Lee Min-Ho is back!

By Jae-Ha Kim
Kocowa.com
April 24, 2019

Hallelujah! After spending 1 year, 11 months and 13 days (but who’s counting?) serving mandatory military duty, Lee Min-Ho will be discharged on Thursday, April 25th. The A-list actor has chosen to re-enter civilian life without fanfare.

“He’ll be quietly ending his service with no special event,” according to his agency, MYM Entertainment.

A quick timeline of Lee’s military service:

May 12, 2017: Lee enrolled as a public service officer on May 12, 2017 at the Suseo Social Welfare Center, which is run by the Gangnam District Office. Due to a severe leg injury  that he suffered in a 2006 automobile accident, he couldn’t serve in active duty in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force. His friend, actor Jung Il-Woo, was also injured in that same accident. (Jung completed his duties as a public service worker on November 30, 2018).

March 15, 2018: Though he was a public service officer, Lee was required to complete four weeks of basic military training. He began this portion of his military service at the Korea Army Training Center in Nonsan.

April 12, 2018: Lee finished his training and returned to his public service position at the Suseo Social Welfare Center.

April 25, 2019: Having fulfilled his duty to South Korea, Lee re-enters civilian life!

Fans are curious what Lee will film for his post-military comeback. Song Joong-Ki became more popular than ever with “Descendants of the Sun,” where he played an elite soldier. More importantly, he starred opposite Song Hye-Kyo, who would become his real-life wife. And Lee’s friend, Jung Jung Il-Woo, is having enormous success with his K-Drama comeback, “Haechi.”

Lee is such a recognizable face of the Hallyu movement that Madame Tussauds in Shanghai showcased his wax likeness in April 2013.

One of South Korea’s biggest stars, Lee has a knack for making unrelatable (and sometimes unlikable) characters attractive. He initially won international fame as Gu Jun-Pyo — a petty, handsome flower boy — in 2009’s “Boys Over Flowers.” He had a slew of roles following that series, including 2011’s “City Hunter,” where he was involved in an on-set car accident. He parlayed that popularity into the leading role of  Kim Tan in 2013’s “The Heirs,” where he once again played a rich, handsome son of a chaebol who wasn’t above bullying others. But here, his character at least had a conscience and a sense of right and wrong.

Before he entered the military, Lee left fans with the 2016 film “Bounty Hunters,” the SBS series “Legend of the Blue Sea” and the documentary “DMZ, The Wild.”

What kind of K-Drama do you think Lee Min-Ho should tackle next? Let me know in the comments below!

Trivia: Remember that statement from MYM Entertainment at the beginning of this post. Do you know why Lee chose to sign with that particular agency in 2016?

Answer: The usual answer for switching management companies would be for something like creative differences. But Lee’s decision may have had a lot to do with trust. MYM was founded jointly by Lee Yoon-Jung of Euphoria Seoul and Jang Young-Hoon of Starhaus Entertainment. CEO Lee Yoon-Jung is … Lee Min-Ho’s real-life noona.