Super Junior (Korean: 슈퍼주니어 Japanese: スーパージュニア), often referred to as
SJ or SuJu (슈주), is a popular boy band from South Korea formed by S.M.
Entertainment in 2005. The group debuted with 12 members: Leeteuk
(Leader), Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin,
Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kibum and later added a 13th member
named Kyuhyun; they are one of the largest boy bands in the world. As
of 2010, 10 members are active, due to Han Geng’s lawsuit with SM
Entertainment which led to him leaving the group (now pursuing his own
singing career in the Mandarin-Pop entertainment industry), Kangin’s
temporary leave of absence for mandatory military service and Kibum’s
pursuit of an acting career. However, the other members have insisted
that the three (Kangin, Kibum and Han Geng) are still part of the
group, the group also mentioned that they are saddened by Han Geng’s
departure from the group
Super Junior has released and contributed in 20 different kinds of
records with varying degrees of success. Over the years, they have been
divided into smaller sub groups, simultaneously targeting different
music industries and audiences. Largely due to Super Junior’s success
as entertainers, other Korean entertainment managements began to train
their music groups in other areas of entertainment, such as acting and
hosting. In addition to their commercial success, Super Junior has
earned seven music awards from the M.net Asian Music Awards, eleven
from the Golden Disk Awards, and is the second singing group to win
Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards after JTL in 2003.
History
Pre-debut
In 2001, the company held their first overseas casting auditions and
discovered Han Geng in Beijing, China, who was chosen from among three
thousand applicants. That same year, Yesung was discovered under
Seoul’s casting system. Sungmin and Donghae became trainees after
jointly winning the first place in Best Outward Appearance in an
SM-sponsored contest. In 2002, Heechul and Kangin were recruited along
with Kibum, who was discovered in Los Angeles. Siwon was recruited in
2003 after being scouted at 16 in front of his high school, and
Ryeowook in 2004, in which the latter was discovered through the Chin
Chin Youth Festival singing competition. In 2005, Shindong was
selected. The last member, Cho Kyuhyun, was then discovered after
winning third place at the Chin Chin Singing Competition in 2005.
Not long after boy band TVXQ’s debut in 2003, news about Lee’s
unprecedented plans of forming another boy band quickly spread on the
Internet. In early 2005, Lee confirmed the news and announced that an
all-boy project group of twelve members would debut near the end of the
year, promoting this singing group to be “The Gateway to Stardom of
Asia.” Lee announced that that most members in this group were chosen
because of their performing experiences as actors, MCs, models, and
radio hosts prior debut. Heechul and Kibum were already established
entertainers, and most of the other members had already made various
kinds of appearances on television and media. Highly inspired by the
rotational concept of Japan’s girl group Morning Musume, this group
would also experience line-up changes, with new members replacing some
selected members every year to keep the group constantly young and
all-rounded. This concept was then newly introduced to the K-pop market.
For a while the group was rumored to be called O.V.E.R, the acronym
for “Obey the Voice for Each Rhythm.” However, before the group settled
with their current name, SM simply referred to them as Junior, a
representation of the members’ young ages when they first became SM
trainees. After the members’ showcased their different talents to the
company at a picnic, the company finalized their concept name to Super
Junior. The group thereafter became officially Super Junior 05, the
first generation of Super Junior. Leeteuk said on Star Golden Bell “at
first Super Junior name was SM Junior, but after Lee Soo Man see our
performance and he say we have super talent and quickly change our name
to Super Junior”
Super Junior 05 made their pre-debut on the Korean channel Mnet on
September 11, 2005. At the showcase, they performed various styles of
hip hop dancing. The group danced to B2K’s “Take It To The Floor.” Han
Geng, Eunhyuk, and Donghae also performed a separate dance away from
the group, dancing to Usher’s “Caught Up.” However, the performance did
not air on television until May 16, 2006 as a segment in the Super
Junior Show, the group’s first television documentary.
2005–2006: The Super Junior project
Super Junior 05 debuted on SBS’s music program Popular Song on
November 6, 2005, performing their first single, “TWINS (Knock Out).” A
digital single with “TWINS (Knock Out)”, “You are the one”, and three
additional tracks were released online on November 8. A physical CD
single was scheduled to be released the following week but a more
complete album, SuperJunior05 (TWINS), was released on December 6, 2005
instead. Their debut album sold 28,536 copies in the first month of
release and debuted at #3 in the monthly chart of December 2005. In
that same month, they released “Show Me Your Love,” a collaboration
single with TVXQ. “Show Me Your Love” became the best-selling record of
December 2005, selling 49,945 copies that month.
In February 2006, Super Junior 05 began performances for “Miracle”,
the second promotional single from their debut album. “Miracle” was the
group’s first single to peak #1 in online music charts of South Korea
as well as the music charts of Thailand, drawing interest from
international markets. As promotions for “Miracle” came to an end, SM
Entertainment began selecting new members for Super Junior’s second
line-up project, Super Junior 06. The company even prepared a list of
chosen members that were to graduate from the group. However, no
members were taken out and a thirteenth member was added instead in May
2006. The line-up project has been abandoned since then, and the group
became known as just Super Junior, without the suffix “05″.
2006–2007: Don’t Don and breakthrough success
On May 23, 2006, SM Entertainment revealed the thirteenth member
Kyuhyun, who was discovered through a singing competition in 2005. They
released their single “U” online for free download on May 25, 2006 in
their official website. “U” had over 400,000 downloads within five
hours of release and it ultimately exceeded 1.7 million downloads,
crashing the server. The physical single of “U” with a total of three
tracks was released on June 6, 2006, eventually selling over 81,000
units. The single became one of Korea’s most popular songs of the year,
yielding #1 spots for five consecutive weeks on two of Korea’s top
music programs. By the end of the year, Super Junior collected over
seven awards in five of South Korea’s top music award ceremonies,
winning the title as Best New Group of 2006.
Super Junior’s first sub-unit, the ballad-singing trio Super
Junior-K.R.Y., debuted on November 5, 2006 with a performance of Hyena
theme song “The One I Love” on KBS music program Music Bank. A second
sub-unit arrived in February 2007 called Super Junior-T. The
trot-singing group released their first single “Rokkugo” on February
23, 2007 and made a debut performance on Popular Songs two days later.
Super Junior’s second official album was intended for a late 2006
release, but due to several accidental setbacks, Don’t Don was not
released until September 20, 2007. Within the first three days of
release, offline album sales for Don’t Don passed the 11,000 unit mark,
debuting as #1 in all available offline charts. It finished the
September monthly album sales as #1. 60,000 units were shipped by the
first week of release and additional copies were printed. Although
Don’t Don received rather bland reviews from critics, the album sold
more than 160,000 copies by the end of the year, becoming the second
best-selling record of 2007. The album also found success in Taiwan; it
broke the record for being the highest ranked Korean album on the
G-music Combo Billboard Chart, surpassing the albums of TVXQ and
Shinhwa. Super Junior’s album also ranked above Taiwanese boy band K
One, whose album debuted at #6.
Supported by the release of Don’t Don, Super Junior was nominated in
seven separate categories at the 2007 M.NET/KM Music Festival that was
held on November 17, 2007. Super Junior won three of those categories
including “Netizen Choice Award” and “Mobile Popularity”, being the
biggest winner of the night. The group also won “Best Artist of the
Year” (Daesang), termed by many as the highest recognition of the
ceremony. Super Junior collected two more awards on December 14, 2007
at the 2007 Golden Disk Awards. Although defeated by SG Wannabe in
winning the “Daesang”, Super Junior won a “Bonsang” and the “TPL
Anycall Popularity Award”, which were reported as expected wins for the
group by the media after the success of Don’t Don.
2008–2009: Beyond Korea and Sorry, Sorry
On October 2, 2007, SM Entertainment announced a third Super Junior
sub-unit Super Junior-M, a subgroup designated for the Chinese market.
While the creation of the subgroup created a brief controversy between
the fans and the management, Super Junior-M became a phenomenal success
in China, having the opportunity to have two sold-out concerts in Hong
Kong, top weekly ratings with their appearance on variety programs, and
becoming the idol group with the most endorsement contracts in China.
With the absence of almost half of the members in Korea, a fourth Super
Junior sub-unit was created that same year to prevent Super Junior from
disappearing in the Korean music industry. With five members from Super
Junior-T and Yesung, they formed the subgroup, Super Junior-Happy.
Super Junior-Happy released the EP Cooking? Cooking! On June 5, 2008,
and promotions ended on September 7, lasting for four months. In
November 2008, Super Junior-T returned, this time as a singing group in
Japan, called SuperJunior-TxMoeyan; this group added Moeyan, a famous
two-woman comedy group in Japan. “ROCK&GO”, a Japanese-language
version of “Rokuko”, debuted at #19 on the Oricon Daily Charts and
jumped to #2 three days later.
Super Junior’s first major tour, Super Show, commenced on February
22, 2008 in Seoul. The tour covered three countries and had shows on
six different cities, including Bangkok, Shanghai, and Beijing. From
July 8 to July 9, 2008, Super Junior held their first fan meeting in
Japan, at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, as a celebration for the grand
opening of their official Japanese Homepage, which was launched on
April 1, 2008. 12,000 tickets to the fanmeeting were all sold out in
several days. The group released a compiled Japan single the following
day, entitled “U/TWINS”, which includes the Japanese version of “U” in
the limited release, to complement the event. The single peaked at #4
on Japan’s Oricon Daily Chart in its first day of release, and dropped
down to only four places in its second. The single broke a new record
for being the first Korean single to have made within top 10 on Japan’s
Oricon Weekly Chart. On August 2, 2008, Super Junior expanded their
routes to Genting Highlands, Malaysia, being one of the top guest
performers at the MTV Asia Awards 2008 along with other international
performing artists such as OneRepublic and the Jabbawockeez. They are
the third SM artist to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards
after Kangta of H.O.T and BoA, and the second musical group to win the
award after JTL in 2008.
Super Junior’s third album, Sorry, Sorry, was released on March 12,
2009 with acclaimed reviews. The title single of the album, “Sorry,
Sorry” was digitally released on March 9, 2009. In less than a week
after preorders were announced, over 150,000 copies were pre-ordered.
Sorry, Sorry was their first album to debut at #1 on the Hanteo Charts,
and it sold over 29,000 copies the first day, defeating Seo Taiji’s
record of 25,000. Promotions for the album started March 13 with the
performance of “Sorry, Sorry” and “Why I Like You” on Music Bank. Two
weeks later, “Sorry, Sorry” became the number one song of the week on
the same program. During the group’s performance on music program
Popular Songs on March 15, ratings went up to as high as 14%, the
highest in recent years. From March to May, “Sorry, Sorry” collected a
total of ten #1 awards with consecutive wins in Korea, having the
single becoming a national and international success. After only a
month of release, the album became South Korea’s best-selling album of
2009. Sorry, Sorry was also a critically and commercially successful
hit in other Asian countries, opting the group to become the only
overseas representative for the second time at Taiwan’s annual Golden
Melody Awards. “Sorry, Sorry” was also #1 for a record-breaking 37
weeks in Taiwan. Sorry, Sorry was a best-selling Korean-language album
in Taiwan, Thailand, China, and the Philippines, in which the latter
listed the album to be the first K-pop album to reach #1 in music
charts from the country. Super Junior won three awards in the 1st MNET
Asian Music Awards – Overseas Viewers Award, Mobile Popularity Award
and CGV Popularity Award despite not attending. Super Junior’s Sorry,
Sorry won Daesang at the 2009 Golden Disk Awards. They held their
second Asia Tour Super Show 2 start in Seoul on July 17, 2009, and
ended in Manila, Philippines on April 10, 2010.
2010: Bonamana and vast Asian popularity
On May 6, 2010, the teaser for their fourth studio album, Bonamana,
was released through SM Entertainment’s YouTube page. The full music
video of the lead single of the same name was released on May 12 and
full album was released on May 13 in South Korea. The album was
released by the group with only 10 members, without Han Geng who has
terminated his contract with SM Entertainment, Kibum who is involved in
acting career and Kangin who had enlisted himself in to the Korean
army. Their fourth album had also broken a personal record for the
group by having over 200,000 pre-orders. On May 14, Super Junior had
their comeback stage on KBS Music Bank, performing title track “미인아
(Bonamana)” and “나쁜 여자 (Boom Boom)”.
On May 17, 2010, music video for the song, “Victory Korea”, which
was used for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was released through SM
Entertainment’s YouTube page. Super Junior’s World Cup song ‘Victory
Korea’ set to cheer the S.Korean team in the top 16 garners interests
overseas. A poll was recently done on American site ESPN for the Best
World Cup Song. There were 11 songs shortlisted for the poll including
Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’, K’Nann’s ‘Wavin’ Flag’, Akon ‘Oh Akrica’ etc.,
to which the song “Victory Korea” by Super Junior was voted #1 with
over 90% of the poll. “Victory Korea” features a sample mix from
“Sorry, Sorry,” with a similar dance done by the members of Super
Junior-Happy in the music video.
On June 28, 2010, Super Junior released their repackaged album with
three new tracks – “No Other”, “All My Heart”, “A Short Journey” – and
the remixed version of “Shake It Up!”. “A Short Journey” was composed
by Donghae and the lyrics were written by Eunhyuk. “All My Heart” was
composed by Leeteuk and SJ-M member Henry. On July 2, 2010, Super
Junior had their first live performance of “No Other” on Music Bank.
