Child Actors: The Popular Wave in Modern Day Korea

            I want to talk about another fun subject! Korean child actors (아역배우)! Korean is well-known for its dramas (TV shows) and a lot of Korean dramas start off with the childhood days of the main characters – which calls for child actors! Not only that, there were children’s dramas – TV shows for children, which called for all the main characters to be acted by child actors. Don’t get me started about children’s dramas, the super popular ones are my childhood! They stopped making children’s dramas a long time ago, but now they’re starting up another one after many years again but I may post my personal opinions on this new children’s drama on a separate blog post in the near future.

            Anyway, of course, child actors have always existed in Korea but nowadays, they receive as much love as grown up actors. I guess there are more acting academies now and they teach well or something, because there are many talented child actors out there. Not that child actors in the olden days were bad at acting, in fact, many of them have grown up to be active as grown up actors, but there were less child actors then. Child actors these days are also good-looking, and there the more popular ones.

            I’ve always had interest in Korean child actors, probably because I was about the age of most child actors growing up watching K-dramas and I took interest in them. So the fact that now Koreans are obsessing over them is an old thing for me, you know?

            Let’s look into specific child actors, picked out by yours truly, starting with the ones who’ve grown up to shed the label “child actor/actress”. (Before we start, the last name goes first in Korea but that doesn’t mean you call them by their last name).

Yoo Seung Ho <First name is Seung Ho> (유승호)

Birth date: 1993.08.17

Click here for second picture source

Oh, Yoo Seung Ho. One of my absolute favorites.

I saw him first in a movie called "The Way Home" (2002) when I was 7-ish years old.

He is super popular - in fact, he was in most of the dramas I've seen.

He's dubbed as Korea's Child Actor but now he's been stepping out of acting for the younger version of a character.

He's doing his service in the army right now, way to go!

Lee Se Young (이세영)

Birth date: 1992.12.20

First Picture Source / Second Picture Source

Lee Se Young was also has a nice filmography and she was in a lot of the dramas and movies I've watched.

Lee Minho (이민호)

Birth date: 1993.06.28

Second picture source

No, this is not the other actor named Lee Minho. It's the used to be child actor, Lee Minho!

This guy is also a big part of my childhood, he was in a kids' show equivalent to Sesame Street that I watched, in a popular sitcom back in the late 90s and in the children drama with Yoo Seung Ho (first picture)! 

He's been really popular as well, especially because he was in the hit drama, "The Moon Embracing the Sun" <해를 품은 달>

Although he's in his 20s now, he still plays roles of the younger version of main characters.

Popular Child Actors Today...

Yeo Jin Gu (여진구)

Birth date: 1997.08.13

First Picture Source / Second Picture Source

Yeo Jin Gu, Yeo Jin Gu... Before the world noticed him, I did (haha;;).

He is now a first year high school student, but he's got plenty of nuna fans.
Maybe it's weird to the American perspective that he is considered a child actor, but in Korea, that's how it is.

Kim Yoo Jung (김유정)

Birth date: 1999.09.22

Picture source

To be very honest, I'm not too familiar with Kim Yoo Jung - I mean, I know who she is because she's that popular now but I haven't seen her in any flicks or shows, well, I don't know of any that I've watched.

I'm reminded about another point about the modern child actors in Korea - even though they're young and they take up younger versions of the main character in dramas, they still do "mature" acting, in which they get lovey dovey or rebellious. I guess it goes along with the rest of the world today...?

And this is a personal opinion, but a lot of child actors today look older than their actual age. It wasn't like that in the olden days, so the "senior" child actors (a few of them introduced above) constantly reminds us of their childhood appearance because it's stuck in our minds.

Kim So Hyun (김소현)

Birth date: 1999.06.04

Picture Source

Again, not too familiar with this chica, but she has been rising in popularity as well.

I know she played the younger version of actress Yoon Eun Hye's character in the drama "I Miss You", and I think this was a wise choice by the director since they do look alike.

(759, not counting names and birth dates)