A Stalker's Guide to Kim Woo Bin

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I'm Head Over Heels for Kim Woo Bin. He’s the Love of my Life. His smirk. His Towering Height of 188cm. His Vampire Dino Face. His Piercing Eyes. We even have the same zodiac sign, Cancer! I'll give you my two words. My everything. Alrighty then. That’s a little over exaggerating on my part. Movin’ on. 

This is my first stalker’s guide on how I became the key stalker of the irresistible, Kim Woo Bin and why you should attempt to stalk his many works as a so damn fine, popularity rising actor.  





This jalsaenggin-fashion-model-turned actor has been on my radar over the past few years. If his badass characters in dramas and films and his notable appearances in Seoul Fashion Weeks, wearing a prét-à-porter cannot convince you yet, then let’s backtrack to the beginning of his career on how he decided to model, to walk the runways as a storm, and  how he fell in love with the acting profession until today.





What’s his life before being an actor? Instead of desiring to become an actor, he wanted to pursue a modeling career since his high school years. Next thing you know it, he became a model. Gift Granted. Throughout his modeling years, his career slowly made its way up and soon enough, he started doing commercials which required basic acting skills. Obviously, he was lacking in this area. Not only he obtained a role model (Won-joo Moon) in the process of receiving acting lessons, this is the first time where he fell in love with the acting career. 

Enough with the pre-acting background, let’s get to the gist of his acting experience.



One of my first psychological dramas involving a school based scenario. 

Plot: An elite high school in the mountains is where seven students and one teacher spend their Christmas holidays, completely cut off from the outside world. Where unstable emotional conditions lie, someone unsuspected shows up and an abusive prank letter is received. This draws the question: Are humans born monsters or  are they created?



The actors within this drama are mostly models-turned actors like Sung Joon, Lee Soo Hyuk, Hong Jong Hyun, Kim Young Kwang, and notably Kim Woo Bin himself. What struck me first about Kim Woo Bin is his fire-blazing red hair, his bullying attitude, and his eerie presence. These on-screen qualities made it a pleasure to watch White Christmas other than being visually stunning, cleverly written, and providing a fresh-faced ensemble cast.  




At first, I thought Kim Woo Bin’s character was childish. Once I started watching the drama well into the middle, my mind completely changed and knew he was the most mature student out of all them. He was aware of the consequences that he was given and did not jump into conclusions. As being the more violent one within the group, he avoided using violence as the go-to answer to all the questions. After seeing a whole new side of him in the plot, my first impressions wasn't even close to what they were in the end. 

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Only being a mere 22-year-old, Kim Woo Bin a.k.a Kim Hyun Joong marked his most prominent performance in the 8-episode White Christmas within the acting world.

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Does anyone watch Next Top Model anymore? Or at least America’s Next Top Model? 

Well, South Korea decided to add their own Next Top Model which features many judges from previous Next Top Models from around the world including Miss J, Tyra Banks and I can’t forget, Kim Woo Bin as the featured model. With him as the guest, the episode must have been fierce. I guess he’s already on the top as a model but not as a top actor. It's only a matter of time though. 

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A cute, simple but interesting drama special about true love and denial. 

Plot: Using the Cupid Factory machine, a composer meets with his ex-girlfriend again. 





Not my cup of tea for a special to watch but then again, the lovely Kim Woo Bin is the one to watch despite his minor role here. 
*Fun Fact* This is where Kim Woo Bin met his current girlfriend, Yoo Ji Ahn.

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Used for Cass Beer commercial, Dara and Lee Min Ho (mostly everyone’s love) are the highlights in the video due to their chemistry. Surprisingly, you can see clips of young Kim Woo Bin (Lee Min Ho’s friend in the MV) at 0:26 and at 5:09-5:11.



Can you spot any other TV dramas actors and actresses?

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Plot: An immature vampire prince struggles to become a global pop idol

Proved to be a mix bag for network broadcasting stations, Vampire Idol obtained three of the actors-turned-models, Kim Woo Bin, Hong Jong Hyun, and Lee Soo Hyuk and then used parts of their original names as characters in this drama. Creative, huh? 

