Actor You Need to Know: Mun Ka-young

I feel that it’s good for people to have a tryst with acting since it’s a process that involves impersonating images of life, imitating just about everything that’s happening around us. Let’s take the example of Mun Ka-young. In 2006, Mun started working as a 10-year-old child actress. She must have had a steep learning curve and an opportunity to hone her performing abilities as well as express herself. In all likelihood, the dominant factor in Mun’s evolution as an actor was her aptitude to portray diverse people and emotions early in life. Now, at 26, she is no longer just another beautiful South Korean actress; she has played some genuinely entertaining characters and is gradually ramping up her game by taking on more roles that highlight her unfettered passion and natural talent.

16 years and counting; given Mun’s age, that’s a long trajectory. Born in Germany to Korean parents (which possibly explains her multilingualism), the girl broke into Korean entertainment through films and TV shows when she moved to South Korea at a young age. She’s had incremental recognition since, going through a process of expansion. In 2014, she was offered the title role in Mimi, a mystery romance drama in which she played the forgotten first love of a webtoon writer (with partial memory loss) who seeks to recoup his lost youth from when he was a high-schooler – particularly his relationship with Mimi.

I first encountered Mun in the utterly adorable rom-com web drama EXO Next Door (2015). It tells the story of Ji Yeon-hee (Mun), a young woman who is terribly shy, has never been on a date and tends to blush when speaking to someone she likes. Yeon-hee is stunned to discover one day that her new neighbors are her idol boy band EXO members Chanyeol (Park Chanyeol), D.O. (Do Kyungsoo), Baekhyun (Byun Baekhyun) and Sehun (Oh Sehun), who are hoping to take a break from the spotlight for a while. Yeon-hee, Chanyeol, and D.O. end up in a cute love triangle as the plot unfolds. EXO Next Door gained millions of viewers and rapidly became one of Korea’s most successful web series. It was subsequently turned into a film by CJ E&M and distributed to foreign broadcasters. Mun’s fame spread rapidly as a result.

She is strikingly sensitive yet strong in her portrayals. It is, in my assessment, her best quality. When she acts, she seems to be living her own emotions, which gives her characters substance. Whether playing the lead, a supporting role, a cameo or anything else for that matter, Mun steadily paints her personalities with a certain ease that makes them seem legit. Check out her bit parts in major K-dramas like Don’t Dare To Dream (2016) and Live Up To Your Name (2017), or a starring role in Waltzing Alone (2017). Despite how little or more screen time she got, the actress made a big impression on us. Mun has the mental fortitude and insight to push through and pull off any part. It makes sense that she earned the Excellence Award for Best Actress in a Monday-Tuesday Drama at the 2018 MBC Drama Awards for taking on the lead role in the romantic drama Tempted, based on the 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses.

The period from 2019 until the present has been a significant one in the actor’s life. She has been offered bigger roles in noteworthy dramas including Welcome to Waikiki (2019), Find Me in Your Memory (2020) and True Beauty (2020–2021). An in-depth exchange with Dazed Magazine last year revealed that Mun’s acting career had its share of concerns and stress to break the mold, but when she looked back at it, she realized that acting had evolved into her expertise as a result of her extensive experience in the field. And to her credit, she has been using it wisely. In Link: Eat, Love, Kill (2022), a crime mystery thriller fantasy about a man and woman experiencing similar feelings, she gave a commendable performance as Noh Da-hyun, a girl who becomes emotionally linked with a chef named Eun Gye-hoon (Yeo Jin-goo).

But in comparison to all of her previous appearances, I choose her depiction of Ahn Soo-young in the ongoing melodrama The Interest of Love, based on workplace romance. Mun impresses as someone who perceives love to be a sand castle that might crumble in a second, and yet feels thrilled by a man who unexpectedly enters her life in her role as a bank employee. The show is fantastic; it has a fabulous OST, well-crafted dialogue and well-developed characters, especially the protagonists who are excellent at communicating emotions. Mun in particular successfully fulfills the demands of her character by evoking subtle emotions and thus raising the bar even higher.