By Jae-Ha Kim
KOCOWA
September 10, 2021
“The Veil” (“검은 태양”— aka Black Sun) is one of most highly-anticipated K-dramas of the year. It will premiere on September 17 on MBC in South Korea. But those of us in the Americas will have the opportunity to watch it, too. KOCOWA subscribers will have access to fully-subbed episodes a few hours after they air in Korea.
What It’s About:
From KOCOWA’s synopsis:
Ji Hyuk, an ace in the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Foreign Intelligence Bureau, has never failed a mission. However, during a mission by the China-North Korea borders in Liaoning, China, he goes MIA. After one year, Ji Hyuk, classified dead, suddenly appears at the Korean Consulate in Shenyang, China, in the most horrific state. He doesn’t remember anything that happened within the last year. With his memory lost, Ji Hyuk gets assigned to a team with minor tasks. While on the team, he meets Je Yi, who is delicate and heartwarming, but with a painful past. For the first time, Ji Hyuk gets assigned to save people. As he relates to the stories of those people, he faces his memories. Will he be able to unravel all the clues and remember the past year when he went missing?
Sounds intriguing, right? The producers spent almost $13 million on this K-drama. While all that money doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality, the stellar cast, led by Namkoong Min and Park Ha Sun, leads me to believe that this will be a must-see series.
Namkoong Min
Name in Hangul: 남궁민
Birthday: March 12, 1978
Where You’ve Seen Him: “Stove League,” “The Undateables,” “Doctor Prisoner,” “Listen to My Heart,” “Awaken,” “Distorted”
Character in “The Veil”: Han Ji Hyuk
I’m expected big things from Namkoong Min in “The Veil,” because he has the depth to pull off this role. One of my favorite Namkoong Min series was “Doctor Prisoner,” where he played a physician who was made into a scapegoat. Forced to leave his hospital, he got a job at a prison. Bitter, sad and wanting revenge, he began providing false medical reports for his entitled clients, with the intent of earning their trust so he can get the information he wants. His portrayal was so deft that even when he wasn’t completely clean, viewers empathesized with his actions. And in 2016’s “The Doctors,” he wasn’t the star, but guested on three of the K-drama’s best episodes. He played the sole caretaker for two young sons. Not poor enough to qualify for financial aid programs designed to help the indigent meet their hospital costs, he learns that social service will provide free care for orphans. So he contemplates suicide so that his child can get the surgery he needs. His story arc stayed with me long after the series finale.
Park Ha Sun
Name in Hangul: 박하선
Birthday: October 22, 1987
Where You’ve Seen Her: “Temptation,” “Three Days,” “Two Weeks,” “AD Genius Lee Taebaek,” “Korean Ghost Stories-2008,” “High Kick 3”
Character in “The Veil”: Seo Soo Yeon
If you want to get a behind-the-scenes look at “The Veil” before its premiere, check out Park Ha Sun’s appearance on “The Manager” (Ep. 166), where she discussed how her prepared for her role as Seo Soo Yeon, the head of the Criminal Information Integration Center — and also Ji Hyuk’s colleague at the NIS.
Showing off her near perfect shooting skills, she said, “I actually looked into how to become an elite shooting athlete.”
When her shooting proves to be better than her manager’s, he jokes that it’s because her grandfather was a career soldier. ㅋㅋ
The episode also shows how diligent the actress is in getting into her character. Not only did she work on her physical skills, she was diligent about making sure she understood everything about her part. And her secret for dealing with stress? She listens to BTS songs to help her relax.
After dropping her children off at school, Ha Sun heads straight to the library to a solitary cubicle, so that she can study the script. She shared that one trick she uses to memorize her lines is to handwrite them on a pad of paper. (I used to do this in college!) And to get into her role, she said she initially over exaggerates her words, before finessing them to perfection. This helps her recite her part without hesitation on camera.
Some of the scenes were shot in the real-life NIS building in Seoul. But judging by the sneak peek on the set of “The Manager,” it appeared that the set designers did a realistic recreation.
Soooooo… who else will be tuning in to watch “The Veil” on KOCOWA? Let me know in the comments if you get a chance!
