Park Eun-bin

The last chapters of this course were about the system: the channels, the streaming services, the directors. This chapter follows one working actress through it. Park Eun-bin's career runs through nearly everything the course has described: child roles on the big networks, a cable hit, a terrestrial drama about baseball, a historical drama on Netflix, a legal drama that became a global streaming success, and a musical fantasy. It was added to the course at a reader's request, and it stays with her screen work as the sources list it.

Titles You May Know Two Ways

Korean dramas often travel under more than one English title, and two of this chapter's shows do. A reader told me the Netflix names, and I checked them against the articles:

• Hello, My Twenties! is the title of the English article, which was reached from "Age of Youth". Its infobox lists Age of Youth too, and gives the Korean title as Cheongchun sidae, which it translates literally as "Age of Youth". So the two titles are the same show. The article does not mention Netflix.
• Hot Stove League is the English article's title, with Stove League given as the translation of the Korean Seutobeu rigeu and used in its awards tables. The article does not mention a Netflix title, so I can report only that both forms appear.

Child and Supporting Roles, 1996 to 2016

The Wikipedia article says she "began her career as a child model in 1996", started acting at age five, and made her television debut as a child actress in White Nights 3.98 (1998). Her early television work was mostly younger versions of adult characters, including Empress Myeongseong (2001), Queen Seondeok (2009), Dream High (2011, a cameo) and Secret Door (2014). Her first leading role was Operation Proposal (2012). On film, the article lists Death Bell 2: Bloody Camp (2010) and a cameo in Secretly, Greatly (2013).

Hello, My Twenties! (Age of Youth), 2016 to 2017

The article on her says the cable drama Hello, My Twenties! (2016 to 2017) gained her recognition. Its own article describes a "slice-of-life story about five girls who live together in a sharehouse" called "Belle Epoque", reflecting issues younger people in South Korea face.

• Channel and run. JTBC, 22 July 2016 to 7 October 2017: season 1 of 12 episodes and season 2 of 14, so 26 in all.
• Her role. Song Ji-won, in both seasons: "a quirky adventurous roommate who claims to have the ability to see ghosts", listed as a 22-year-old journalism major.
• Ratings. Season 1 averaged 1.6 percent nationwide; season 2 averaged 3.1 percent, with its highest episode at 4.069 percent (a different measure). The article reminds the reader that cable channels typically draw smaller audiences than free-to-air ones, which links back to Chapter 7. The ratings tables in the article are hard to read, since the columns do not match the values.

The Rise: 2017 to 2021

The article's heading for the next period is "Career rise and breakthrough", though it never says one title was the breakthrough. It lists Judge vs. Judge (2017 to 2018), The Ghost Detective (2018), Hot Stove League (2019 to 2020), Do You Like Brahms? (2020) and The King's Affection (2021), and says the last, together with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, brought her international recognition.

Hot Stove League, 2019 to 2020

• Channel and run. SBS, a terrestrial network, 13 December 2019 to 14 February 2020; 16 episodes of 59 to 63 minutes.
• The story. A baseball team called the Dreams, "placed last in the league for the past four seasons", hires Baek Seung-soo as general manager despite "zero experience managing a baseball team".
• Her role. Lee Se-young, the Dreams' operations manager, "the only female manager in the league".
• Ratings. The article's table gives an average of 12.5 percent nationwide, though it says the exact average is unknown because some ratings were not recorded. The finale reached 19.1 percent nationwide (20.8 percent in Seoul). It also gives an average of 2.747 million viewers, a different measure.
• Awards listed. Best Drama at the Baeksang Arts Awards, and at the 33rd Grimae Awards Best Picture (Drama) and Best Actress for Park Eun-bin, with Namkoong Min named Best Actor. Some award rows in the article are formatted ambiguously.

The King's Affection, 2021

• Channel and run. KBS2, a terrestrial network, 11 October to 14 December 2021, Mondays and Tuesdays at 21:30; 20 episodes of about 70 minutes. It "premiered worldwide on Netflix on the same day".
• The story. It is based on the manhwa Yeonmo by Lee So-young. A twin girl is raised in secret and takes the identity of her brother, the crown prince, after he is killed by mistake, and she has to hide her sex while handling court politics.
• Her role. The article credits her with the single adult role "Crown Prince Lee Hwi / Dam-yi / Yeon-seon". The child versions of both twins are played by Choi Myung-bin.
• Ratings and reach. It debuted at 6.2 percent nationally and peaked at 12.1 percent for episode 20 (Nielsen Korea). The article says it reached Netflix's global Top 10 and was fourth on the non-English list on 23 November.
• Awards. It won the International Emmy for Best Telenovela in 2022, and the article calls it "the first South Korean television series to win an International Emmy Award". Park Eun-bin's own article lists KBS Drama Awards, including a 2021 Top Excellence Actress award.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo, 2022

Chapter 7 gave the facts of the series: ENA, 29 June to 18 August 2022, 16 episodes, and a first-episode rating of 0.948 percent that grew to 17.534 percent for the finale. She plays the title role, Woo Young-woo, and her article says she "reportedly declined" the part at first, a hedged claim. Chapter 9 gave the streaming figures: 348.15 million viewing hours after the finale, and "the most viewed non-English show globally" for two weeks in July 2022. Her article adds that it ranked in Netflix's top 10 non-English series for 21 weeks.

Two awards in the series' own article name her: the Popularity Star Award at the APAN Star Awards 2022 and Best Actress at the Asia Contents Awards (Busan International Film Festival). The articles disagree on APAN: her article's list of awards does not include it, while the series article does. The series won the Baeksang Arts Awards Grand Prize for Television in 2023, and her article lists a Baeksang television Grand Prize at the 59th ceremony. I cannot tell from either whether those two entries are the same honour.

Castaway Diva, 2023

• Channel and run. tvN, a cable channel, 28 October to 3 December 2023, Saturdays and Sundays at 21:20; 12 episodes of about 80 minutes.
• The story. The article calls it a coming-of-age, musical and romantic comedy. Seo Mok-ha, played by Park Eun-bin, dreams of becoming a diva or K-pop idol, is stranded on an uninhabited island after an accident, and returns after 15 years to become manager to her former idol, Yoon Ran-joo (Kim Hyo-jin). A secondary theme is domestic violence and escaping it.
• Ratings. A nationwide average of 6.794 percent, from 3.172 percent for episode 1 to 9.002 percent for the finale.
• Streaming. The article says it is "available for streaming on Netflix in selected regions", but the claim rests on a July 2023 tweet that used a "working title", so current availability is unconfirmed.
• Awards. The drama won a TVING award and a MAMA "tvN of the Year" award; the article lists no award for Park Eun-bin.

Since Then

Her article also lists films, The Witch: Part 2. The Other One (2022) and a special appearance in Road to Boston (2023), and later series: Hyper Knife (2025), The Wonderfools (2026, a Netflix series) and Spooky in Love (2026). It gives me no details on these beyond the titles, and its description of Hyper Knife carries a source-quality tag, so I say no more.

Exercises

Next chapter: Capstone: A Screen Industry Argues With Its Own History, which looks back across all ten chapters at the questions that kept returning.