Actor You Need to Know: Kim Go-eun

The large number of outstanding performances in Kim Go-eun’s filmography showcases the entire range of her skills and expertise. She exudes an unmistakable presence and portrays her characters in a realistic manner. Her commitment to being natural is evident. She strikes me to be an on-screen dynamo, in the sense that she not only makes her characters look strong but also incredibly attractive. Kim is a passionate artist who, I’m sure, continually aspires for betterment, which sustains her individuality and identity as a stunning Korean actress.

A drama major at the Korea National University of Arts, Kim had only performed in student productions or school plays; she had never appeared in a film or television production, not even in a bit part, until she met director Jung Ji-woo in 2011. As reported by The Chosun Ilbo, Kim had no clue that auditions for his film A Muse (2012) were being held at the time, and she eventually tried out for the movie after speaking with Jung. And although Kim noted that she had no time to prepare, she was picked to play the naive yet alluring Eun-gyo, a high-school girl, in the movie, who becomes the muse of a 70-year-old poet who falls passionately in love with the girl.

Her portrayal of Eun-gyo is brilliantly nuanced. In her role-play as a seductress, Kim was highly impulsive, yet too innocent to have considered the repercussions of her actions, as you would know if you have seen the movie. It caused a significant backlash upon its release because it showed intimacy between an elderly man and a teenager, but it also propelled Kim from anonymity to the center of a lot of media interest, turning her into an overnight sensation. That only emphasizes her fearlessness and the traits of a great artist since she was capable of painting such a bold character as a rookie and being as explosive as she was.

It’s worth noting that Kim has a stunning ability to impart a sense of stillness to her characters, which is one of her acting skills I’ve always admired. This contributes to her vileness when she plays a darker role. Her body language and facial expressions are fantastic for communicating inner anguish and wrath. For instance, when she returned to the big screen in 2014, she played a cognitively handicapped lady whose younger sister is murdered by a cruel serial killer in the suspense movie Monster. Her grief and fury drive her nearly crazy, and she plans her retaliation. The movie revealed the character’s condition, which Kim represented perfectly.

In the best ways, the actor’s reach is unrestricted. Look at her performance in the 2015 thriller Coin Locker Girl, which was inspired by the 1980 Japanese novel Coin Locker Babies. Kim played Il-young, a newborn left behind in a subway locker who later grew into an enforcer for a lady known as Mother (Kim Hye-soo). During the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the film was shown at International Critics’ Week. The classic martial-arts drama Memories of the Sword (2015) was where Kim next co-starred with actress Jeon Do-yeon. She then played a stern lawyer in the courtroom movie The Advocate: A Lost Body (2015), followed by the popcorn flick Canola (2016), also featuring seasoned actor Youn Yuh-jung, which was about a girl’s reunion with her grandmother.

Kim made her television debut in the popular cable series Cheese in the Trap (2016) as the lovely and diligent college student Hong Seol, for which she received the 52nd Baeksang Arts Award for Best New Actress Television. That same year, she co-starred in the wildly successful fantasy drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God alongside Gong Yoo and Lee Dong-wook. The drama was a commercial and critical success throughout Asia, becoming a cult classic in South Korea. Kim was especially praised for authentically liberating her character from conventions and elegantly externalizing her inner state. Kim returned to the scene with the 2018 film Sunset in My Hometown as a renegade rural girl. She was also cast in the 2019 period-romance film Tune in for Love as Kim Mi-soo, an industrious part-time bakery employee who exchanges stories on a radio program with Cha Hyun-woo (Jung Hae-in).

In her roles, the actress exquisitely embodies different women, sometimes even within the parameters of a single project. For example, she dabbled and blossomed as Jeong Tae-eul, a police inspector in the Republic of Korea, as well as Luna, a criminal in the Kingdom of Corea (a parallel reality) in the popular fantasy drama The King: Eternal Monarch (2020) alongside Lee Min-ho. In the same year, she was chosen to play the role of a former gungnyeo-turned -geisha who joins the Korean independence movement in South Korea’s first-ever musical film, Hero (released in 2022), built on the life of activist An Jung-geun, famous for the assassination of Itō  Hirobumi (the first Prime Minister of Japan and Resident-General of Korea in 1909). Next, Kim appeared in both seasons of the webtoon-based Yumi’s Cells, Korea’s first live-action animation and romantic comedy-drama.

Seeing talented artists like her transcend their expertise is fascinating. She has done so repeatedly, most recently with her part in Little Women (2022), a contemporary drama partially based on Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 classic novel of the same name. Kim portrays Oh In-ju, the series’ eldest sister, in which the passion of three impoverished sisters for money, independence and love is dramatized. Kim nails the role of In-ju, just as she has done thus far in developing all her characters; her execution was spot-on, which lent the entire situation in Little Women an awesome amount of credibility.

In a nutshell, Kim Go-eun is a juggernaut of brilliance; she is inquisitive and bold and seamlessly transitions between roles, whether big or small. And therefore, you cannot keep your eyes off her. I bet you cannot.