Actor You Need to Know: Jung Hae-in

In order to stand out, an actor must be persistent. His attitude, approach and speech all need to be addressed. I suppose the most vital point is for him to develop his cognitive capabilities and improve his ability to engage with both his performances and audiences. This is perhaps a suitable description of Jung Hae-in, a truly amazing South Korean hero as well as the great-grandson of Jeong Yak-yong, a thinker from the late Joseon era. The Korean media claims that Jung’s penchant for the arts led to his receiving a degree in broadcast entertainment from Pyeongtaek University. He also reportedly lost a lot of weight while serving in the military so that he could pursue his acting ambitions.

It’s apparent from his filmography that he takes on unconventional roles. If you watch him act, any artist worth his salt will acknowledge that he undeniably captures the essence of the character. I imagine Jung pulls it off brilliantly by letting go of the persona and using himself. This was apparent right away when he made his acting debut in the independent film The Youth and the TV series Bride of the Century back in 2014. Up until 2016, he appeared in a variety of shows playing side and supporting parts, but his most recognizable performance was as Kim Go-eun’s first love in the superhit drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God. Jung made it crystal clear that instinctive acting was his forte. Every time he appears on screen, this is what draws the audience’s attention.

When he played Han Woo-tak, a top police officer, in the romance fantasy thriller comedy legal drama While You Were Sleeping (2017), the actor’s sublime performance received the reward it deserved. He gained enormous fame for his intuitive portrayal. It led to him being cast in subsequent movies, including The King’s Case Note and Conspiracy: Age of Rebellion that same year, as well as the hugely popular black comedy Prison Playbook, wherein he played Yoo Jeong-woo (also known as Captain Yoo), a commanding officer who is accused of assaulting his partner and killing him as a result. Jung garnered glowing accolades for this avatar. He did a superb job of placing himself in the position of Captain Yoo by pretending to be someone he wasn’t in real life. I affirm this based on how skillfully he performed the difficult-to-live-in prison moments and the progressive development of his character until he eventually settled in.

The point about Jung is that while he may look his finest in creating moments with the heroine, he equally excels at personifying anyone. In 2018, after his rendition of King Heonjong in the period epic Heung-boo: The Revolutionist, Jung co-starred with Son Ye-jin in the romance drama Something in the Rain as Seo Joon-he, a character animator at a video game company. This was his breakout leading role. Following its broadcast, Jung’s prominence expanded substantially. In 2019, Jung and Kim Go-Eun collaborated on the classic romantic movie Tune in for Love, which dominated the box office in South Korea for a sizable amount of time. The London East Asia Film Festival gave him a popularity award for it. Later that year, the youth drama Start-Up depicted Jung as a school dropout who joins a gang, and thereafter as a pharmacist in the romance drama One Spring Night with Han Ji-min.

The artist is gradually growing his collection of outstanding performances. From his portrayals of a kind, good-natured AI programmer in a show like A Piece of Our Mind (2020) to his incredibly intense and magnificent performance as a bleeding man storming into a women’s university dorm during a volatile political climate in Seoul in the drama series Snowdrop (2021–2022), Jung brought sheer authenticity to every project he appeared in. As Private An Jun-ho in the powerful military fiction drama D.P. (2021), who was entrusted with arresting army deserters, Jung was praised for playing a part that was starkly different to his prior roles. In the drama’s second season, he will reprise both his character and his exploits.

I need to go back to the beginning of this piece before I wrap it up. Jung is a star actor because he prefers offbeat characters. Have you seen his most recent science-fiction film, Connect (2022)? He portrays Ha Dong-soo, an immortal person (a member of a new human race called connect) who, after being abducted by a group of organ traffickers, gets his eyes traded with a serial killer’s. Dong-soo hunts out the perpetrator to protect potential victims. Jung has done his best to keep up with his good work in tandem with the fantastic plot. As always.