The music video for “No Other” was released on July 7, 2010. According
to Hanteo, the album has sold over 200,000 copies to date. The album
Bonamana got the 7th spot on the United World Album-Chart.
The group kicked off their third Asian tour, Super Show 3 on August
14 and 15, 2010 at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul. The tour also
made a stop in Qingdao on August 28, 2010, Beijing on October 23, 2010,
and Nanjing on November 13, 2010.
On September 4, 2010, Super Junior took part in the SM Town Live ’10
World Tour along with fellow SM labelmates at the Staples Center in Los
Angeles. This marks the first time SM Town has performed outside of
Asia. On September 23, 2010, Super Junior released their original
soundtrack “Angel” for Haru: An Unforgettable Day in Korea, an omnibus
drama that promotes Korea’s tourism.[citation needed]. On November 22,
Super Junior has been honored as National Pop Culture Icon and received
Minister of Culture Awards by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and
Tourism at Pop Culture Art Awards for their strong role in heating up
the Korean Wave. On November 24, Avex Entertainment, as well as SM
Entertainment Japan, released a statement about the renewal of
contracts of SM artists signed to Avex.
On August 16, 2011, It was announced that Bonamana remained as Top 1
in Taiwan’s Music Charts for 62 weeks (more than a year) breaking their
own previous record of the said chart.
2011: Japanese forays and Korean comeback: Mr. Simple
Super Junior has not taken part in any official promotions in Japan
as of yet, but from February 18 to February 20, 2011, Super Junior held
The 3rd Asia Tour Concert Super Show 3 at the Yokohama Arena in Japan,
which is a large-scale performance hall, from the first performance
itself, and was able to demonstrate their ticket(-selling) power. The
ticket applicants for Super Show 3 Japan were over roughly 110,000 with
about 36,000 people came to watch their performance. The “Super Junior
Japan ‘Super Show 3’ Opening Commemorative Album” which was released on
February 16 came in at 2nd place on Japan’s biggest music store Tower
Records online sales charts. Super Junior Japan Limited Special Edition
– Super Show 3 which contains a DVD came in 2nd place and the CD was in
10th place. Super Junior Japan Limited Special Edition – Super Show 3
also remained #3 spot on Oricon Daily Chart for 2 days in-a-row and #6
spot on Oricon Weekly Chart.
On February 24, Super Junior released a 3D movie from their third
Asia tour, “Super Show 3 3D” in all CGV and Primus movie theaters.
“Super Show 3 3D” was ranked 6th in box office weekly chart and is the
most watched 3D movie in Korea. Super Junior will show off their first
Japanese single album with the release of Japanese version of Bonamana,
titled Bijin (BONAMANA) on June 8. Starting May 16, the song will
be[dated info] shown on major Japanese TV channels as the commercial
song for Japanese convenience store chain Circle K Sunkus.
Super Junior’s first Japanese single, “Bijin (Bonamana)” was
released on June 8, 2011 and debuted at the #2 spot in the Oricon Daily
Singles Chart, selling 27,168 copies on its release date. In addition,
the 美人 (BONAMANA) music video which is made of videos from ‘SUPER
JUNIOR 3rd ASIA TOUR SUPER SHOW 3 in JAPAN’ held at Yokohama Arena in
February, received over 300,000 views on the Japanese UCC website,
Nikoniko in a day. On June 14, Super Junior’s “Bijin (Bonamana)” ranked
at #2 spot in the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart, selling 59,262 copies.
Also, they broke the record for having the highest single album sales
for a Korean idol group when their single albums that were released in
Japan sold combined total of over 100,000 copies (including those sold
at Circle K Sunkus and Mu-Mo), until it was surpassed by fellow
labelmate Shinee with their debut Japanese single “Replay (Kimi wa Boku
no Everything)” at the same month. This is so far, the highest record
for singles released set upon by a Korean group considering Super
Junior didn’t have any promotion in Japan at all. Recently, they took
part in ‘SMTown World Tour Live in Paris’ with fellow label mates,
which was held in Zénith de Paris, Paris, France.
On July 11, 2011, American dancer Kenny Wormald posted via his
official twitter that he had started the choreography rehearsal for the
group’s upcoming new single. Shim Jae Won, choreographer and former
member of the disbanded SM group Black Beat posted on his twitter a
picture showing ten cups with the members’ names on it, citing possible
formation for the song’s choreography, as well as two pictures of the
choreography practice of the group the next day showing only the lower
half of their bodies.
A teaser photo was revealed on July 20, 2011, with the first photo
featuring Eunhyuk. By 1:21PM GST on the 26th of July, all ten teaser
photos had been released, in the following order: Eunhyuk, Donghae,
Leeteuk, Shindong, Kyuhyun, Sungmin, Ryeowook, Yesung, Siwon and
finally, Heechul. On the same day, it was announced that the upcoming
album would hit South Korean record shelves on August 3, 2011. On July
22, 2011, the group began filming the music video for their new lead
single, with occasional photo tweets of the music video sets from Shim
Jaewon and member Heechul. The filming for the music video wrapped up
July 24, 2011, with Shim Jaewon consistently updating the group’s
filming activity. On July 25, Jeon Hoon of Sonic Korea Studio announced
that he is mastering the new album. The group will have an upcoming
press conference at the Seoul Imperial Palace Hotel regarding the new
album, revealed as “Mr. Simple”, on August 4, 2011.
The music video teaser for the new single “Mr. Simple” has been
released on August 1, 2011, to be followed by the digital single on the
2nd (through various Korean online music sites like Melon, Dosirak and
Bugs), the album on the 3rd and the music video itself on the 4th.
On August 4, Super Junior held a press conference for their fifth
album at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Nonhyun-dong, Seoul. Hosted by
Kim Sung Joo, the event brought in over 200 media outlets from Korea,
China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and many other countries, proving
Super junior’s popularity all over Asia and the world. Leader Leeteuk
said, “The leaders of K-Pop, Super Junior, have finally made their
comeback after a year and two months. We promise to promote as hard as
ever.”
As of August 17, 2011, the current active members of Super Junior
are Leeteuk, Heechul, Yesung, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae,
Siwon, Ryeowook, and Kyuhyun. Hankyung’s lawsuit against SM caused his
inactivity. Kangin is currently serving his 2 year military service,
and will be discharged sometime 2012. Kibum is focusing on his acting
career. Super Junior leader Leeteuk is due to enlist in the military
early 2012 and will be discharged in 2013-2014. Heechul will enlist
September 1, 2011.
Artistry
Musical style
As a whole, Super Junior has released four studio albums and one
physical single, including occasional contributions to drama
soundtracks. They are acclaimed for their vocal harmonization and
unison as each member contributes a different position range in their
music. Some members are credited for their vocal belting techniques.
Super Junior works closely with Young Jin Yoo, who has produced and
arranged most of the group’s promotional singles since debut. Yoo’s
also known for creating the renowned SMP style, a genre that includes a
balanced infusion of rock, R&B, and rap, with complementing musical
elements such as the electric guitar, bass, and other different
percussion instruments. Super Junior has prominently used this SMP
style in Don’t Don.
Super Junior has covered a few songs in their albums. Their debut
single “TWINS (Knock Out)” is a cover of Triple Eight’s “Knockout,”
which was released in 2003. While the musical style is mostly
maintained as the original, “TWINS (Knock Out)” touches closer to rap
rock, with quicker rap and more emphasis on the bass. In most of their
covers, the original titles are kept. Examples include Cape’s “L.O.V.E”
and Exile’s “Believe.” However, most of these covers are re-arranged to
different accompaniments, such as H.O.T’s “Full of Happiness”.
Dance Style
Super Junior is known for doing performances that are heavily
centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly
synchronized dances. The group’s pre-debut performance was a hip hop
dance and they have also joined B-boy battles and performances
throughout their career.
Their dance styles are widely termed as street dancing, with a
majority of their choreography containing hip hop dance moves such as
popping, waving, floating, and liquid dancing. Dances in the form of
martial arts are widely used in their dance routines as Han Geng and
Sungmin are professionally trained in that area. Shindong was the main
choreographer for “U” and for a majority of the group’s other dance
sequences. Eunhyuk choreographed the dance for “Boom, Boom” (Fourth
Album) and also worked with the other members to create the dance
choreography for “Don’t Don” and “Marry U”, both promotional singles
for the group’s second album. The dance for their hit single “Sorry,
Sorry” was choreographed by Nick Bass and Trent Dickens, who has also
worked with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. Nick Bass also
choreographed the dance for “BONAMANA”. The dance for “No Other” was
choreographed by THE GEMINIZ, Rino Nakasone and Maryss From Paris.
Super Junior M “Perfection” was choreographed by Misha Gabriel who had
worked with other well known acts and choreographed Justin Timberlake’s
“Future Love Sex Show,” Pussycat Dolls’ “Doll Domination World Tour,”
“Dancing with the Stars” and more.
Popularity
On December 8, as the proponents of Hallyu Wave, idol group Super
Junior was guested in CNN TV station’s 《Talk Asia》 program. Members
Siwon and Leeteuk talked about the secret of their huge popularity and
their strategy for advancing into the world music industry.
Super Junior is receiving attention worldwide. Recently they have
extended beyond Asia, gaining popularity in Slovenia, Argentina, Peru,
Brazil and various other locations worldwide. In the year 2010, Peru’s
Listas put up the top 30 rankings of The Sexiest Men in the World,
whereby all of the members’ names appeared on the list and a Slovenian
newspaper also reported about their agency and album sales. Super
Junior also appeared in a publication of a specialty magazine recently
in Iran that contains a personal interview with all of the Super Junior
members and their individual profiles, which is explained briefly in
Persian. According to the Korea Cultural Foundation, Super Junior is
selected by Brazilian fans as the Korea best group. Earlier this year,
in a survey conducted by Brazil’s Rede TV, Super Junior was chosen as
the number one Korean singer who should come to Brazil. The results
concluded with Super Junior being the top artist of choice with 30.9%
of the vote. They also won “Must-Follow Personality” at the Mashable
Awards 2010 which was held in Las Vegas. Member Yesung was the winner
of 2010 Cyworld Digital Music Award OST. Recently, Super Junior was
chosen as the most popular Korean singers in a survey conducted by
Mexico’s TV Azteca, as well as the various Mexican communities of this
band on the Internet. Also, England’s BBC acknowledged Super Junior as
the icon noted for creating Hallyu effect. Super Junior was picked
number one in the survey, the Hallyu star that you want to travel Korea
with. Super Junior received overwhelming votes from Asia including
China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries as well as Europe such as
France.
Subgroups
Since debut, SM Entertainment has created four subgroups for Super
Junior. Every member was put into different subgroups excluding Kibum,
due to his busy acting schedule. The intentions of the subgroups were
part of SM’s strategy to not limit Super Junior’s activities, and the
goal was to show that the group could accommodate different musical
genres. However, this strategy was later challenged by critics, as it
has influenced an overwhelming amount of music groups to create
official and unofficial subgroups alike. SM announced that Super Junior
will form more subgroups in the future, and possible focuses of these
subgroups include a variety of genres such as electropop, rock and hip
hop. Previous Super Junior subgroups will also return to the industry
along with appearances of new subgroups.
Super Junior-Happy
Super Junior-Happy (Korean: 슈퍼주니어-해피), sometimes referred to as
SJ-Happy or Suju-Happy (Korean: 슈주-해피), is the fourth official sub-unit
of Korean boy band Super Junior. Super Junior-Happy contains six Super
Junior members, Leeteuk (the leader), Yesung, Kangin, Shindong,
Sungmin, and Eunhyuk.
History
By 2008, all of the Super Junior members have already been a member
of at least one subgroup except Kibum. Super Junior-Happy consists of
every previous member from Super Junior-T except Heechul, who is
replaced by Yesung. Super Junior-Happy made an unofficial debut
performance on May 3, 2008 at the Power Concert although they had not
formally introduced themselves as the subgroup at the time.
On May 30, 2008, SM Entertainment released the official announcement
of the subgroup through Newsen. The subgroup’s first EP, Cooking?
Cooking!, was released on June 5, 2008. The music video of their first
single, “Cooking? Cooking!” was released on that same day.
Super Junior-Happy debuted on June 7, 2008, performing their first
single, “Cooking? Cooking!” at the 2008 Dream Concert. On the day
before their debut, the subgroup held their first sign fan meeting to
celebrate the success of the sales of Cooking? Cooking! On the morning
of June 6, over thousands of fans lined up for tickets to the fan meet,
overcrowding the streets. Close to 10,000 copies were sold by the first
week of release. According to the Music Industry Association of Korea,
the EP sold 27,122 by the end of August and was ranked fifth in the
monthly charts.
Super Junior-Happy performed their second single, “Pajama Party” on
August 3, 2008 on SBS’s Popular Songs. The music video was released on
August 4, 2008. “Pajama Party” promotions only lasted a month, and
promotions for the EP officially ended on September 7, 2008.
Music style
Super Junior-Happy’s music style involves the common style of
contemporary dance music and bubblegum pop, mainly targeting the music
industry with their fun and entertaining style. Super Junior-Happy’s
debut single, “Cooking? Cooking!” is a dance track with refreshing
rhythm and quirky lyrics. Their goal is to give fans feelings of bliss
and happiness with their music.