With the high rise in popularity from White Christmas, Kim Woo Bin goes from being a genius prankster to the exact opposite direction: a sillier, lighter type of character. This brings to our attention that he is the most normal of all the vampires. His character believes he’s no longer the ideal of male beauty which causes him some grief.




In addition, shortly after the filming, the staff advised Kim Woo Bin to change his name in order to avoid confusion with that other Kim Hyun Joong. So Kim Woo Bin changes his actual name 'Kim Hyun-Joong', to the stage name 'Kim Woo Bin', the suggestion being taken from his agency. 

Despite this drama being a let-down, Vampire Idol pulled through with 79 more episodes than anticipated. In essence, Vampire Idol becomes an easy, fun to watch and simple to follow drama. 

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Plot: Known as a male version of Sex and the City, AGD is all about the love lives and careers of urban professionals, which gives a story of four middle aged men who have been friends since “almost forever” as they live through love, breakup, success, and failure.





Portrayed as a rowdy rebel, Kim Woo Bin is granted the role of “a problematic underachiever whose dream is to become the ethics teacher’s younger husband” unlike his role in WC. The most common facts are that they are both rebellious characters who can’t be beaten by anyone when it comes to fighting and also both like older women. With the lack of character development in AGD, writer Eun-sook is partly to blame when Kim Woo Bin’s character was originally meant to be small. As a result of his talents, he outshines his role which led to more material being given to him as the show progressed.  

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Plot: A Korean girl, Goo Jae-Hee, who lives in the United States, sees a track and field competition on TV and becomes attracted to one of the high jump competitors, Kang Tae-joon. Soon, she begins to idolize the young athlete and then transfers to Korea to attend the same school that Tae-joon attends after he suffers an accident that might end his career. Jae Hee must disguise herself as a boy in order to enter Tae-joon’s all-boys high school.





Although the role in To the Beautiful You was small, Kim Woo Bin’s character displayed great confidence in order for Tae-joon to acknowledge his feelings towards Jae-Hee. Being Tae-Joon’s rival, he helps him break out of his denial shell and no wonder, he ends up being the catalyst in this drama. 

In this drama, he is a respected photographer and childhood friend of Jae-Hee who aids her to transform into a boy to enter Genie High School. Well, at the very least, he’s not the genius bully in this drama.

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Plot: An overweight detective must become a model to investigate the drug trafficking case around runway business.




Not surprisingly, Kim Woo Bin takes the role of a fashion model since this film’s theme revolves around modeling, runway and fashion shows. Once again, Kim Woo Bin re-teams with previous actors from White Christmas to star in this film. Just to say, I only watched this film for Kim Woo Bin’s fashion style and runway features.

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This drama signifies as Kim Woo Bin’s breakout role by stealing audience’s hearts. He’s best noted for this drama and has been nominated as ‘Best New Actor (TV) for School 2013 for the 2013 Baeksang Arts Award.

Plot: Popular high school student completely changes his ways when new students transfer into his class. It’s all about growing up, friendship, hope, love and loyalty.




Kim Woo Bin plays the role of Park Heung Soo, s student with a violent past, who has the resolve to just quietly attend school. His soaring height of 188 cm, his chic eyes and deep-toned voice helped adding the weight of his character that seems to enhance the tension between everyone else and his character. His character just seems to overflow with charisma and force. Being past friends with Nam Soon, this complements their brotherly bond and perhaps bromance. Within this drama, this is the first time seeing Kim Woo Bin crying but ‘bravely’! This got me genuinely engaged solely because of this.




It’s very impressive how little Kim Woo Bin’s character needs to capture our attention. By looking at his eyes and tiny shifts of expressions on his face, we receive clues as to Heung Soo’s emotions. Self-realization and forgiveness is one of the columns that supports the part of the show. “Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker. That’s what you call a habit that you can’t get rid your body of.” Touche. As always, Kim Woo Bin will be the bully and the troublemaker in my eyes nonetheless. 

