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KIM Yong-hwa directs HA Jeong-woo in sports drama

Director Kim Yong-hwa –two years after his hit comedy "200 Pounds Beauty" – will direct Gookkadaepyo ("Take Off" - English translation: "national representative") about a group of ski jumpers vying for the Korean national team. Next Hallyu star HA Jeong-woo has been cast in the leading role.

"Forever the Moment" showed the potential of Korean sport films earlier this yearand Koreans have a passion for their national representative athletes. Like Yim Soon-rye's "Forever the Moment", Gookkadaepyo also seems to concentrate on the emotional side of top sport and character development.

HA will play a Korean-American adoptee who returns to Korea in search of his roots. In the confusion of his visit to his unfamiliar birth country, he finds himself trying to make it into the Korean national ski jump team while in search of his identity.

The other main characters are competing athletes and are played by television actors Kim Dong-wook – from the popular television series "Coffee Prince", and Kim Ji-suk. Kim Dong-wook's character merely wants to avoid mandatory army service. Kim Ji-suk's character is concerned with taking care of his grandmother and his sibling; he will become a good friend of HA's character.

HA is currently in the spotlight with the box office hit "The Chaser" (Choogyeokja). He will also star in the upcoming Korean-Japanese co-production "Boat", directed by Kim Young-nam. Filming of "Take Off" is scheduled to start in the second half of the year.

Yi Ch'ang-ho (KOFIC)

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