[HanCinema's News] Kim Joong-hee of "Marry My Husband" Cultivates Unexpected Fandom

By William Schwartz on 2024/01/11 at 20:28 PST

Kim Joong-hee is a minor actor with a large number of roles to his credit, though many of them are unnamed. "Marry My Husband" is a bigger part than he usually plays, though nowhere near leading, as Chief Kim of the U&K food marketing team, who's notable for his vicious attitude toward his subordinates. Fans of the show who may have initially been drawn to it by bigger stars, however, have been fascinated by Kim Joong-hee's performance, and investigating his past work.

Kim Joong-hee is actually best known for playing Japanese roles. Having spent his school days in Japan, Kim Joong-hee speaks the language fluently. In film projects from "The Battleship Island" to "Drug King" to "Hero" to "Noryang: Deadly Sea" he can be seen playing the role of various Japanese characters. As such roles are villainous more often than not, this has incidentally cultivated a reputation for Kim Joong-hee as a performer capable of playing necessarily unpleasant characters.

In "Through the Darkness" Kim Joong-hee even played a serial killer. Though not mentioned by name, Kim Joong-hee was no doubt among the many actors lead performer Kim Nam-gil thanked at the SBS Drama Awards for 2022, where he attributed much of the success of the drama to the underappreciated minor actors who played its villains despite the risk of being typecast. Kim Joong-hee also played a North Korean psychic in "Moving" last year.

Among other factors noticed by fans is how drastically Kim Joong-hee's appearance can change just by a new hairstyle. The thirty-nine year old actor looks his age in "Marry My Husband" mainly because of how much his forehead is exposed, and can pass for his twenties in other recent projects. "Marry My Husband" had ratings of 7.595% in its most recent episode, the fourth, which aired on January 9th.

Written by William Schwartz