Im Ye-jin

Im Ye-jin was the original "Nation's Little Sister", a title that says everything about how she was cast and how hard that is to leave behind. Born Im Ki-hee, she became a star as a teenager in the mid-1970s playing the pretty schoolgirl, and the peak was the "Really Really" trilogy: Never Forget Me and I Am Really Sorry in 1976, then I Really Really Like You. For a few years she was the face the Korean film industry put on youth.

What happened next is the part worth paying attention to. Rather than disappearing when the ingenue years ran out, she moved sideways onto the character bench and stayed there for the decades since. She is Chun-sun in Good Windy Days in 1980, then a canteen operator in The Classic, a policewoman in Windstruck, and then, over and over, somebody's mother: Chae-kyeong's mother in Princess Hours, Na Gong-joo in Boys Over Flowers, Kim Soon-Hee in The Liar and His Lover, So Geum-ja in Rosy Lovers and again in Beauty and Mr. Romantic.

That is a strange and specific kind of fame. One generation grew up on her as the nation's teenage sweetheart, and their children grew up on her as the mother of whichever lead they were watching. Very few actors get to be both.