"Secret Message," starring Big Bang's T.O.P. and popular Japanese actress Juri Ueno is more than a web drama. It's a love story with an international cast that aims for an international audience. And the message is that love is a universal emotion.
The web drama was a joint venture by the Korean content company CJ E&M, the Japanese entertainment company Amuse Inc., and the global messender Line Corp.
Besides T.O.P. and Juri Ueno, the drama also stars Korean actors Yoo In Na, Jung Yu Mi, Shin Won Ho, Ko Se Hee and Lee Jae Yoon, as well as Japanese actors Saki Fukuda, Keisuke Koide and Kento Kaku.
It's the story of a Korean student Woo Hyun and a Japanese girl named Haruka. Both have emotional scars from unhappy love affairs but they still believe in the possibility of true love.
PD Lee Seung Hoon of CJ E&M spoke about the casting of T.O.P. and Juri Ueno at the October 28 press conference for the drama.
"It took a long time to get from planning to production but this was the cast I had in mind when I planned to direct this series," said Lee.
T.O.P., whose real name is Choi Seung Hyun, said he was eager to work on the project because he was a fan of Juri Ueno's. The Japanese actress has appeared in dozens of films and dramas, including the Japanese version of "Nodame Cantabile." In this drama his character is a hopeless romantic.
'I feel a great responsibility toward this drama and I worked hard to present the best possible performance in just 10 minutes," said Choi. "The story is very common, sometimes happy, sometimes sad. The drama will be successful if the audience can feel what Woo Hyun feels."
Although T.O.P. has appeared in k-dramas he has focused on films lately, with his most recent film being "Tazza: The Hidden Card."
Juri Ueno confessed that communicating with T.O.P. was not always easy since she did not speak Korean. But love is a universal language so she found a way to express it. In a recent interview with Ceci magazine she spoke about one way she overcame the language barrier.
"Since there was a language barrier I put a lot of feeling into my approach," said Ueno.
Working with someone as famous as T.O.P. also presented a challenge, even though T.O.P. is not the first k-pop idol she has worked with. The actress worked with JYJ's Kim Jae Joong in th 2010 Japanese drama "Sunao ni Narenakute." Working with Kim Jae Joong was a little easier, she said, as he speaks Japanese.
"For this project, my character has a language barrier, so I felt like I was shooting a documentary," she said at the press conference.
In both cases, she tried not to think of her co-stars as being famous.
"I tried not to think that T.O.P and Jaejoong were famous idols," she said. "I only saw them as their characters in the script and I didn't even watch their music videos. It's hard to work with someone if you keep in mind that he is very famous."
The 18-episode drama will air in 10-minute episodes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, beginning November 2. It can be seen on Naver TV Cast in Korea, dTV in Japan and Line TV in Thailand and Taiwan.
