More Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes

The last post we wrote reminded me that I had been meaning to post another round of Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes since the first round I did was right at the beginning of this blog.  Some of these might seem kind of random, but they seriously drove me nuts until I figured out why their faces seemed so familiar.  Are k-dramas melting my brain for real, or do these people actually look somewhat similar?

1. Lee Yoon-ji (Dream High) and Jessica Alba

This one feels like a no-brainer to me.  The second Lee Yoon-ji walked onscreen, I thought, "Whoa! Jessica Alba has a Korean twin!" 

Jessica Alba photo source

I also vaguely recall that Jessica Alba was the star of some teen dance movie at some point, so they also have that in common.  This leads me to wonder what would happen if they met in an evil twin dance-off.  Who would win?  Would it break the laws of physics and explode the earth?  I don't know the answers to these things, but I DO know that when it comes to K-pop nemesis dance-offs, you can't do much better than this video.  Go watch it three times in a row, and then we'll get back to this list.

2. Sung Joon (Lie to Me) and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jung Ryeo-won (My Lovely Sam Soon).

To be fair to Sung Joon, Charlotte Gainsbourg (who was in a version of Jane Eyre, among other things) has a pretty androgynous face, so I'm not necessarily saying he looks like a lady (but maybe a little bit).  Still, I feel like they could be siblings separated at birth.

Charlotte photo source

That being said, the first time I saw My Lovely Sam Soon, I could not for the life of me figure out why Jung Ryeo-won seemed so familiar until I realized that something about the long, windswept hair and the way she carries herself also reminds me of Charlotte Gainsbourg (maybe because I saw a movie with her in it on Netflix not that long ago). 

Charlotte photo source

What I'm trying to say here is that if Sung Joon and Jung Ryeo-won had a baby, she would probably star in obscure French films.

3. Ji Hyun-woo (Queen In Hyun's Man) and Brendan Fehr

Circa 1999, Roswell was the hot new show for teens. Don't remember it?  Well, basically it was about hot angsty teenage aliens in love with hot angsty teenage humans. It was so hard for them to be in love because they came from different worlds.  

Sound familiar?  Well, now in 2013 I'm almost done watching Queen In Hyun's Man, which is about--you guessed it--hot young people learning how hard it is to be with someone who comes from a different world.  But the similarities don't stop there!  I spent the first episode of the series pausing my video stream, just trying to figure out why Ji Hyun-woo looked so familiar. It's because his facial expressions are really, really similar to Brendan Fehr's.  The problem is that it has to do more with the way their faces move than anything else, so getting a screen capture at just the right second was impossible.  Just trust me that they're the same, okay?

It's so hard to be so handsome and also so tormented by supernatural problems, isn't it?

4. Lee Won-jung (Vampire Prosecutor) and Jack Black

C'mon. Two lovingly chubby masters of physical comedy who just put a smile on your face. Can you imagine if Jack Black made a cameo on Vampire Prosecutor as an American detective who steals Soon-bum's thunder?  Can you?  I don't know why people don't pay me the big bucks to write these genius scenarios.

5. Choi Woo-shik (Rooftop Prince) and Tony Curtis

I know I already mentioned this one in my Rooftop Prince review, but the comparison (even when they're both in drag!) is uncanny, and I somehow felt like Choi Woo-shik would feel left out if he didn't end up with the other lookalikes, so here it is again!

So who did I miss?  What random lookalike connections have you made?

Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes

You know that feeling when you're watching a movie, and you suddenly know that actor reminds you of someone, but you just can't figure out who it is?  I have that feeling all the time while watching Korean dramas.  Sometimes they remind me of my second grade crush or my old piano teacher, but sometimes the actors look like a Korean version of actors in Hollywood movies. Because I'm so nice, I'm going to share my discoveries with you.  For some of them, I might save you the trouble of having to google "so-and-so looks like..." in hopes of resolving the unsettling feeling that you've seen that face before.  For others, I might be the only person on the planet who sees the similarity, but I will defend these connections to the death.

Without further ado...Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes!


So much brooding and cheekbones going on in these photos.
All kdrama photos are screenshots; RPats photo source

1. Jae-joong (Protect the Boss) and Robert Pattinson

Interestingly enough, I'm not the first person to make this comparison.  Apparently, an Italian magazine did a "which one is hotter" segment comparing these two, which seems redundant because they basically look the same to me.

2. Kim Jeong-hoon (Princess Hours) and a bunch of ladies

This one was pretty tricky to figure out.  Every time Prince Yul smiled, I had the vague impression that I had seen it before in some really pleasant Hollywood romcom.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), Princess Hours is ten million hours long, so I had plenty of time to scrutinize his face before it finally dawned on me in a flash: Kim Jeong-hoon smiles exactly like Ginnifer Goodwin (no wonder visions of a shy girl in a cardigan kept floating around in my head as I tried to piece things together!), and he also bears a pretty solid resemblance to Mae Whitman.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself!

The identical haircuts don't hurt. 
Mae Whitman source

They're both so coy! 
Ginnifer Goodwin source

Now that I think about it, I think that I should write a screenplay in which Ginnifer Goodwin is the responsible older sister to Mae Whitman's rebellious one.  Ginnifer takes care of them both because they're orphans, but THEN the half-Korean half-brother they never knew they had shows up in their lives to turn things upside down!  There is a hilarious scene of cultural confusion at a carnival, and maybe a montage of them fixing up a house that they can all share. It all ends with someone (any one of the three will do) falling in love with Michael Vartan.  I will accept my millions of dollars for this idea in cash, please!

3. Jang Keun Suk (You Are Beautiful) and Criss Angel

"I also make magic--with my MUSIC."
As a sidenote, I wish the series as a whole had involved
 more card tricks and less crying.

Get it?  One of them uses the last name Angel, and the other acts as a member of the band A.N.JELL.  It's like this comparison was just waiting to happen.  Now, admittedly, the similarity here owes more to emo-swoop hair and bizarre styling than anything else, but it's still pretty distracting until Tae Kyung gets his (not much better, and possibly worse) makeover a few episodes into the series.

Does this mean that Joon Pyo is Voldemort?
Harry Potter photo source

4. Jung Eui-chul (Boys over Flowers) and Harry Potter

I am shocked--shocked, I tell you, that if you google "Korean Harry Potter," the character of Min Jae Ha doesn't even show up on the first page of image results.  Maybe it's because this character (spoiler alert!)appears, becomes a love interest, almost kills a main character, sets up a ransom situation, and disappears all within two-ish episodes.  In spite of the fact that he was there purely as a plot extension, I kept expecting him to pull out a broom and invite Jan Di to play some Quidditch.

So, what's the verdict?  Do you agree?  Am I totally crazy?  What Kdrama Hollywood lookalikes have you noticed?