Actor You Need to Know: Ahn Bo-hyun

My initial brush with Ahn Bo-hyun came through the classic K-drama Descendants of the Sun (2016), where he plays Alpha Team’s First Sergeant Im Gwang-nam. But thanks to the acclaimed My Name (2021), a crime noir thriller, I caught on to his dynamic power play—besotted with him therewith—by the end of the series. And while Han So-hee’s Yoon Ji-woo and her vengeance top the bill in it, Ahn’s Jeon Pil-do and his unwavering allegiance to her in the later course of the plot overwhelm with awed respect. At heart, I loved Ji-woo, rising from her ashes like a phoenix to penalize those guilty of her father’s death, just as much as I cherished Pil-do for his role—standing by her like a rock, like a true lover.

I dig Ahn’s dramatic portrayals and how he brings moments into focus with the accompaniment of a towering frame and gorgeous features. Having seen most of his significant works to date, I can attest to this: he excels as a character builder. That obscene villainy he brings to the forefront in the webtoon-based hit, Itaewon Class (2020), expands on his interpretive fluidities and that he doesn’t belong in a box, which has allowed him to catch up to his contemporaries—other Korean actors I keep raving about—effectively over time.

Ahn, 35, launched into acting in 2014, a relatively long time in the profession. During that period, he appeared in a parade of television shows, dramas, and films until 2021, when those watershed moments began to roll as he got down to take on lead roles. My Name, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph, is perhaps his most notable claim to fame. He wears Pil-do’s traits like skin as a detective with the Inchang Metropolitan Police Agency’s Narcotics squad and steals one’s heart in every way he shows his early contempt for Ji-woo, then eventually falls in love with her.

It’s facile for this comely man to sway someone; both in real and reel life, he is so easy on the eyes that he aces characters like Goo Woong in the psychological romance Yumi’s Cells (2021), a game designer who prevails in reawakening Yumi’s (Kim Go-eun) love cells with his geniality. Ahn also serves as Captain Do Bae-man in the subsequent military legal drama Military Prosecutor Doberman (2022), an army attorney for fame and fortune eagerly awaiting retirement from service till he meets a new female military prosecutor who alters his outlook. Ahn emphasizes his attitude, method, and discourse in each of the roles—the three aspects of acting, in my understanding, that are most important for an actor to work on to better connect with viewers.

In his most recent fantasy romance, See You in My 19th Life (2023), Ahn plays Moon Seo-ha, a wealthy clan heir enduring trauma from a car crash. He is the executive director of the MI Hotel’s strategic planning team and “the one” for Shin Hye-sun’s Ban Ji-eum. She, who has reincarnated for 1000 years and has the uncanny ability to remember past lives, joins the strategic planning team at this hotel. Ji-eum must now renew her romance with Seo-ha in her present stage of life, her 19th—this unique fantasy arc and its fictive contexts that the narrative plays out in are unmissable.

Ahn bears the weight of Seo-ha’s misfortunes, his despondency, and his tragedies with aplomb. His concerns and frailties, as well as the impairment he sustained in the awful accident, are all delivered to us in his natural eloquence and never once leave a poor impression. He emerges vividly, as expected.