Song Joong-ki

Two jobs in 2010 made Song Joong-ki, and they could not have been less alike. Sungkyunkwan Scandal, a historical drama, got him noticed as a performer. Running Man, which he joined as one of the original cast, got him known as a person. Korean stardom usually needs both. Before that he had spent two years in the parts that fill out a resume: A Frozen Flower (2008), The Case of Itaewon Homicide and Will It Snow For Christmas? (both 2009), a butler on My Fair Lady.

The Innocent Man (2012) gave him his first leading television role and A Werewolf Boy, the same year, gave him a film that worked. Then he went away to complete his mandatory military service, and the credits show the gap plainly: almost nothing between 2012 and 2016. What he came back to was Descendants of the Sun (2016), a hit across Asia that changed the size of his career entirely.

The interesting part is what he has done with the goodwill since. Vincenzo (2021) let him play a man with no obvious moral floor and get laughs out of it, which is a long way from a soldier in a romance, and Reborn Rich (2022) was the mass-audience follow-up. The film work has spread wide: the science-fiction blockbuster Space Sweepers (2021), Hopeless (2023), My Name Is Loh Kiwan and Bogota: City of the Lost (both 2024). He also turns up in Little Women (2022) billed under the same character name he carried in Vincenzo, which is the sort of joke Korean television makes for the people paying attention.