This drama for me hits all the high notes and I really liked the sense of realism and how close it depicts real life. Nothing fancy is done with the cinematography and camera work. It’s all raw. All the key roles were delivered excellently. I ended up loving this show to bits and pieces…

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Plot: Another Boys Before Flowers’s effect drama about a group of privileged, elite high school students , which depicts the friendships, rivalries, and love lives of young, rich heirs and a so-called ordinary girl from a poor background.


Kim Woo Bin once again stars as the menacing big man on campus and genius high school student who tries to get revenge on a childhood friend, Kim Tan (Lee Min Ho) by stealing his girl, Cha Eun-Sang (Park Shin-Hye). He has an IQ of 150 but lacks the effort of putting any work into his schoolwork. Suffering from an abusive and mercilessly strict father, he uses his tough, bully persona in order for others to recognize him and his accomplishments. He is often washing dishes at the hotel as a part of his training as being the next CEO of Zeus Hotel. 

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This drama shows numerous of similarities to the American Gossip Girl series especially all the characters are loosely based off the characters from GG. No doubt, Choi Young Do shares interchangeable qualities to Chuck Bass anywhere from their judgmental attitude, twisted and flirty ways, contemplating, handsome looks, laziness, to their trouble-making plans. Both share similar charisma. Wait! And there's more. Not only that, the difficult and 'lack of' relationship with their wealthy fathers is the underlying factor within both of their characters. 






Not only being the catalyst in Heirs, his character is also involved in the love triangle between Eun-Sang, Kim Tan, and himself. As he attempts to lure Eun-Sang in various ways, Kim Tan starts to find himself deeply in love with Eun-Sang. This is why I am looking forward to finishing the rest of this drama since Choi Young-Do is solely the reason that I’m watching this drama. Yay.



This is Kim Woo Bin’s first major film role as it is the fastest film to reach one million viewers in Korean history and the first movie big box office hit. The rising actor gains 9 kg (20 lbs) to grow a bigger build for the movie as he plays the lead role.

Plot: A sequel to 2001’s Friend, Friend 2 is about three men who are gangsters based on the background of the year 1963 and 2010. It’s the continuation of the story.



For the majority of the film, his drunken scene won over the audience. Can you be sober when acting realistically drunk? 


Kim Woo Bin stars as Choi Sung-Hoon, the hidden son of Jang Dong Gun’s character from the first movie. He grew up unruly under his single mother and alcoholic and gambling addicted stepfather. The best Kim Woo Bin’s acting scene in the film: Choi Sung-Hoon becomes drunk and reveals his true feelings with his strong gaze and flushed cheeks. The most awesome part: he was sober for the entire scene! Kim Woo Bin gained much praise from the audience even he got to show off his motorbike riding and fighting skills. In order to shoot the motorbike scenes in the film, he had obtained his driver’s license.

This is why Kim Woo Bin is becomingly readily popular especially among female audiences in their 20’s. It is the key reason as to why the movie is doing so well in the first place.

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In the year of 2012 and 2013, Kim Woo Bin’s acting surpassed his performances with many main roles including his appearance in the Korean variety show, Running Man. Among his rising popularity, he is still committed to his long-term fashion model girlfriend, Yoo Ji Ahn. What’s next to expect from him? Rumors are being spread that he may be co-starring with Lee Hyun-Woo in a new film called Experts or The Professionals. But, who knows?

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Chigus, I hope you all enjoyed my lengthy yet obsessive stalker’s guide to Kim Woo Bin!! Yet he may or may not be a prince for you, he has certainly charmed me with his adorable smirks and his hidden talents. Now, I have the right to say that he is my everything ^_^  Don’t worry, I won’t leave you empty-handed. Check out his aegyo video clip. Maybe, this clip will do the trick in my last attempt to convince you on how he is stalker worthy. J

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If there is an actor or an actress that is worthy of a Stalker's Guide in your opinion, and you have watched enough dramas of his/hers to prove it, please contact Elisabetta about it.