The Face Reader 관상 At The Red Carpet

Last week, I already saw the huge movie poster for a Korean movie, Face Reader  관상 , plastered on a cube in front of the Yongsan Station for all the passers-by to see. I thought that was it, a paper advertisement. I didn't know that days after, a red carpet event was going to be held right next to the poster.

On that day, as I was walking back to the office from lunch, I stopped by and asked a couple of girls sitting by the red carpet set-up what was going to happen. They told me that at 6PM that day, the stars of the movie were coming over for the event. It was still noon, and yet there were already a lot of fans claiming their spot along the path the stars were going to walk by.

Hmm. Another movie event in the neighborhood. A few years back, I saw Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage promote their respective movies here at CGV's Yongsan Station. Tonight, I decided I'd go local. Ha-ha-ha! I planned to walk this way after office.

                     (Lee Jeong-Jae signing autographs)

And as I got out of our office building, I could already hear the blaring speakers coming from Yongsan Station, signalling perhaps the arrival of the movie stars.

But when I got there, the stars had already arrived, and must have already walked the stretch of the red carpet, which by now, could use some dry-cleaning (ha-ha-ha!), and signed a few autographs. I'm not really into autographs. I got a few autographed CDs of K-pop stars given to me and an Australian Open t-shirt signed by 25 top female tennis players, and I can't remember now where I dumped those. Ha-ha-ha! 

                           (Kim Hye-Soo from behind)

But right here, at the red carpet, I just wanted to take photographs of the Korean stars and their fans, who all had drawn out their cameras, smart phones and autograph books. Me? Just my Samsung Galaxy S4. Ha-ha-ha!

                                (Baek Yoon-Sik)

And as I stood there, with my left hand holding my phone and my right pressing the camera button, I tried to look closely if I recognize the stars.

                                     (Cho Jeong-Seok)

And recognize I did, four of them: Kim Hye-Soo, perhaps the most beautiful and sexiest actress in Korean cinema; Song Kang-Ho, the lead in the monster-in-the-Han-River movie The Host; Lee Jeong-Jae, the face I recognize from The Housemaid; and Baek Yoon-Sik, from the movie, The Taste Of Money, where Maui Taylor, a Philippine actress, was found dead floating in an indoor swimming pool with only her underwear on.   

From their huge poster, I 'face-read' their looks and Kim Hye-Soo's was definitely a standout. Unlike some of the surgically altered faces I see in Korean television, hers is unique and really beautiful, from any angle. One guy's nose though really looked fake. One doesn't have to be a plastic surgeon to tell whether a face has gone under the knife. If the look isn't natural, something must have been done. Some have such high, narrow noses; others have really pointed chin due to implants; and if you see that a nose seemed to have been clipped and the base isn't parallel to the ground (ha-ha-ha!), then some doctor got rich because someone was vain, or wasn't happy with what he or she sees in the mirror every morning.

                                  (Lee Jeong-Jae)

And as the movie stars on the stage greeted, waved and invited their fans to watch their movie, Face Reader, I thought that this must be an interesting film to watch. Do they have a version with English sub-titles?

As I left the red carpet, after figuring out who was who, and whose looks seemed altered, I asked myself, 'Now, who's the real face reader?" :-)