5 reasons to love Jeon Do-yeon, star of Netflix’s Kill Boksoon: the first Korean to win best actress at Cannes is known as a ‘chameleon’ – and joked that Squid Game’s Gong Yoo wasn’t her type
- Tough female protagonists are having a K-drama moment: hot on the heels of Song Hye-kyo’s ruthless character in The Glory comes Jeon Do-yeon’s professional assassin role in revenge drama Kill Boksoon
- Jeon has earned multiple accolades during her 30-year career, but impressed viewers when she won at Cannes for her portrayal of a grieving widow in Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine
Kill Boksoon centres on Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-yeon), a mother who moonlights as a professional assassin. But before she renews her contract with syndicate organisation MK Ent, she gets into trouble and ends up in a kill-or-be killed situation.
The most exciting thing about Jeon’s latest role is that it sits in stark contrast to her most recent part as the retired handball player and single mum in Crash Course in Romance. After all, there’s a reason Korean critics call Jeon a chameleon.
Here’s what you need to know about the veteran star …
1. Jeon Do-yeon is a versatile actress
Jeon’s body of work spans an impressive three decades. She made her on screen debut in 1992 TV series Our Paradise, but it was her dramatic roles in the films The Contact (1997) and A Promise (1998) that turned her into a local star.
In 1999, she starred in A Harmonium in My Memory and Happy End. Her performance earned her acclaim as one of the leading actresses of her generation, Variety reported in 2007.
Jeon established herself as a chameleon, having the ability to “flawlessly” pull off any role with ease, Yonhap News Agency pointed out: an unfaithful wife, a prostitute with Aids, a mother and a daughter, a warrior and lawyer – the list goes on.