Super Junior-KRY
Super Junior-KRY, established in November 2006, is a trio formed by
Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, and Yesung which makes up KRY.in the title of the
group. The company discovered that these three members developed a
particular personal and subsequent fan-base that was separate from the
rest of the group, and how they also had similar musical qualities.
They therefore grouped these three members together to perform
particular songs to target a more mature audience. Being amongst the
most vocally powerful members of the group, Super Junior-KRY are
credited to singing mournful, R&B-style ballads, a style that has
proven very popular in recent years.
Super Junior-KRY’s first official performance was on November 5,
2006 on KBS’s Music Bank, performing “The One I Love (한 사람만을).” They
have participated in the original soundtrack of the tvN drama Hyena
with a total of three tracks, including the main theme. The trio also
contributed tracks in two additional original soundtracks, one track in
both the soundtracks of Snow Flower and Billy Jean Look at Me. Unlike
Super Junior’s other sub-units, Super Junior-KRY has not officially
released a single or album, and only participated in collaboration
albums and original soundtracks. However, a new album is expected from
KRY in the future.
On August 1, 2010, Super Junior’s sub-unit KRY. made history by
opening their own concert for the first time in Japan, and upon the
fans’ request for an encore, more performances were added in Kobe on
the 1st and 2 November and later on, 1 and 2 December in Fukuoka. There
were about a total of 22,000 people who watched the 6 sessions of the
performances. The group successfully finished their concert tour in
Japan and Taiwan last year. Due to ardent requests from Korean fans
wanting to see Super Junior-KRY’s concert, the group decided to also
hold the concert in Korea.
Super Junior-M
Super Junior-M, often referred to as SJ-M, is the third official
sub-unit of Korean boy band Super Junior. They are the first
international music group in the Chinese music industry to have members
of both Chinese and Korean descent, and are also the first group
produced by Korea’s CT (Culture Technology) organization, created
through a comprehensive localization strategy. Super Junior-M made
their debut in 2008, with five Super Junior members: Han Geng, Siwon,
Donghae, Ryeowook and Kyuhyun as well as two new ethnic Chinese
members, Henry and Zhou Mi.
In December 2009, Han Geng returned to China to pursue a solo career
and the group’s activities were halted. In December 21, 2010 the Seoul
Central District Court ruled in favor of Han Geng. A representative of
SM Entertainment said that they will file an immediate appeal to
reverse the decision SM Entertainment have yet to release statements
regarding his official status with the group.
In February 2011, Super Junior members Sungmin and Eunhyuk were
announced as new additions to the SJ-M subgroup, coinciding with the
release of their 2nd Mini Album, 太完美 (Perfection). Currently, the eight
active members are: Siwon, Ryeowook, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun,
Sungmin, Zhou Mi and Henry.
Biography
Name Origin
Before the official name of the subgroup was released, they were
often referred to as Super Junior China. On April 3, 2008, SM
Entertainment released the official name of the subgroup, Super
Junior-M, with “M” representing the word “Mandarin,” expressing the
subgroup’s ambition to become successful in the Chinese music market
not limited to only China. The “M” can also represent a list of other
aspects, such as the first letter of their debut album, Me, and also
“mi” (Chinese: 迷), which denotes to “charismatic” as well as “fan” in
Mandarin, the latter meaning referring to their desire to connect
closer with fans.
Career
Pre-debut
Responding to Super Junior’s rising popularity in Mainland China,
Super Junior’s management, SM Entertainment, decided to compose a new
Super Junior sub-unit which focuses on the Chinese market. On October
2, 2007, an official announcement was released to the media, stating
the birth of a third Super Junior subgroup that would debut in China in
2008. Super Junior’s original member Han Geng, and an SM Taiwanese
trainee, Henry, were stated to be the first two of the seven members
representing the subgroup. Five months later, a second Super Junior
member, Siwon, was mentioned in news articles to be the third member.
However, the confirmed list of members were not released to the public
until April.
Starting from April 4 to April 7, 2008, the seven members were
individually released to the media in a chain of short trailer clips.
Han Geng was the first member to be announced on April 4. On April 5,
Siwon and Donghae were announced to be the second and third members. On
April 6, Kyuhyun was announced to be the fourth Super Junior-M member,
following a new member Henry as the fifth. Ryeowook was announced to be
the sixth member on April 7 followed by Zhou Mi as the final member. A
trailer of all seven members was released on the group’s debut day,
April 8. Super Junior-M’s trailer clips exceeded 1.4 million views in
less than four days, garnering interest in both the Chinese and Korean
audiences.
Music
Super Junior-M debuted in China on April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual
Music Chart Awards and with the release of their first music video, “U”
online. Their debut album was released in various provinces in China
starting April 23, 2008 and the Korean version with three bonus Korean
tracks was released in South Korea on April 30, 2008. The album was
also distributed in several other Chinese communities on May 2, 2008
such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Reviews for the album were
generally positive and it also gained praise from Hong Kong singer,
Hins Cheung, who said the album contains “international-level music”
and that the group is “vocally-talented”. A month after their debut,
Super Junior-M won their first award, Asia’s Most Popular New Group
Award, at the 5th annual Music King Awards in Macau on May 25.
After their debut performance in early April 2008, the group made
guest appearances in many chains of entertainment variety shows. They
appeared in an episode of the second season of TVB and HunanTV’s
collaboration show, Strictly Come Dancing (舞动奇迹), which made the show’s
ratings increase to 5.01%, ranking it the third most watched show ever
in all of China. Super Junior-M’s appearance in the talk show, Behind
Story (背后的故事) two months later also increased ratings. The show had the
highest ratings during that time slot, with a strong 4.05%. Separated
into several weekly episodes, the group’s appearance in their first
episode on the challenging game show, Bravely Going Forward (勇往直前) in
early August gave the show the highest ratings during that time slot as
well.
Super Junior-M and Show Luo of Taiwan replaced Hong Kong
entertainers, Nicholas Tse and Twins, for the 2008 summer season
endorsement spots of Semir, a Chinese clothing brand. They were
acclaimed to be sunny, young, and passionate; thus their image was
suitable to endorse the brand.
The last performance of “U” was on August 29, 2008 at the 7th Golden
Eagle Opening Ceremony Concert. The group gave their first performance
of their second single, “Me,” on September 13, 2008 at the SMTOWN LIVE
’08 in Shanghai concert. The music video was then released a day later
through Sohu. Super Junior-M held their first concert in Hong Kong on
December 27 and 28.
On September 14, 2009, Super Junior-M released the music video for
their upcoming comeback single Super Girl which features Girls’
Generation’s Jessica Jung. They are currently nominated for Best
Singing Group at the 21st Golden Melody Awards.
Super Junior-M’s goal is to bring the Korean pop influence over to
the Chinese market, re-representing the hits in Mandarin. Similar to
the style of their main group Super Junior, Super Junior-M’s music
style falls into the category of mainstream pop, dance, and R&B.
Dance pop songs with rock and hip hop influences are easily heard in
their music, such as in “Me” and “The Moment”, which contains guitar
riffs and heavy bass sounds. Rap is not performed as often like the
main group, but these influences can be heard in “The Moment” and also
the rap remakes in “Don’t Don” and “A Man In Love”.
The group halted their activities in December 2009 after Han Geng
filed a lawsuit against SM Entertainment and returned to China to
pursue a solo career. In December 21, 2010 the Seoul Central District
Court ruled in favor of Han Geng. A representative of SM Entertainment
said that they will file an immediate appeal to reverse the decision
and have yet to release official statements regarding his status with
them. In February 2011, the group resumed their activities with two new
members from the main group, Sungmin and Eunhyuk, with the release of
EP Perfection.
Television
In late 2008, Han Geng acted in the drama Stage of Youth (青春舞台)
alongside other prominent Hong Kong EEG stars Joey Yung, Kenny Kwan,
and Yumiko Cheng. He starred as Xia Lei (夏磊), a youth who dreamed to be
a dancer. Stage of Youth was an idol drama that was dedicated to the
2008 Beijing Olympics. Other members of Super Junior-M gave cameo
appearances in the final episode of the drama.
Controversy
After the first announcement of Super Junior-M on October 2, 2007,
and the possibility of adding a non-Super Junior member, Henry, to this
unit, Super Junior fans immediately voiced out their dissatisfaction
and opposition. Immediately, a website was built, called “Only 13″, to
oppose against SM Entertainment’s actions. Through the website, fans of
Super Junior communicate and plan out protesting actions against the
company. Before legal protests began, many online petitions were made
by both Korean and Chinese fans to prevent and convince the label to
not add a fourteenth member. Initially fans were planning to boycott
the company’s products, similar to the actions taken by fans of TVXQ in
the past. However, most fans agreed on a silent protest instead. On
October 21, 2007 and throughout the week, over 400 fans from Super
Junior’s official fanclub, E.L.F, silently sat in front of the SM
building and held signs that supported the group to have only thirteen
members. Situations became worse when SM Entertainment announced
through the media that they never stated that Super Junior was a fixed
group, although the label announced that Super Junior was a permanent
group when Kyuhyun was added to the group in mid-2006. Thousands of
fans wrote letters to the company and pleaded them to keep the group
permanent, but no answer was returned.
Over one thousand more fans appeared in front of the SM building on
E.L.F’s third protest on November 3, 2007. Instead of a silent protest,
the fans sang various Super Junior songs and shouted “thirteen.”
Although SM Entertainment’s answer to the fans’ protest stated that new
members in Super Junior-M will not be added to the official group and
thus will not affect Super Junior’s main career, many fans still held
the belief that there will be this possibility of seeing new official
Super Junior members in the future.
After more rumors leaked of SM Entertainment sneaking in an extra
non-Super Junior member, Zhou Mi, to the subgroup, the fans decided to
gain this chance to have a legal representation as part of SM
Entertainment’s stockholders. As of March 20, 2008, Super Junior fans
from all over the world purchased 58,206 stocks of SM Entertainment,
holding 0.3% of the company’s entire stock. They released a statement
through the media, stating that they will obtain all chances to prevent
SM Entertainment from adding new members and to keep Super Junior as
only thirteen.
After the release of Super Junior-M’s official blog on April 3,
2008, over 5,000 comments were posted by Chinese fans in an hour,
voicing out their support to keep Super Junior as thirteen members. The
administrator resulted in locking the comment box where only those with
sohu blog accounts could comment.
Super Junior-T
Super Junior-Trot (Korean: 슈퍼주니어-트로트), officially known as Super
Junior-T (Korean: 슈퍼주니어-티) is the second official sub-unit of Korean
boy band Super Junior. They are the first idol group known for
capitalizing trot music, the oldest form of Korean pop music. Super
Junior-T contains six Super Junior members, Leeteuk (the leader),
Heechul, Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin, and Eunhyuk.
Super Junior-T has released only one single in the short span of
their career before they were announced to be on hiatus in 2008. The
single “Rokuko” was Korea’s sixteenth best-selling record and the
number one best-selling single of 2007, according to the Music Industry
Association of Korea. In November 2008, the subgroup returned with a
debut in the Japanese music industry, releasing the Japanese version of
“Rokuko.”
History
Pre-debut
Noticing the dying trend of trot music, Lee Soo Man decided to
revive the style by producing an idol band that capitalizes this genre.
Three months before Super Junior-T’s official debut, they performed
“Don’t Go Away” at the M.NET/KM Music Festival on November 25, 2006
with Super Junior’s Donghae.
2007: Commercial success
In early February, SM Entertainment made the official announcement
of a second Super Junior subgroup, Super Junior-T. The group released
their debut single “Rokuko” on February 23, 2007 and on February 25,
2007, they officially debuted on SBS’s Popular Songs, performing
“Rokuko” and “First Express” with famous trot singer Bang Shilyi. The
debut was also marked as Heechul’s comeback performance after his
injury from a car accident that occurred in August 2006.
“Rokuko” topped music charts three days after release. Two months
later, the single topped Thailand-based music stations and remained in
the same position for several weeks. By the end of 2007, the single
sold almost 46,000 copies and was Korea’s best-selling single of the
year.
Two months later, Leeteuk, Shindong, and Eunhyuk were injured in a
car accident, and all of Super Junior-T’s schedules were completely
canceled for two months. However, pre-recorded performances, such as
the group’s parody Palace T, continued to air on television and their
single continued to top music charts. Schedules resumed in June, but
only lasted a month.
2008: Performance tours and Japan
On April 29, 2008, it was announced that Super Junior-T would make a
comeback later in the year with their second single. However, a fourth
Super Junior sub-unit, Super Junior-Happy, debuted instead, putting
Super Junior-T in partial hiatus. Nonetheless, Super Junior-T remained
partially active throughout the year as they still appear as a group in
Super Junior’s concert tour, Super Show and other similar functions.
Despite the debut of Super Junior-Happy, a future full-length album is
still in the works and is expected to arrive in the future. Super
Junior-T’s latest appearance before the debut of Super Junior-Happy was
on May 17, 2008, performing as the opening act at the 6th Korean Music
Festival in Los Angeles, California.
