When she played Sun in the series "Lost," actress Kim Yun Jin was the first actress to speak whole Korean sentences on prime time American television.
That's enough of a reason for The New York Times to have called her a "game-changing" actress in an Entertainment section article last week. As Sun in the long-running drama "Lost," she pretended not to speak English for a couple of seasons so that her husband would not know she had once planned to run away to the U.S.
But she's also noteworthy for several other reasons. She is starring in a new series, works in both the U.S. and Korea, and has become a producer, eager to promote k-dramas and Korean cultur in the U.S.
The 42-year-old actress, also known as Yunjin Kim, will soon star in the series "Mistresses" about four 30-something friends. She will play a psychiatrist named Karen Kim in the series, a woman devastated by her lost love. The series is a remake of a BBC series of the same name and it will be adapted for American TV by one of the writers who worked on "Gossip Girl."
Kim Yun Jin emigrated to the U.S. when she was 10 years old. She's fluent in both English and Korean, dividing her time between Los Angeles and Seoul. In 1997 she starred in "Splendid Holiday," a k-drama filmed in New York. That prompted her to return to Korea. She was cast in the k-drama "Wedding Dress" and then the film "Spring in My Hometown." Her breakthrough hit was the film "Shiri," which became a huge box office hit.
But Kim Yun Jin did not give up on her acting career in the U.S. and after appearing as a castaway in "Lost," her character's name became a household word.
She has also become a producer and promoter of k-dramas. She bought the k-drama "Nine: Nine Time Travels" to the attention of American producers and plans are underway to make the drama into an ABC series.
"As someone who had a lot of fun watching the drama I think it's great that "Nine: Nine Time Travels" was sold to the U.S.," she said. "I hope that other dramas with great content will be remade there and I will work hard to make that happen."
Aside from the article, which talked about her life, the actress also recently appeared in an advertisement for kimchi. The ad was part of a campaign to promote Korean food and culture led by Seo Kyoung Duk, a professor at Sungshin Women's University in Seoul.
Kim Yun Jin is an actress who frequently reinvents herself and in doing so, she is helping to introduce the best of Korea to the U.S.
