Kim Hyun-joong
Kim Hyun-joong is an actor, born 1986.
Kim Hyun-joong debuted in 2005 as the leader of the boy band SS501, and for a stretch of the early 2010s he was one of the most exportable faces Korean pop had. The solo records followed the group: Break Down in Korean in 2011, Unlimited in Japanese in 2012, both aimed squarely at the audience the dramas had built for him.
The acting arrived the way it usually does for idols, through a hit teen drama. He played Yoon Ji-hoo in Boys Over Flowers in 2009, the softer member of the show's central group, and the role set his screen persona for years: quiet, slightly wounded, largely reactive. Playful Kiss in 2010 gave him a stiffer, chillier variation on the same appeal.
Inspiring Generation in 2014 is the genuine departure, a period action drama in which he is the lead and has to carry violence and weight rather than romance. It is also where the limits of the transition show. He is a better presence than he is an actor, which is not much of an insult in a genre that runs on presence, and the drama is worth watching for how hard it commits to him. The rest of the credits here are variety television, which is where idols of his generation lived when they were not filming.
TV (7)
Where to start with Kim Hyun-joong
Boys Over Flowers is where everyone starts and where you should too, as long as you are clear about what it is: a loud, silly, enormously influential 2009 teen drama that exported the Korean romance format to half the world. Kim's Ji-hoo is why a good part of that audience stayed.
Playful Kiss is the follow-up and the lighter watch, a school romance that has aged into comfort viewing. Inspiring Generation is the one to try if you want to see him work harder, a period action piece that asks far more of him than the romances did and is worth an episode or two even if you bail on it.
The variety credits, X-Man, Ya Shim Man Man and Barefooted Friends, are documents of how idol promotion worked at the time rather than things you would sit down to watch.