On November 5, 2008, Super Junior-T re-released “Rokuko”, now titled
“ROCK&GO,” in Japan. Presenting this project to the Japanese comedy
duo Moeyan, who are skilled in combining comedy with song and dance,
Super Junior-T hopes that the duo will help them localize the single
into Japanese. The collaboration was the duo’s official debut as
singers and Super Junior-T’s entrance in the Japanese market. The
single debuted at #19 on the Oricon Daily Charts and jumped to #2 three
days later. Super Junior-T and Moeyan held two mini concerts on the
same release date as the single in the C.C. Lemon Hall at Tokyo to
promote the record.
Musical goals
Super Junior-T’s music style is a distinctive style of trot, an
old-fashioned style of Korean pop music. Their revised style of the
genre includes modernized K-pop melodies and also fast rap, notably
performed by Shindong, Eunhyuk, and sometimes Heechul. Super Junior-T’s
goal is to enervate the fading genre in Korea’s current music industry
and to introduce the young audience to a traditional style of music,
hoping to increase awareness of older trot musicians and bring trot
back into mainstream music. Emergence of Super Junior-T is also due to
a strategy that Super Junior has been using, which is to show that they
can accommodate many different musical genres.
Image
Super Junior-T is well-known for their parodies, such as the short
miniseries Palace T, a parody of the popular Korean drama, Princess
Hours which aired on the channel M.NET, as a part of Idol World.
Due to Super Junior-T’s active participance in trot music and their
comedic appearances, the group gained outstanding attention from the
older audience despite their well-known young idol images that was
created for them in the main group Super Junior. Members of Super
Junior-T explained that they wanted to change their idol appearance and
hope that they would gain different fans from their new trot image.
Film and television career
Debut
Prior to the group’s debut, the members had individually appeared in
television dramas, with Leeteuk being the first member of the group to
act; he was an extra as a moviegoer for the drama All About Eve in
2000. Kangin appeared as an extra for The Secret Lovers in 2002, and
Siwon made a brief cameo appearance in Precious Family in 2004. Kibum
had his acting debut in 2004 as young Han Jung-woo in April Kiss and in
2005, he was given the main role Joo Yeo-myung for the year-long drama
Sharp 2, starring alongside Go Ara and Heechul. A few months before
Super Junior’s debut, Siwon starred as the young Kang Bong-man in
Eighteen, Twenty-Nine; Heechul was given a role as a junior chef in
Loveholic, and Sungmin starred as young Kang Dong-shin in morning drama
Sisters of the Sea. After the group’s debut in November 2005, both
Heechul and Kibum acted in the sixth season of the sitcom Nonstop from
late 2005 to early 2006. Kibum individually starred in Marrying a
Millionaire as young Kim Young-hoon in 2005 and in March 2006, Heechul
starred as Gong Min in Bad Family. That same year, Siwon was part of
the supporting cast for Spring Waltz and Kibum starred as Ha Yeongchan
in Snow Flower. In 2007, Heechul starred as Kim Young-soo in the
popular drama Golden Bride, which ended its broadcast in February 2008
after the extension of 14 episodes. Siwon starred as the ambitious Lee
Mong-ryong in the two-episode parody historical drama Legend of Hyang
Dan. He later starred as the main character in Oh My Lady! oppositte
actress Chae Rim, which received a large audience. Kangin made a cameo
appearance in Billie Jean, Look At Me. The song “It’s Just That”, sung
by Super Junior-K.R.Y, was used as the drama’s theme song. In 2008,
Kibum starred in the sitcom Chunja’s Happy Events as Park Jung-woo, and
Kangin had his first major television role in Romance Zero as Na Ho-tae
in 2009. In August 2009, Heechul played the piano for Lee Chul in
Loving You a Thousand Times. In 2010, Siwon again appeared in a large
supporting role as a data analyst and rookie elite agent in Athena:
Goddess of War, which is a spin-off of the popular 2009 series Iris.
There is speculation that the series will continue and he shall reprise
his role, but with more character advances.
In 2011, members Siwon and Donghae were scheduled in April 2011 to
film Taiwanese drama Extravagant Challenge (traditional Chinese: 華麗的挑戰)
with Ivy Chen as the three main characters (as Ren Tsuruga, Shō Fuwa,
and Kyoko Mogami, respectively). It is a live-action adaptation of the
popular Japanese shōjo manga Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura to be shot
in Taiwan.
In 2010, Siwon again appeared in a large supporting role as a data
analyst and rookie elite agent in Athena: Goddess of War, which is a
spin-off of the popular 2009 series Iris. There is speculation that the
series will continue and he shall reprise his role, but with more
character advances. On August 1 2011, Siwon has been confirmed to be
the male lead character on a new KBS drama POSEIDON. According to the
production staff, Siwon will take part as a member of maritime police.
POSEIDON will be broadcast in September to follow up ‘Spy Myeongwol’ as
a blockbuster drama which is about the commitment of maritime police.
Siwon has since attended script-reading sessions and will soon begin
filming.
As a group, Super Junior starred in Super Junior Mini-Drama, a
television program hosted by the group that was released in late 2006.
The group wrote, produced, and acted in the separate half-hour mini
dramas. The subject matters of the dramas were chosen from viewers. In
2008, Leeteuk and Sungmin starred in the one-episode drama act Super
Junior Unbelievable Story. Both Leeteuk and Sungmin starred as
themselves as a member of Super Junior-T.
Reality shows
Despite numerous appearances as television actors, Super Junior are
still best known for their reality shows, having participated in
popular reality comedies.
2005: Super Junior Show
A show documenting them right from when they debuted, demonstrating
their unique talents and abilities along with their funniness and
quirkiness that is never ending.
2006: Mystery 6
Had Donghae as the main character being haunted by ghosts located
within the Super Junior dorm. The show consists of hidden cameras and a
narrator that “documents” their journey throughout each day as Donghae
and the rest of the Super Junior group deal with the strange things
that are happening to them and what also happened to the past tenant of
the dorm they are staying in.
2006: Super Adonis Camp
Six members of Super Junior (Leeteuk, Kangin, Sungmin, Donghae,
Shindong, and Eunhyuk, with the later addition of Han Geng, with the
last episode also featuring Ryeowook and Yesung) go to a pension
located in the mountains and stay there for about a week. The boys are
split into two teams of three and each team is given 30,000 won
(approximately $30 USD) to purchase groceries with. During their stay
at the pension, the boys must live off their groceries and endure
living with a woman who is sort of like the MC for the show, except the
boys find her annoying and do anything try and not pay attention to
anything that she does. In the end, however, they give the money that
they have saved from the leftover food to an orphanage, where they
later visited, where the children that temporarily stayed in the
pension with them are from.
2006: Super Junior Full House
Super Junior starred in their own reality show called Super Junior
Full House which was about two transfer students who will be boarding
with half of the members of Super Junior, specifically in the dorm
where in Heechul, Kangin, Kibum, Siwon, Han Geng and Donghae are
staying in. The two transfer students were model Eva and her friend
Anya.
The show ran for about 13 episodes and it’s running time was only
for 25 minutes. It was aired from May 27, 2006 until August 26, 2006.
The home stay only lasted for a month prior to its original plan and
with the show it presented comedic experiences by Super Junior and the
two international female students showing their deep friendship and
funny attitudes and or personalities.
2006: Super Junior Mini-Drama
A variety game show where the members of Super Junior (with the
exception of Hangeng, Heechul, Kibum, and Siwon, who weren’t directly
in the show but had cameos) could create and produce their own
mini-dramas for themselves to star in. The members split up into two
teams: Prince Team or Pearl Blue Team and play a game in the beginning
of the episode to determine who exactly got the reward for the drama or
who got the punishment.
2007: MNET Super Summer
A three on one dating game and hidden camera show featuring Siwon,
Donghae, and Kibum. The show documents the member’s efforts to win
dates with model Lee Eun Jung through competing in games. The winner of
each episode would get to have a date with the girl, while the other
two men would have their own “man to man” date. The show is meant to
show the “true intentions of men when it comes to love.” Lee Eun Jung
and the MC would devise plans to pit the members against each other in
order to reveal their feelings. The show was shot in Saipan.
2007: Explorers of the Human Body
A reality learning show, emceed by Shin Dong Yup and, on several
episodes, chosen Super Junior members. It ran for 13 40-minute episodes
from November 11, 2007 to February 3, 2008. The show focused on the
members and Shin Dong Yup performing experiments on various subjects,
such as the sense of taste and the origin of tears. The youngest
member, Kyuhyun, was not present until the seventh episode due to the
accident, as well as Siwon being absent from some of the later episodes
due to having injured his foot in an earlier episode.
2007: KM Idol World
Featuring Super Junior T, Idol world presented each episode with a
challenge for the group, going from a lie detector test, playing the
cat and mouse game, even to just seeing whose friend could show up at
the filming location of a house, even though it was already midnight.
The games were a wide variety and even during the course of the first
couple of episodes, Super Junior T even did a parody of the drama
Princess Hours, which they nicknamed Palace T.
2008: Unbelievable Outing Season 3
2008: Idol Show
2009: Human Network Super Junior’s Miracle
The boys of Super Junior have another variety show where they try to
help teenagers, who have hardships going on in their lives,
encouragement to pursue their dreams by finding them a role model that
they may look up to in a career profession that they may want to join.
They show the teenagers that nothing is impossible and that they can do
it, even though it may seem like all of the odds are against them.
2010: Super Junior’s Foresight
A talk show with four or five Super Junior members (with mostly
recurring Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk, and Kyuhyun with the occasional
Yesung) where they would invite their sunbaes, or seniors in the music
industry, and try to learn things from them that could help in the
future, also, while having fun at the same time.
Hosting
The Super Junior members were one of the first Korean idols to begin
television presenting and radio hosting. Heechul was the first in the
group to be a selected MC for the music programs Popular Songs and Show
Music Bank. He was also the first in the group to host radio shows, and
co-hosted Youngstreet Radio Show with ex-M.I.L.K. member Park Heebon in
early 2005. Heechul has also been the MC for the Dream Concert since
2008. Leeteuk, Kangin, and Shindong made their MC debut on Mnet’s music
program M! Countdown five days after Super Junior’s debut performance.
In August 2006, both Leeteuk and Eunhyuk founded their own radio show,
Super Junior Kiss the Radio, which has become one of the more tuned-in
radio channels in the country.
The group also founded their own reality television program, and on
November 11, 2007, the premiere of Explorers of the Human Body aired on
SBS. The humorous show introduced the thirteen members as regular
guests for the program, answering curious questions and doing
demonstrations involving the human body. The show has been the highest
rating program of the reality line-up every Sunday, but due to Super
Junior’s tight schedule, the program ended quickly with thirteen
episodes on February 3, 2008. The popularity of the program had
inspired producers to create a second season, although no announcements
of producing the next season has been announced.
Acting
Attack on the Pin-Up Boys
Twelve members, excluding Kyuhyun, appeared in the group’s debut
film Attack on the Pin-Up Boys. The first film released by SM Pictures,
it premiered on July 26, 2007 in Korea. “Wonder Boy”, performed by
Super Junior, is used as the theme song of the film. Although the film
was promoted as a typical high school comedy, the movie gained positive
reviews from critics, praising that the movie had a well-oriented plot
unlike most idol films. However, ticket sales remained low in the
premiere month despite its unexpected success in the sales the first
week. The film was a box-office bomb, failing to attract more than
102,600 admissions and was proven to be a big loss for SM Pictures.
However, both versions of the film’s DVD became a best-selling record
and were sold-out in both Korea and oversea markets, which was more
than enough to make up for the production loss of 8.5 billion won.
Other Films
Siwon was among the first of Super Junior to have participated in
silver-screen productions, appearing in the Hong Kong historical action
drama film, A Battle of Wits as the large supporting role of Prince
Liang Shi in 2006. The cast promoted the movie throughout China with a
short tour of four cities in November 2006. While the film received
mixed reviews, Siwon garnered positive notices for his performance. He
also received praises from co-star Andy Lau, stating that Siwon is a
wonderful actor and that he “sets a good example for young Hong Kong
idols.”
In 2007, Heechul, Kangin, and Shindong lent their voices to the
three chipmunks in the Korean release of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
In 2008, Kangin had a major role in the Korean-language film, Hello Schoolgirl.
Endorsements
Super Junior members first began endorsing for various fashion lines
in early 2006, notably for Ivy Club (2006–2007), NII Qualified (2007)
and Spris (2006–2007).
With their high popularity in Thailand, Siwon was contracted to be
the main endorser for 12 Plus Miracle (2007–present) and began
endorsing its products with interchangeable Super Junior members. Siwon
also makes several prominent appearances in Korean brand Spao’s
catalogues along with SNSD and other Super Junior members. He also
recently endorsed and modeled for the SK Telesys “Reaction” smart
phone, also appearing in the phone’s humorous mock-action commercial.
While, On July 2010, Super Junior’s Choi Siwon was appointed as UNICEF
Envoy. Acer Computer Co., Ltd. a leading position in Thai computer
market also presented Siwon as a new endorser for Acer products. He has
also been featured in notable magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle,
High Cut, and Men’s Health, as well as modeling for large brand names
such as Armani, Lacoste, Gucci, and Burberry.
