Jun Ji-hyun

Wang Ji-hyun (born October 30, 1981), known professionally as Jun Ji-hyun or Gianna Jun, is a South Korean actress and model.

In 1997, at the age of 16, she followed her high school female senior and began her career as a model for Ecole Magazine.

In 1998, she debuted as an actress and adopted the stage name Jun Ji-hyun, at the suggestion of a producer.

Although she made her film debut in the little-watched White Valentine in 1999, it was not until later in the year when she was featured in a commercial for Samsung My Jet Printer that she became a popular sensation.

The dancing and attitude expressed in the ad made her into an icon for Koreans in their late teens and early twenties.

Other notable films include Il Mare (2000), Windstruck (2004), The Thieves (2012), The Berlin File (2013) and Assassination (2015).

The following year, Jun made her first well-publicized film appearance in late 2000 with Il Mare, a handsomely shot melodrama set on Ganghwa Island.

The film did respectably well at the box office (despite opening on the same day as blockbuster Joint Security Area) and solidified her status as a star.

It was later remade in Hollywood under the title 'Lake House ' for the first time in a Korean film starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.

Jun's breakout film was comedy My Sassy Girl, a tale of a gullible college student and his slightly unhinged girlfriend.

Jun's "sassy, loud, and domineering character while also embodying traits of a pure-hearted girl" ran contrary to gender norms in Asia.

The film became the highest grossing Korean comedy of all time in Korea and also spent two weeks at No. 1 in Hong Kong, launching Jun into pan-Asia stardom as one of the biggest Hallyu stars in the Chinese-language market.

The huge success of My Sassy Girl also solidified Jun's domestic popularity, and she was given the title of the "Nation's First Love".

Jun's growing popularity resulted in many companies requesting her endorsement.

She rose to fame with her role in the romantic comedy film My Sassy Girl (2001), which became a tremendous sensation across Asia and sparked an international breakthrough for Korean cinema.

She also won the Best Actress award at the 2002 Grand Bell Awards.

In 2003, Jun starred in the psychological thriller film The Uninvited, which was rather well received by critics but failed to catch on with viewers.

Throughout this time she was a constant presence in TV ads and on billboards in Korea and also in other Asian countries.

Jun attended college at Dongguk University and graduated in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in Theater and Film.

She reunited with Kwak Jae-yong, the director of My Sassy Girl, in 2004, appearing as a policewoman in romantic comedy Windstruck.

However, viewers felt her role was too similar to My Sassy Girl.

There were also signs that her popularity had started to suffer because of overexposure in advertisements.

Nonetheless, Windstruck became the best-performing Korean film in Japan at the time, where My Sassy Girl was not as well known.

In a 2005 survey of influential movie producers, she was ranked among the top ten most bankable stars in Korea.

Jun's next project Daisy teamed her with Jung Woo-sung (who frequently appeared together with her in Giordano and 2% Lotte Chilsung Water advertisements), and drew attention for its 100% location shooting in the Netherlands, and for using the Hong Kong director Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs).

In late 2006, it was announced that Jun would be making her long-predicted jump to Hollywood as the lead role in Blood: The Last Vampire.

She went through three months of hard training to play the sword-wielding martial arts heroine.

During the filming and promotions for the movie prior to its 2009 release, she adopted the Westernized name Gianna Jun. Jun then launched her own luxury jeans brand in 2008, named "Gianna by True Religion", her first celebrity line.

She was reportedly involved in every stage of their production, from design to deciding on fit and wash and their decoration with accessories.

For the film A Man Who Was Superman, Jun cut off her signature long silky hair to play a cynical documentary producer who meets an odd, Hawaiian-shirt-clad modern-day hero who battles urban Apathy and preaches the virtues of lending a hand.

She later enrolled in Dongguk University's graduate school of Digital Media and Contents in 2011 and obtained a master's degree.

Jun first became well known as a commercial model and as a TV actress.

She also starred in the popular television series My Love from the Star (2013–2014) and The Legend of the Blue Sea (2016–2017), as well as the Netflix series Kingdom (2021).

Jun has received multiple awards, including two Best Actress trophies at the Grand Bell Awards and a Grand Prize for Television at the Baeksang Arts Awards.

Her success in film and television has established her as a top Hallyu star.

She is referred to as one of "The Troika," along with Kim Tae-hee and Song Hye-kyo, collectively known by the acronym "Tae-Hye-Ji".

Jun was born in Seoul, South Korea.

She has a brother who is five years older.

Her mother and her mother's friends all encouraged her to be a model or actress due to her height and slim figure.

Her childhood dream was to become a flight attendant, but she changed her mind after a flight.