out, reports said pirated copies in China had passed 100 million (Segye Ilbo, 2006). On Chinese college campuses, students copied her scenes in a “be like Jun Ji-hyun” craze (same report). Hollywood, meanwhile, remade her earlier film Il Mare (2000) as The Lake House.

2002–2011: the years she kept knocking on doors abroad

The decade after that peak did not deliver at the box office. Critics still note that she had no big film hit for ten years after My Sassy Girl (SBS Entertainment News, June 2026), and at home she even heard the jibe that she “only shoots commercials” (Aju Business Daily, 2015). I still remember that decade as one in which she never once stood still. In those years she knocked on doors abroad. She went to Hollywood with Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) under the English name Gianna Jun, and in 2011, ahead of her Hollywood film Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, she appeared in a spread shot by Annie Leibovitz in the July issue of American Vogue, the first Korean actress featured in the US edition (Soompi).

2012–2015: the first actress with two 10-million films

Her second peak came all at once. In Korea, 10 million admissions means roughly one in five people in the country bought a ticket, and the industry calls these “10-million films.” Jun crossed that line for the first time with The Thieves (2012, 12.98 million) and kept the run going with The Berlin File (2013, 7.16 million) (Chosun Ilbo, Korean Film Council data). Her wire-rigged stunt work in The Thieves sealed her reputation as an actress who can really move (Segye Ilbo).

In the same stretch, her return to TV after 14 years shook Asia again. SBS’s My Love from the Star (2013–2014), opposite Kim Soo-hyun, finished with a peak rating of 28.1% (Asia Today). When her character, the top star Cheon Song-yi, said that snowy days call for fried chicken and beer, a chicken-and-beer craze swept China (OhmyNews). The role won her both the TV grand prize at the 2014 Baeksang Arts Awards and the grand prize at the SBS Drama Awards (Etoday, Dong-A Ilbo).

Assassination (2015) drew 12.7 million. She played Ahn Ok-yun, a resistance sniper whose father is a collaborator with Japan, and the image of her holding a rifle in a wedding dress became one of her signature shots (Hankyoreh, Segye Ilbo). It made Jun the first actress with two 10-million films to her name (Global Economic).

2016–2025: the years she waited

The road to a third peak was long. SBS’s The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016) reached 21% (Chosun Ilbo), but after Netflix’s Kingdom: Ashin of the North (2021), tvN’s Jirisan (2021) and Disney+’s Tempest (2025) both drew lukewarm reviews (SBS Entertainment News). For a fan those were anxious years, but she didn’t rush. She waited for the right film.

2026: Colony and her first film in 11 years

The next year she came back to the big screen. In Colony, from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, Jun plays Kwon Se-jeong, a bioengineer leading survivors out of a sealed-off building. When she first met Yeon, she says, she asked him, “There were so many characters in your films I wanted. Why didn’t you ever give me one?” (Segye Ilbo). Released May 21, the film set the year’s fastest pace at every milestone from 1 million to 4 million admissions and passed 5 million in 24 days (Herald Economy). It had been presold to 124 territories (The Korea Herald).

In July, at the 25th New York Asian Film Festival, which opened with Colony, she received the Extraordinary Star Asia Award, the first Korean actress to win it (Hankook Ilbo). Colony opened in North American theaters on August 28 through Well Go USA (The Film Stage), and the 4K restoration of My Sassy Girl, which had its North American premiere at the same festival, went out to North American theaters this fall through Film Movement (The Film Stage, Sports Chosun). The 20-year-old Jun Ji-hyun whose film crossed Asia on pirated discs 25 years ago and the 44-year-old Jun Ji-hyun whom Cannes rose to applaud ended up on screens on the same continent in the same year. Having loved both of them, I’m simply grateful and moved. And I’m already waiting for her next film.

Trailers: Jun Ji-hyun's later dramas and movies

Tempest (2025)

Jirisan (2021)

Kingdom: Ashin of the North (2021)

The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016)

Trending on Seol Notes

  1. Kim You-jung Cracked Japan Despite the 'Anti-Japan Drama' Label
  2. The Emperor of K-pop Came Back, and Korea Flipped
  3. K-pop News Today (Oct 27, 2026): IVE's EP Drop, ILLIT 'You're Under Arrest', LISA's 59M
  4. His First Film Never Opened. His First Role Had No Name. Then Korea Called Him "Sam-sik"
  5. The No. 1 Korea Doesn't Want to Believe: Why Fans Doubt A2O

Sources

Discover more from Seol Notes

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Comment