Currently Donghae is the brand ambassador for Maxim Colours Contact
lens worldwide. The group are also known for their string of humorous
commercials for Thailand’s Yamaha Fino along with several other Thai
entertainers, notably Golf & Mike. Super Junior were also appointed
as the Goodwill ambassadors for the 2008 Korea and Thailand 50th
Anniversary, honoring the good relationship Korea has held with
Thailand for the past fifty years. Most recently in 2009, Super Junior
have filmed CFs for brands such as Kyochon Chicken, Star Snacks and
Happy Bubble. They also endorse a clothing line called SPAO
(2009–present). Super Junior also Spokesmodel for Donate Blood
(2007–present) campaign at the Republic of Korea National Red Cross and
was appointed as Goodwill ambassador for World Blood Donor Day. They
also promote and endorse for Samsung’s marketing of their new
smart-phone Samsung Galaxy S in Singapore.
Members of sub-group Super Junior-M also starring in commercials for
Chinese mobile phones branded OPPO. They also star in a new commercial
show for Pepsi and endorse Chinese clothing line Semir, reflecting
their huge popularity in the Chinese region. On February 20, 2010, Super Junior was named as Taiwan’s tourism
ambassador. On March 3, 2011, Super Junior has been appointed by the
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Korea as the
2011 Honorary Korean Ambassador Foods to promote Korean cuisine all
over the world. Recently, The Hong Kong Tourism Board has officially
invited Super Junior to host a travel show promoting Hong Kong. Earlier
this year, Super Junior was chosen as the CF model for Japan’s famous
convenience store company, Circle K Sunkus. Starting on May 16, the
song will be[dated info] shown on major Japanese TV channels as the
commercial song for Japanese convenience store chain Circle K Sunkus.
On June 17, 2011, Super Junior chosen as the ambassador of Seoul Summer
Sale 2011. Recently, Super Junior has been appointed to be the
ambassadors for Korean tourism.
Other Media
On July 20, 2010, S.M. Entertainment, together with NEOWIZ Internet
Corporation, Ltd, released an iPhone application which features Super
Junior’s 4th regular album, ‘BONAMANA’. The lite app can be purchased
for free, while the full app can be purchased for US$7.99 on iTunes.
Influence and impact
During the course of Super Junior’s career, several pop groups were
formed similarly extraordinary numbers of members. JYP Entertainment
recruited thirteen boys to be in a boy band, who were all revealed in
the show, Hot Blood Men. Of these thirteen, eleven were split into two
groups that debuted at different times: 2AM, which has four members,
and 2PM, which has seven. Together, the two groups form the
eleven-member boy band One Day. Ast’1, a boy band under DSP
Entertainment, released a promotional video in March 2008. In the short
preview the boy band expressed that they would “Knock Down Super
Junior”, which resulted in a lot of criticism lashed into the group.
However, they clarified that they had no means to create conflict, and
explained the reason why they want to defeat Super Junior is because
they see Super Junior as their answer of success.
Controversies
Expansion to China
After the subgroups Super Junior-K.R.Y. and Super Junior-T, on
October 2, 2007, SM Entertainment announced the birth of another Super
Junior sub-unit project that would begin activities in China starting
2008. Zhou Mi and SM Entertainment’s new Chinese-Canadian trainee Henry
Lau, who was also featured in the music video of “Don’t Don”, were also
members of the subgroup.
The announcement brought in a huge wave of dissatisfaction and
opposition from fans of Super Junior after the announcement of two new
members. Initially, fans were planning to boycott the company’s
products, however, most fans agreed on a silent protest instead.
Thousands of fans from Super Junior’s official fanclub E.L.F. silently
sat in front of the SM building and held signs that supported the group
to have only thirteen members.
After more rumors regarding adding a Chinese member to the subgroup,
the fans decided to gain a legal representation as part of SM
Entertainment’s stockholders. As of March 20, 2008, Super Junior fans
purchased 58,206 stocks of SM Entertainment, holding 0.3% of the
company’s entire stock. They released a statement that they will obtain
all chances to prevent SM Entertainment from adding new members and to
keep Super Junior as only thirteen.
Conflict with MBC
A time-slot dispute occurred between SM Entertainment and MBC when
SM insisted to have Kangin stay on SBS’s Explorers of the Human Body
instead of MBC’s Sunday Night Dong-An Club (동안클럽) where Kangin has been
a regular host. MBC temporarily banned the rest of Super Junior from
appearing in any future performances and shows hosted by MBC. Kangin
also lost his MC jobs to T.O.P. of Big Bang for the music show, Show!
Music Core and also two more variety shows, which both soon canceled
after Kangin left due to low ratings. MBC demanded an apology from SM
Entertainment in order for Super Junior to appear on shows hosted by
the channel again. However, MBC concluded that Super Junior’s ban was
never official, but just a decision for shows’ producers to decide.
Han Geng’s lawsuit
On December 21, 2009, Han Geng filed for contract termination with
SM Entertainment, label company of the group. The following day, Han
Geng’s lawyer stated the claimed reasons behind the action: provisions
were in SM Entertainment’s favour, unlawful 13-year contract length,
unfair sum of money to end the contract, not allowed to request to
revise his contract, forced to do things that were not in his contract,
forced to do things against his will, fined if he disobeyed the
company, missed any events or even was late, and there was uneven
profit distribution. Along with this, it was disclosed that because of
SM Entertainment’s refusal to give him a day off in over two years, he
had developed gastritis and kidney disease.
Han Geng’s current manager, Sun Le, also submitted a statement to
the court of South Korea citing SM Entertainment’s violation of Han
Geng’s rights. Sun Le’s statement contended that: Han Geng was forced
to wear a mask due to company’s ill handling of the visa issue, company
purposely discriminated against Han Geng and his family, company
refused to cooperate or listen to any of Han Geng’s suggestions,
company purposely turned down individual activities for Han Geng
(including Ariel Lin’s “Fireflies” music video, which later starred
Siwon and Donghae) and that the company treated Han Geng’s potential
endorsers poorly.
On December 21, 2010, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in
favor of Han Geng. The court stated, “All three contracts – from the
January 2003 contract, the altered contract from February 2007, and the
affiliated contract from December 2007 – do not exist.” A
representative of SM Entertainment said that they will file an
immediate appeal to reverse the decision. and have yet to release
official statements regarding his status.
Conflict during Expo 2010
On May 26, 2010, organized by South Korea Pavilion of Expo 2010,
many Korean pop stars including Super Junior were invited to the “South
Korean classical and pop concert” which was planned to be launched at
Expo Cultural Centre on May 30. As the tickets were not for sale to the
public, visitors who want to enjoy the show could only exchange the
ticket via expo ticket in the west door of the Expo Cultural Centre on
May 30. The total ticket number is 5000, while 2500 of which would be
assigned to Korea visitors for free which caused the actual available
number to be 2500. Super Junior fans collected in the entry of the Expo
Cultural Centre, and the strong emotion led to the occurrence of
violence, resulting in casualties. A local armed police said that this
is his first time to see such a “crazy” situation in Expo 2010 since
the Expo park was opened.
- Leeteuk
Park Jung-su (born July 1, 1983), better known by his stage name
Leeteuk (이특), is a Korean pop singer, presenter, and occasional actor.
He is the leader of the super boy band Super Junior. To prevent
confusion with famous Korean veteran actress Park Jeong-su, he decided
to use the name ‘Leeteuk’. His stage name literally means “special”.
Biography
Pre Debut
When Leeteuk and his older sister, Park In-young, traveled to
Myeongdong for a holiday in early 2000, he was recommended by a talent
scout to audition for SM Entertainment’s Starlight Casting System, an
audition that selects artists to sign under their label. After several
test recordings and performances, he signed into SM Entertainment and
became the company’s trainee. That same year, he had his first quick
television appearance as an extra in the MBC Korean drama All About
Eve, and appeared as a brief model for Pepsi in 2002. In 2003, Leeteuk
was put into a five-member boyband with future bandmate Donghae, but
the project was quickly dropped. They were then put into the large
rotational group Super Junior along with ten other boys. Older than the
other trainees, Leeteuk became the leader of the group.
Super Junior
On November 6, 2005, Leeteuk officially debuted on SBS’s Popular
Songs music program as a member of Super Junior 05, the first
generation of Super Junior. The group performed their first single
“TWINS (Knock Out)” to an audience of about 500 fans. Leeteuk explained
that he uses a stage name due to his desire to have a name with the
same effects as Kangta (and to also prevent confusion with veteran
actress Park Jeong-su). His stage name denotes being “special” as he
wants to be a special member in the group. Leeteuk also became known as
the “special leader” (특별한리더) of the group. Not only becoming a “special
leader”, but also having a sweet voice as a tenor of Super Junior. He
is also noted for having a unique and goofy laugh.
Around March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for
the next generation of Super Junior, and Leeteuk would still remain as
the leader of Super Junior 05. However, plans changed when the group
began to gain large popularity, and declared a halt in forming future
Super Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix “05″ and became
officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group hit big
after they released their first CD single “U” the following summer,
which became Super Junior’s most successful single in the music charts
until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March 2009.
During his career with Super Junior, Leeteuk was put into two
subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger Super
Junior group. In February 2007, Leeteuk was placed in the trot-singing
Super Junior-T. A year later, Leeteuk became a member of Super
Junior-Happy.
Variety Show and Hosting
Leeteuk is also praised for his hosting skills. He has been involved
in many variety shows, appearing as permanent guests and also as the
MC. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk have been the permanent Radio DJs for KBS Super
Junior’s Kiss The Radio (SUKIRA) since 2006.
His most notable works currently is his involvement in SBS Star King
& Strong Heart. Leeteuk has a strong friendship with fellow gagmen
Boom, who appears in the same two shows. Boom has initiated Boom
Academy in Strong Heart alongside Leeteuk and Eunhyuk. Boom was
enlisted into the army in late 2009 however, and gave Leeteuk the task
to continue comedic work in the show alongside Eunhyuk and Shindong.
The three created “Teukigayo” (Teuk Academy), a segment which has
gained lots of support from audiences.
In 2009, Leeteuk was named second as the Most Hardwoking Idol of
2009. The title was given to Leeteuk for his notable hardwork as a
Radio DJ, an MC for various shows and as an idol singer.
In 2010, Leeteuk because the new MC for MBC Enjoy Today, replacing
Big Bang’s Seungri who left to focus on the group’s new album. He sang
with F(x)’s Krystal the song “Glumbing” on MBC Enjoy Today. Leeteuk is
also the MC for MBC Love Chaser alongside Yesung.
Personal life
April 2007 car accident
On April 19, 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T’s release
of their first single “Rokuko”, Leeteuk became seriously injured in a
car accident when returning home after a recording of the radio show
Super Junior Kiss the Radio. Along with Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk,
Kyuhyun, and two managers were also victims. While they were on the
highway, the front left tire busted as the driver was switching lanes
and the van ran into the guard rail/medium on the driver’s side and
skidded for about 30M+. At some point, the momentum caused the van to
flip over on its right side.
While Shindong and Eunhyuk suffered minor injuries, Leeteuk and
Kyuhyun sustained more serious injuries, which required for both to be
hospitalised for several more weeks. Leeteuk had glass shards embedded
into his back and above his eyes, requiring over 170 stitches in
removing most of them. Leeteuk was discharged from the hospital on
April 30, 2007.
Due to this injury, Leeteuk’s role in Super Junior’s first
big-screen production, Attack on the Pin-Up Boys (2007) was cancelled.
However, it was revealed at the end of the film that he’d taken on the
role as the panda mascot, which was later confirmed that it had
actually been Ryeowook who’d portrayed the panda in most of the film.
They also said that Leeteuk has scratches on his forehead and near
his eye from the glass. The accident was caused by a deflated left
front tire. The driver was trying to switch lanes but lost control and
collided with the guard rail.
Military Service
Leeteuk recently confessed in an interview that he would like to
start his 2-year long mandatory military service either at the start of
2012 or the end of 2011. After he finishes with the military he will
try his best to reach back to the top again.
- Kim Heechul
Kim Hee-chul (born July 10, 1983), sometimes mononymously credited
as Heechul, is a Korean pop singer, actor, presenter, disc jockey and a
member of the popular 13-member boy band Super Junior.
Pre-Super Junior
He was discovered at Starlight Casting System October 2002 where he
joined the auditions on a whim with his friends. Even though he was
late because of unfamiliar places, he still passed the audition because
of his dance. Initially, Heechul was placed in a four-member project
group called, “Four Seasons.” This group included other members
Jaejoong, Yunho, and Kangin. The prospective group never came through
though as both Jaejoong and Yunho were chosen to join another all-male
singing group, TVXQ, which debuted in December 2003. With two members
gone, the idea of Four Seasons dropped. Heechul and Kangin were then
placed in Super Junior along with ten other trainees under the same
company. This project group managed through well and debuted two years
later on November 6, 2005 under the name Super Junior 05, the first
generation of Super Junior. The initial plan for this group is that
members would be continuously cycled in and then fazed out into other
projects.
Other activities of Heechul before his official debut include
modeling, acting, and VJing. He made his first appearance on TV
starring in the teen drama “Banolim 2”.
Official debut: Super Junior
On November 6, 2005, Kim Heechul officially debuted as part of Super
Junior 05 on SBS’ Inkigayo, performing the group’s first single “TWINS
(Knock Out)”. The group was supposed to comprise the first generation
of Super Junior. In early 2006, SM Entertainment was beginning to
recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation, Super Junior
06, where Heechul would still be an undergraduate member. However,
plans changed. The company decided to add a thirteenth member, Kyuhyun,
and declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The
group dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super
Junior.
The re-polished group hit it big after it released the first CD
single “U” the following summer in 2006. “U” became Super Junior’s most
successful single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry,
Sorry” in March 2009. However, setbacks occurred for the promotions of
“U” in the later half of the year when Heechul suffered a major injury
from a car accident that occurred on August 10, 2006.
Car accident
On August 10, 2006, Heechul was involved in a car accident while
heading back to Seoul from Mokpo after attending the funeral of fellow
Super Junior member Donghae’s father. The tires malfunctioned while his
car attempted to switch lanes. Heechul fractured his left leg in five
places, including his femur, knee, and ankle, requiring him to be in
surgery for six hours. He also sustained other injuries, including a
tear in his tongue which required stitches.
Heechul was advised to stop all activities for a period of twelve
weeks. He was released from the hospital on September 13, 2006 but he
continued to receive out-patient care. He returned to the hospital to
have a second surgery to remove some of the iron rods in his leg on
October 10 and briefly returned to work in late October to film the
final three episodes of an MBC youth sitcom while still in a cast and
on a wheelchair. He made his comeback on November 25 of the same year
during the Mnet KM Music Festival (MKMF) Awards but it was only in late
December that Heechul officially returned to individual activities such
as variety show appearances and hosting appearances.
In 2007, Heechul started to perform regularly despite still having a
few rods that the doctors had attached to his leg. In late April and
May 2007, he had recovered enough to be able to take part in Super
Junior’s strenuous dance routines. The remaining rods in his leg were
removed in 2008.
Super Junior-T
Heechul became part of a Super Junior sub-group, Super Junior-T,
which debuted on February 23, 2007 with the Trot “teuroteu” single
“Rokuko!!!” (65 로꾸거; [RoKuGo (backwards) spelled backwards]).
2007 – Present
In 2007, Heechul participated in Super Junior’s second album Don’t
Don, the band’s “Super Show” tour, and filmed Super Junior’s first
movie Attack on the Pin-Up Boys.
In 2008, he was active in Super Junior’s activities: the visit to
Japan, their second photobook Boys at City Season 2 (shot in Tokyo) and
the Super Show Encore concert.
In 2009, Super Junior released their third album Sorry, Sorry, which
was released on March 13. Their title song “Sorry Sorry” was immensely
popular and claimed #1 position on all major charts. After the first
week of sales, the album topped the Hanteo Chart, with 30,000 copies
sold just on its first day of release. As well as this, the song
achieved its first #1 on KBS’s Music Bank on March 27 – only two weeks
after their comeback stage. The song continued to prove it’s
popularity, winning a total of 5 #1′s on Music Bank and a triple crown
on SBS’s Inkigayo.
The group then released a follow up repackage of their third album
called It’s You, which was released on May 11. The comeback performance
was made on May 17 on SBS’s Inkigayo, and on the following week made
performances on KBS’s Music Bank, where they won their first K-Chart
for the song on May 22. The promotions for the song was cut short due
to the group’s second live concert tour.
On May 13, 2010, Super Junior released their fourth album Bonamana
and made a comeback stage on KBS Music Bank on the 14th. The album once
again proved the group’s popularity, selling over 36,000 copies on its
first day of release – more than that of their third album.
On June 28, 2010, Super Junior released their repackaged album with
three new tracks – “No Other”, “All My Heart”, “A Short Journey” – and
the remixed version of “Shake It Up!”
M&D
Heechul formed a project group, M&D, with fellow label mate, Kim
Jungmo of TRAX in 2011. M&D stands for “midnight and dawn”, and
also the hometowns of Jungmo and Heechul, “Miari and Dangae-dong”.
On June 23, 2011, the music video of their title track, ‘Close Ur
Mouth’ was released. Heechul wrote the lyrics while Jungmo wrote and
played all the instruments for the song. Heechul also directed the
music video.
M&D performed their first stage at Mnet’s summer awards ceremony, “20’s Choice” on July 7, 2011.
Television and acting career
Like band mate Kibum, Heechul made his first television appearance
as an actor before the debut of Super Junior. He starred in the 2005
teen drama, Sharp 2, in which he acted alongside Kibum. Not long
afterwards, Heechul appeared in an episode of Loveholic as a chef
trainee. After the debut of Super Junior, Heechul teamed with Kibum
again to star in the sixth season of Nonstop, alternatively known as
Rainbow Romance. In 2006, Heechul starred as the supporting character
Gong Min in Bad Family. In 2007, he starred in the popular family drama
Golden Bride as Kim Young-soo.
Heechul began to appear on numerous variety shows such as Vitamin,
Sponge, Xman and Love Letter. Kim Heechul can also be seen in
advertisements for various Korean brands.
From September 9 to November 9, 2008, Heechul and Kangin starred in
the Korean version of the musical Xanadu, sharing the lead role Sonny.
Auditions and casting picks were done via a reality television (To Be
Kangin and Heechul), which also served to promote the musical.
Heechul was also on a TV show called Joahseo or Good Daddy, where he
and three other celebrities, including Lee HongKi from FT Island,
learned to be good fathers by caring for a “daughter”. After Good Daddy
show, he become close friend with Lee HongKi and their close
relationship enable them to be chosen in Save Energy Campaign in the
middle of 2009. Heechul was also in “Band of Brothers” with Super
Junior’s Kangin, and Jungmo and Jay from “The TRAX”. In the show, the
band paid tribute to famous and different groups during their showcase
at the end of the program.
Hosting stints
Heechul began hosting before his music debut. He was a regular MC
for the cable music show Show! Music Tank. He was also a substitute MC
for Andy of Shinhwa on SBS Inki Gayo on numerous occasions. Heechul
also became a permanent host for SBS Inki Gayo with Korean actor Jang
Geun Suk on February 25, 2007.
He hosted his own radio show, SBS Power FM Youngstreet along with
Park Heebon, but the program ended in mid-2006. After the 55-episode
drama Loving You Ten Million Times ended in early 2010, he returned to
SBS radio as a DJ to host his own radio program, “HeeChul’s Young
Street.” The show, which started airing on 29 March 2010, is broadcast
by Power FM 107.7 MHz from 8:00 to 10:00 pm (Korea Time). The program
is his first comeback as a DJ in four years. He has however, left the
program in mid-2011.
In May 2010, he was announced as a regular cast member on Family Outing 2. The show ended two months later due to low ratings.
Kim Heechul is currently part of the four member cast for The Radio Star section of Goldfish.
Internet
Heechul is well-known to fans as a netizen due to the large amount
of time he spends on the internet. He was even called out on the fact
by fellow group member Eunhyuk on the 17/09/09 episode of SBS Intimate
Note, who jokingly asked him whether his occupation was a netizen or a
music artist, because he spent more time managing his webpage than
actually singing.
Most recently, Heechul has been very active on Twitter. On October
9, he created a personal Facebook, which collected 5,000 friend
requests within 5 minutes. He was also a worldwide trending topic on
Twitter for four days (from 9 Oct 2010 to 12 Oct 2010).
- Han Geng
Han Geng (traditional Chinese: 韓庚; simplified Chinese: 韩庚; pinyin:
Hán Gēng) was born on 9 February 1984. He is a Mainland Chinese
Mandopop artist and actor well known for his powerful dance skills. He
is skillful in all China’s 56 ethnic traditional dances, as well as
ballet and hip-hop dance. He has been dubbed “Dancing King” and “King
of Popularity” in China. He started his career, in 2001, when he was
chosen by SM Entertainment (SME) to become a member of South Korean boy
band Super Junior, which debuted in 2005, and as the leader of its
sub-group Super Junior-M in 2008.
On 21 December 2009, Han filed a lawsuit against SME to terminate
his contract as he felt that the 13-year contract was unlawful and
overly restrictive; and has since returned to China to pursue a solo
career. On 21 December 2010 the Seoul Central District Court ruled in
favor of Han, however a representative of SM Entertainment said that
they will file an immediate appeal to reverse the decision SM
Entertainment have yet to release statements regarding his official
status with them.
For his various contributions to the spread of Chinese culture, Han
was chosen as a torch bearer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, becoming
the first boy band member in history to hold this role.
Early life
Han Geng, an ethnic Nanai from Northeast China, was born in
Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang, China. He attended Guang Hua Elementary
School from 1990 to 1996.
Han Geng started to learn dancing since he was young. By the age of
12, he was accepted into the dance department of the Central University
for Nationalities. He left his family and his hometown in the
Northeastern part of China to attend dance school in Beijing. During
his years in the school, he mastered all 56 types of Chinese
traditional dances from the 56 Chinese ethnic groups.
At Central University for Nationalities
At the age of 12, he was accepted into Central University for
Nationalities and left Mudanjiang for Beijing to pursue dancing. During
that time he also learned ballet and martial arts and performed in many
countries including the United States, Russia, Taiwan, and Macau.
In 1999, as a representative of the Nanai ethnic group, he participated in the parade in honor of China’s 50 year anniversary.
Career
Korea and Super Junior
In December 2001, South Korea’s biggest Entertainment Agency, SM
Entertainment, went to China to hold an audition in Beijing with hopes
of finding new talents in the country. The audition was called H.O.T.
CHINA Audition Casting. Han Geng, who was preparing for his graduation
performance at the Central University for Nationalities, immediately
caught the attention of the agency’s talent scouts and was invited to
participate in the audition, but he wasn’t very interested as he never
heard of the company before. One of his friends, however, was very
interested and persuaded Han Geng in accompanying him to the audition.
Although hesitant at first, Han agreed to audition with his friend. The
competition rate was 3,000 to 1, and Han had no hopes of getting
selected after auditions ended.
After the audition, Han began to work briefly as a cameo actor in
short low-budget Chinese films and performing in local events across
the country to earn a salary before entering college. In late August
2002, Han was notified that he had been selected by SM Entertainment.
After Han’s graduation from the Central University for Nationalities,
he was sent to South Korea in March 2003 and received private lessons
in singing, dancing, acting, and Korean language. By mid 2003, Han had
moved into dormitories and lived with other trainees who were under the
same label and started to receive intense hip hop and street dance
training. He started out as a Class C dancer (the lowest class for
dancing), as he had zero knowledge in hip hop dance at the time, but in
the short period of six months, he went straight to Class A, skipping
Class B. At that time, there were only 3 people in Class A – Han Geng,
Donghae, and Eunhyuk.
On February 6, 2005, Han was officially announced to be part of one
of South Korea’s all-boy rotational musical groups, Super Junior, as a
member of its first generation, Super Junior 05. Being the first group
with a Chinese and foreign member to formally debut in South Korea, the
media closely followed the group. Three months later after the
announcement, Han made his first media appearance as a runway model
along with fellow group member Choi Siwon in a fashion show organized
by Bum Suk. The two members are extremely good friends, and have even
considered themselves “sworn brothers.”
Han was one of the few members of Super Junior who actively appeared
on variety shows, such as being a regular guest in Love Letter and Star
Golden Bell. Being active in variety shows, his popularity within Super
Junior grew and Han became popular overseas. Aside from South Korea,
Han also became well known in China, where he made guest appearances in
different Chinese variety shows, being one of the first K-pop idols to
appear in them. Han became a national celebrity in China with the debut
of Super Junior’s third subgroup Super Junior-M on April 8, 2008 in
China, with Han Geng as the leader of the group. The subgroup released
their first Chinese-language studio album, Me, on May 2, 2008. The
album debuted on Taiwan’s G-music combo charts as #2 and #1 on many of
China’s and Thailand’s music charts. Leading his fellow Korean members
to develop in his home country, his popularity immediately soared in
China. His overwhelming popularity set him apart from the rest of the
group, catching the media’s attention and making him become in high
demand by numerous TV shows, commercials and movies. However, his
agency did not allow him to take part in such activities without the
rest of the group, restricting his solo appearances.
Han Geng ceased activities with Super Junior after filing for contract termination from SM Entertainment on December 21, 2009.
Acting
Han made a cameo appearance with band-mate Eunhyuk as a friend of
Heechul in an episode of the MBC drama Rainbow Romance early 2006. In
August 2006, Han played the role of a police officer in Zhang Liyin’s
debut music video “Timeless”, starring alongside Lee Yeon-hee and
bandmate Siwon. The two-part music video was released separately in
September 2006. The music video was ranked #1 for four weeks on Melon’s
Video Chart. In November 2007, Han starred as the lead role in Zhang’s
debut Chinese music video, “I Will”, and “The Left Shore of Happiness”
alongside Lee and Siwon. Both music videos were released in February
2008.
Han’s first big-scale film was Attack on the Pin-Up Boys, an SM
Pictures production that starred all Super Junior members except
Kyuhyun. He made a cameo as a popular basketball player who later got
attacked by a mysterious force. Despite positive critical ratings, that
film did not do well in the box-office. However, all four versions of
the film’s DVD were sold out and broke chart records.
In late 2008, Han filmed the CCTV mini drama called Stage of Youth
in China. In the mini drama, he played Xia Lei, a young man who has to
go through numerous obstacles and challenges in order to achieve his
dream to become the new generation’s dancing star. The 12 episode drama
was a Chinese New Year Special and also a tribute to the Beijing
Olympics 2008. It aired on CCTV-Children (少儿频道) from January 19–31,
2009.
In the middle of 2010, Han Geng was given a cameo role as Deng
Xiaoping in the government funded film The Founding of a Party (建党伟业)
along with many other A-list Chinese celebrities. The movie premiered
in China on June 15, 2011.
Han Geng was cast alongside Barbie Hsu and Fahrenheit’s Wu Chun for
the Sino-Hollywood collaboration action movie My Kingdom (2011) (大武生).
The film is directed by Gao Xiaosong, produced by Andre Morgan and
features action directing by Sammo Hung. Filming began in October 2010,
although the actors trained in martial arts and Beijing opera for three
months before this. The filming wrapped up in late January 2011, and
the movie will have an release date of September 9th, 2011. The
production team has stated that the film will be released theatrically
in the United States and around the world.
In mid-2011 Han Geng was cast in the film Founding Father Sun
Yat-sen (国父孙中山) as Hu Han Min, the secretary of Sun Yat-sen. He started
filming on June 14, 2011, and the film is due to premiere in October.
2008 Beijing Olympics torch bearer
On March 20, 2008, Han was announced to be one of the torch bearers
for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the first boyband member to be chosen in
history. Being active in a foreign country, Han had constantly promoted
Chinese culture in Korea, earning him a spot as torch bearer. His torch
relay was in the Beijing route on August 7, 2008. He was runner number
240. Besides being a torch bearer, he also sung in the Beijing Olympic
theme song “Beijing Welcomes You” (北京欢迎你).
Charity Work
Han Geng is extremely active in many charities and constantly tells
his fans that instead of buying gifts for him, they should use their
resources to help those in need. Han Geng is most noted for donating
most of his 2008 income to the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. He also donated
100,000RMB to the 2010 Yunnan Drought. In 2010, Han Geng became a
spokesperson for “I Want To Go To School Kappa 1200 Help the School
Children Project,” a charity designed to help underprivileged Chinese
children go to school. While most celebrities that participated
sponsored one child through the program, Han Geng chose to sponsor ten,
and Han Geng’s fans, known as Gengfans (庚饭, lit. “Geng Rice”),
sponsored another 124. Han Geng also recorded a song with Olivia Ong to
promote the charity. In 2011, Han Geng recorded a charity song “孩子
(Children)” with various artists in order to promote child-trafficking
awareness. Also in 2011, Han Geng became a spokesperson for the
“Sunflower Project” which aims to provide electricity to students in
rural China so that they can complete their studies.
In response to Han Geng’s request, Gengfans are also extremely
active in charities and often gather together to go to poor regions in
China to help kids and families in need in Han Geng’s name. They call
this project “Let Love Fly”. Such charities have become a tradition
among Gengfans, especially during Han Geng’s birthday every year.
Solo career
On June 22, 2010, Han Geng officially announced his solo career at a
press conference held at The Great Wall Of China, revealing the release
of his first solo album titled Geng Xin 庚心, which hit stores throughout
Asia on July 27. The name of the album literally means “Geng’s heart”,
but it is also a play on words because it has the same pronunciation as
“start anew” in Chinese. There is also a third meaning to it: the
character Geng 庚 in his name comes from the evening star Hesperus/Venus
(长庚星, Chang Geng Xin), which is what he’s named after. So his album’s
title can also mean “Evening Star” or “Geng’s star”, since Xing 星
(star) and Xin 心 (heart) have similar pronunciation in Chinese. There
are two versions of the album depending on the locations of where it
was released. In Mainland China the albums came with the titles of the
songs and the song lyrics written in simplified Chinese characters
while in Hong Kong and Taiwan and oversea Chinese communities they are
all written in traditional Chinese characters.
On July 6, Han Geng published a complete demo version of his album’s
title song “My Logo”. The song was produced by American producers,
Craig Williams and Rene Van Verseveld. Remarkably, Han Geng and Craig
Williams invited Travis Payne and Stacey Walker (best known as Michael
Jackson’s choreographers) along with Michael Jackson’s This Is It
dancers – Dres Reid, Shannon Holtzapffel, Tyne Stecklein, and Daniel
Celebre to join the choreography for the MV of this song. The lead
track “My Logo” is listed at number 26 on Hit Fm Taiwan’s Hit Fm Annual
Top 100 Singles Chart (Hit-Fm年度百首單曲) for 2010.
Han Geng also held his first two solo concerts in Beijing on July 17
and 18. Tickets for the 2 concert days were sold out in a record time
of 37 minutes. His first solo album has topped various major music
charts in China, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. It has sold more than
350,000 copies within only 2 months after its release, and to celebrate
such remarkable results, a special celebratory version of the album was
released on October 1 with a limited number of 20,000 copies. In
addition of the 10 songs in the album, the special version contains 7
MVs and a karaoke disc. As of December 2010, the album has sold more
than 530,000 copies. The DVD for his Beijing concerts was released on
20 May 2010, and quickly took the number 1 position on various online
retail charts.
Han Geng quickly became one of the most marketable young idols in
the Mandopop scene, and since the start of his solo career has received
over 20 awards. He has also picked up several major endorsements, most
notably with Meng Niu Yogurt, Yishion clothing store, Nokia, online
store Lumei, and the video game Tian Xia 2, which features a character
in his likeness. Due to his overwhelming popularity, Han Geng was
invited to perform in the 2011 CCTV Spring Festival, where he sang the
opening and performed a short dance.
He also already announced a second album, to feature rock music
elements, and an Asia-wide tour expected in the later half of 2011.
Gengfans and Wings Of Love
Gengfan (庚饭) is the official name of Han Geng’s fans. The name was
created by his Chinese fans and it literally means “Geng Rice”. The
name is a play on words which contains various meanings. One of them is
the fact that the word for rice in Chinese sounds like the English word
“fan”. The other meaning is that because Han Geng is known to love
eating, they call themselves his “rice” so they can be his main source
of energy. The third meaning is that the word Gengfan when abbreviated,
becomes GF, which is also the abbreviation of the word “girlfriend” in
English. There are also many sub-classifications of Gengfans such as
Sister Fans (Gengfans who are older than him), Geng Knights (male
Gengfans), Mother Fans (Gengfans who are mothers), etc. Gengfans
generally use the colors yellow and black to represent themselves. They
are known for their strong and unconditional support as well as for
their massive numbers. They’re also known to be very active in
charities ever since Han Geng asked them to not give him gifts but use
the money to help those in need instead.
On Han Geng’s 23rd birthday in February 2007, they created a song
called Wings of Love as a gift for him. The lyrics, arrangement,
singing and music video were all done by his fans as an encouragement
for him to continue pursuing his dreams. The lyrics of the song are
extremely touching and became a type of anthem for Gengfans all around
the world; thus, they call themselves his wings of love. As a gesture
of gratitude, Han Geng has recorded his own version of the song in his
first solo album, changing the lyrics slightly to sing it back to his
fans.
Controversies
Performance restrictions
Before his debut, Han entered Korea with a vacation visa and had to
return to China every three months for a new one. After debuting in
2005, his company obtained an E-6 (Entertainment Industry) passport,
allowing him to stay for longer periods. However, a Chinese passport
strictly limited his promotional activities and appearances in various
broadcasting corporations in Korea. By law, a Chinese passport holder
is only allowed to perform on three television stations. Han was
allowed to perform on KBS and SBS, as stated by Lee Soo Man during a
Harvard Korean Wave conference in early 2007. Fellow labelmate, Zhang
Liyin, also experienced the same issue. Initially, the company did not
know of the procedures and was fined because of it. Before Han signed
contracts with KBS and SBS, he performed on stage with a mask and a hat
to hide his face on screen. Many thought Han was a backup dancer until
three months later when his bandmate Heechul finally revealed him to
the media by publicly taking off his mask.
Despite visa restrictions, Han performed with the rest of Super
Junior at the 2007 M.NET/KM Music Festival and the 2007 Golden Disk
Awards. Both award ceremonies aired on channels that Han was restricted
to perform on.
Lawsuit
On December 21, 2009, Han Geng filed for contract termination from
his former company SM Entertainment. The following day, December 22,
2009, Han Geng’s lawyer released the reasons for the contract
termination: the contract had provisions in SM Entertainment’s favor,
the 13-year contract length was unlawful, it would take an unfair sum
of money to end the contract, he was not allowed to request to revise
his contract, he was forced to do things that were not in his contract,
he was forced to do things against his will, he was fined if he
disobeyed the company, missed any events or was late, and there was
unfair profit distribution. Along with this, it was disclosed that
because of SM Entertainment’s refusal to give him a day off in over two
years, he had developed gastritis and kidney disease.
Han Geng’s current manager, Sun Le, also submitted a statement to
the Korean courts citing SM Entertainment’s violation of Han Geng’s
rights. This statement was later leaked to the public via the internet.
Though many suspected the statement to be fan created, it was later
confirmed as legitimate. Sun Le’s statement contended that Han Geng was
forced to wear a mask due to SM Entertainment’s ill handling of the
visa issue, SM Entertainment purposely discriminated against Han Geng
and his family, SM Entertainment refused to cooperate or listen to any
of Han Geng’s suggestions, SM Entertainment purposely turned down
individual activities for Han Geng (including Ariel Lin’s “Fireflies”
music video, which later starred two other Super Junior members) and SM
Entertainment treated Han Geng’s potential endorsers poorly.
On 21 December 2010 the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor
of Han. However a representative of SM Entertainment said that they
will file an immediate appeal to reverse the decision SM Entertainment
have yet to release statements regarding his official status with them.
- Yesung
Kim Jong-woon (born August 24, 1984), better known by his stage name
Yesung, is a Korean pop singer and occasional actor. He is one of the
four lead vocalists of the boy band Super Junior. He was once a radio
host for his own radio program, M.I.R.A.C.L.E for You, which ended its
broadcast in September 2007. His stage name Yesung (藝聲 in Hanja) is
translated to “art-like voice” and is derived from the phrase “예술가의
성대”, meaning “vocal chords of an artist.”
Career
Super Junior
On November 6, 2005, Yesung, officially debuted on SBS’s music
program Popular Songs as a member of Super Junior 05, the first
generation of Super Junior. The group performed their first single
“TWINS (Knock Out)” with an audience of about 500 fans. A full studio
album was released a month later, which debuted at #3 on the monthly
MIAK K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company
declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group
dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The re-polished group hit big after they released their first CD single
“U” the following summer, which became Super Junior’s most successful
single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March
2009.
During his career with Super Junior, Yesung was put into two
subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger Super
Junior group. In November 2006, Yesung was placed in Super Junior’s
first subgroup, Super Junior-K.R.Y, a group specializing in singing
mournful, R&B ballads. Almost two years later, Yesung became a
member of Super Junior-Happy. On May 10, 2008, Yesung was sent to the
hospital after he collapsed from running 70 kilometers for a charity
marathon. On August 8, Yesung was sent to the hospital again after
falling from a 1.5m stage while rehearsing a performance for the KBS
music program, Music Bank. The injury severed his old injuries from the
neck and waist and Yesung was not treated out of the hospital until two
days later.
Yesung alone contributed in the drama OST, Tazza, a highly rated
drama which started on September 16, 2008. He sang Love Really Hurts.
This ballad song has been consistently used during the drama itself. He
has performed the song live several times, including in the 3rd
Anniversary Party of Super Junior.
Last November 6, 2009, he replaced Jonghyun of SHINee in their Ring
Ding Dong performance due to Jonghyun coming down with the swine flu.
Last March 31, 2010, Yesung contributed in the drama OST
Cinderella’s Sister, starring Moon Geun Young and Chun Jung Myun and
started on March 31, 2010. He sang It Has To Be You. This song is a
ballad that tells the story about a man who refused to look for another
girl, except for the one he loved. Recently, during the epilogue of
Super Junior’s 2nd Asia Tour Concert, Super Show 2 Manila, he sang this
song live on stage and asked his fans to support his new song. Then on
June 4, 2010, Yesung performed solo for the first time on Music Bank
(TV series) with his song, It Has To Be You, a highly rated song on the
music chart on Music Bank.
Last December 29, 2010, the second part of the KBS drama President
OST was released. Yesung, together with Luna of f(x), sang the song
entitled Loving You. This song gained affection and support from public.
Last January 31, 2011, Yesung’s third solo song, the new SBS drama,
Paradise Ranch,, OST was released. The song is entitled Waiting For You
and is a ballad that tells about a man who is adamant on waiting until
the end of the world for his lover to return to him. The drama itself
has been gaining attention due to the main cast members Lee Yeon Hee
and DBSK’s Changmin. Yesung performed this song for the first time on
the first K.R.Y Concert in Seoul, February 11, 2011.
Last July 14, 2011, his second duet with another female artist,
namely Jang Hye Jin who is a Korean actress & singer, was released
throughout Korea’s digital charts. I Am Behind You is from the album
Cooperation Part 1. The song has a fantastic harmony & is mixed
with the lyrics about the heart of a person who has an infatuation on
someone.
Recently, last July 18, 2011, his latest solo was released. For One
Day is an OST for the drama Warrior Baek Dong soo . The song explores
an emotional farewell from a lover & it touches the hearts of
listeners with the meloncholy expressed in his voice.
Hosting
From September 2006 to September 2007, Yesung was a host for his own
radio program, M.I.R.A.C.L.E for You, where members of Super Junior
often appear as guests. However, before the radio show’s first
anniversary, Yesung had to end the program so he could concentrate on
Super Junior’s second album, Don’t Don. The last air date for the radio
show was September 8, 2007.
Last July 21, 2010, Yesung appeared together with band mate Leeteuk
as MC’s for MBC’s new program, Love Pursuer. The show presents a Korean
celebrity with the challenge of guessing who is their secret admirer.
The show was a favorite amongst TV audiences.
Last September 4, 2010, Yesung was recruited as a new MC for MUZIT,
a musical talk show alongside K.Will and veteran composer Yoo Youngsuk.
The show showcases various musical talents from the Korean music
industry.
Acting
Yesung’s acting career began in the summer of 2007 with the release
of Attack on the Pin-Up Boys, a high school comedy starring the whole
of Super Junior. Yesung stars as the school’s rock star who gets
attacked by a mysterious force, which shoots him toward national
stardom.
In 2009, Yesung was casted to play Jung Myungsoo in the musical
South Korean Mountain Fortress, which will show from October 9 to
November 4, 2009.
He was also performing in the musical Hong Gil Dong that was running from February 18 to April 18, alongside group mate Sungmin.
Then last October 2010, Yesung starred in the musical Spamalot as
one of the male leads, Sir Galahad. The musical was shown from October
1 to December 28. It received good feed backs from musical audiences.
Yesung stated that he is much more interested in musicals nowadays
because it was a different challenge for him and looks forward to doing
more musicals in the future.
Last June 2011, Yesung joined KBS’ Immortal Song where Idol Stars
render their own versions of old songs from Music Legends and winners
are selected through voting. Yesung unfortunately lost in the first
airing of the episode but then emerged as the winner of the third
episode when he sang Boohwal’s song “The More I Love You”. He was
supposed to join the show for a few more episodes, but due to Super
Junior’s schedule, their company had no choice but to pull him out.
- Kangin
Kim Young-woon (born January 17, 1985), better known by his stage
name Kangin, is a Korean pop singer, actor, MC, presenter, and a member
of the super boy band Super Junior. His name ‘Kangin’ (强仁 in Hanja),
meaning strong benevolence, was given to him to complement his
personality. Currently, Kangin will not be joining Super Junior for
their fifth album. Kangin officially enlisted and began his two year
military service on July 5, 2010.
Musical career
Kangin was scouted by a talent agent and was recommended to sign up
for SM Entertainment’s talent competitions. In 2002, Kangin won first
place on the fourth annual SM Youth Best Contest and won the best
outward appearance award and signed a contract with SM Entertainment.
Along with Hero, U-Know and future band mate Heechul, SM
Entertainment placed them in a small project music group called Four
Seasons, with each of the four members representing the four seasons of
the year. The prospective group never came through; both Hero and
U-Know were chosen to join another all-male singing group TVXQ, which
debuted in December 2003. With two members gone, the idea of Four
Seasons dropped. Kangin and Heechul were then placed in Super Junior
along with ten other trainees under the same company. This project
group managed through well, and they debuted two years later on
November 6, 2005 under the name Super Junior 05, the first generation
of Super Junior.
In early 2006, SM Entertainment was beginning to recruit new members
for the next Super Junior generation, Super Junior 06, with Kangin
still as an undergraduate member of Super Junior. However, plans
changed following the rising popularity of the group and the company
declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group
dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The re-polished group hit it big after they released their first CD
single “U” the following summer in 2006, which became Super Junior’s
most successful single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry,
Sorry” in March 2009.
During his career with Super Junior, Kangin was put into two
subgroups, smaller groups that is branched off of the larger Super
Junior group. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super
Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-Happy.
Television and acting career
Before debuting as a Super Junior member, Kangin went by his birth
name as a stage name. He debuted as a host and an actor before being in
Super Junior 05. After debut with Super Junior, kangin became a regular
in MBC variety show for celebrity named ‘Image Survival’ till February
2006. In 2006, Kangin also frequently acts as MC for SM artists such as
DBSK and Boa fanmeeting and MC for EBS TV channel. In 2006 and 2007, he
also goes on many variety show as guest and sometimes as a regular for
a short time such as Love Triangle, KBS Star King, KBS vitamin and MBC
driving school with leetuk as regular. Active in television appearances
and hosting, Kangin earns the highest salary in Super Junior.
Five days after Super Junior 05′s debut performance, Kangin became
the MC of Mnet’s M!Countdown along with Leeteuk and Shindong. The trio
stayed as the hosts throughout the remaining year until Kangin was
replaced by Eunhyuk in mid 2006 due to his busy schedule for hosting
EBS Reckless Radio and MBC’s music program, Show! Music Core. Kangin
also became the television host for two of MBC’s popular entertainment
programs, Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club and Nothing is Impossible.
For Mnet channel, Kangin starred in ‘Band of Brothers 2008′ with
Heechul, Jay and Jungmo. For MTV channel, in 2008 kangin was a MC for
‘Class Up’. In 2008, Kangin was one of 4 MCs for SBS ‘Change’ variety
show. From December 2008 to May 2009, Kangin and actress Lee Yoon-ji
played as a low-income college couple for the popular MBC reality show
We Got Married. This was the first MBC variety show kangin did as a
regular after the crisis between MBC variety show producer and SM
company regarding Kangin job as host in SBS Super Junior Exploration of
Human Body in 2007.In 2009, Kangin with other few Super Junior members
hosts television show for charity named ‘Miracle’ but kangin was
withheld from all his activities after his DUI case.
Holding a strong contract with MBC radio, Kangin left Reckless Radio
in June 2007 to host MBC’s Good Friend Radio with Cho Jungrin. In April
2008, Cho’s hosting spot was replaced by Taeyeon. Kangin’s last day of
hosting the program was on April 19, 2009.
Kangin made a brief cameo appearance in the 2002 SBS drama, A Man
and a Woman and in the 2006 MBC sitcom, Rainbow Romance as himself. In
2007, he made a guest appearance in the MBC drama Billie Jean, Look At
Me. Kangin’s silver-screen debut was in the Super Junior film Attack on
the Pin-Up Boys, premiered in summer 2007. In 2008, Kangin was chosen
to take the role of ‘Kang Soo’ in the Korean language film, Hello,
Schoolgirl.
From September 9 to November 9, 2008, Kangin, along with band mate
Heechul, debuted as musical actors through the musical, Xanadu. Xanadu
was a 1980′s musical film starring Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John.
Xanadu has also been reproduced to a Broadway musical. Heechul and
Kangin, along with Choi Sungwon, performed the same character, Sonny,
according to their time slot, and auditions and casting picks will be
chosen in a process through reality television.
Kangin was also cast to take the role of ‘Hotae’ for MBC’s cable
comedy drama, Romance Zero. With a total of sixteen episodes, the drama
ended in late May 2009 with acceptable reviews and ratings.
Controversies
MBC conflict
A time-slot dispute occurred between SM Entertainment and MBC when
SM insisted to have Kangin stay on SBS’s Explorers of the Human Body
instead of MBC’s Sunday Night Dong-An Club, in which Kangin was a
regular host. MBC decided to temporarily ban Super Junior from
appearing in any future performances on MBC. Kangin was replaced by
T.O.P of Big Bang as the MC of Show! Music Core. Kangin could also no
longer host MBC variety shows Nothing is Impossible and Sunday Sunday
Night Dong-An Club until the conflict was resolved. MBC also demanded
to receive an apology from SM Entertainment if SM artists should
continue to perform on shows hosted by the channel. After Kangin left
Nothing is Impossible and Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club, both shows
cancelled due to low ratings, though Kangin’s departure had nothing to
do with this, as ratings were already low. Kangin’s radio program with
MBC, Good Friend Radio, however, continues to air since it was not
related to his work conflict. A week later, MBC announced that they
invited Super Junior to film an exclusive MBC segment, “Giving Children
a New Life” despite their previous decision to ban Super Junior. The
entertainment director for MBC claimed that the ban on Super Junior was
never official, but just a decision made by the programs’ producers.
Assault case
On September 16, 2009, Kangin was arrested for his involvement in a
fight between two men that took place outside of a bar in
Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. An eye-witness reported that two men
entered a room where Kangin and his friend were present and began
arguing heatedly. Kangin left the bar, but the two men followed him
outside and began displaying acts of violence. Another witness reported
that Kangin tried to stop the fight. A nearby surveillance camera
caught the brawl, and it was immediately reported to the police. Kangin
was brought into interrogation to aid investigation along with four
other suspects. One of the suspects insisted that Kangin assaulted him,
but it was later proven that Kangin only reacted for self-defense.
Kangin was dropped from being the main model of Andre Kim’s fashion
show as a result. After Kangin’s appearance in Super Junior’s Super
Show 2 concert in Hong Kong, all of Kangin’s future schedules became
temporarily postponed.
DUI Hit-and-Run
On October 16, 2009 around 3am, an intoxicated Kangin crashed into a
parked taxi that held three passengers and left the scene of the
accident. Six hours later, Kangin turned himself in to the police. He
was recorded to have a blood alcohol content of 0.082% after he turned
himself in. The accident was recorded as being a hit-and-run despite
Kangin turning himself in later. He failed to show up in the afternoon
for further investigation and had to be called in the following day.
SM Entertainment and Kangin released an official public apology
shortly after. All of Kangin’s activities were canceled by SM
Entertainment until the end of the year due to Kangin’s actions. A
month later Kangin made an appearance in a new clothing company, SPAO’s
website. Netizens were enraged due to SM Entertainment’s declaration of
the suspension of Kangin’s activities. It was later found out that the
photos were taken prior to Kangin’s DUI accident. Kangin was charged
and fined 8,000,000 won (approximately $8,000 USD).
- Shindong
Shin Dong-hee (born September 28, 1985), better known by his stage
name Shindong, is a Korean pop singer, actor, presenter, and one of the
four lead dancers of the boy band Super Junior. He is a dancer but also
a rapper, often co-writing rap lyrics with Eunhyuk. He is an extremely
popular radio personality and show host on various programs, noted for
his comedic style.
Musical career
Shindong was born in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang on September 28,
1985. He was originally born Shin Dong Fed, but was soon renamed Shin
Dong Hee. Very little is known about Shindong’s personal life, and many
thought he was an only child. He has a younger sister. Having a love
for dancing, Shindong signed up for the 2002 Goyangsi Youth Dance
contest and won the grand prize. A year later, he joined the contest
again and won gold. In 2004, Shindong joined the Mnet Epi Contest and
won both the gold prize and popularity award. In 2005, Shindong signed
up for the SM Best Youth Contest and won first place for Best Comedian,
achieving the grand prize. He signed a contract with SM Entertainment
and received lessons to further improve his dancing ability.
Months after joining the company, Shindong was put in the large
all-boy rotational group Super Junior as a member of its first
generation, Super Junior 05. He decided to use the stage name
‘Shindong’ due to his birth name sounding similar to band mate Donghae.
‘Shindong’ (신동) is derived from his surname and the first character of
his birth name. It is also the Korean word for “child prodigy.”
With a total of twelve members, Super Junior 05 officially debuted
on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s music program Popular Songs, performing
their first single, “TWINS (Knock Out)”. Their debut performance
attracted over 500 fans and also garnered oversea viewers from both
China and Japan. A full studio album was released a month later, which
debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed when the band’s
growing popularity became apparent, and the company declared a halt in
forming future Super Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix
“05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished
group hit big after they released their first CD single “U” the
following summer, which became Super Junior’s most successful single in
the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March 2009.
During his career with Super Junior, Shindong was put into two
subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger Super
Junior group. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super
Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-Happy.
His fans are called Shinfriends.
Television and film career
Hosting
Five days after Super Junior 05′s debut performance, Shindong became
the emcee of Mnet’s music program M!Countdown along with Leeteuk and
Kangin. They stayed as the hosts throughout the remaining year until
Kangin was replaced by Eunhyuk in mid 2006. The trio’s last day of
hosting was on March 27, 2008.
Shindong is popularly known as an active emcee and radio host of
MBC’s BoBoBo Ai Joa and KMTV’s Green Apple Sound, successfully
establishing the image, “DJ Shindong.” Shindong left Green Apple Sound
to host MBC’s Stop the Boring Time Radio with Kim Shin-young.
Acting
While Shindong had prior acting experiences as a comedian, his
acting debut was in the Super Junior film Attack on the Pin-Up Boys,
which premiered in the summer of 2007. In 2008, Shindong played a major
supporting role in the mini television series Single Dad in Love and
also participated in the drama’s original soundtrack. He and radio
partner Kim Shin Young appeared in an episode of popular MBC drama
Queen of Housewives.
Personal life
Shindong is currently a student at Paekche Institute of the Arts. He
enjoys making jokes and frequently attends gag performances. Wanting to
present a healthier image to fans, Shindong went on a diet in 2008 and
lost around 19 kg. In early 2009, Shindong lost another 10 kg after
Leeteuk broadcasted a comment in “Super Junior’s Kiss the Radio” saying
that Shindong would lose more weight for the fans.[citation needed]
On April 19, 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T’s release
of their first single “Rokkugo”, Shindong was hospitalized from a car
accident when returning home after a recording of the radio show Super
Junior Kiss the Radio. Shindong only suffered minor injuries, and was
discharged from the hospital on April 23.[citation needed] In May 2010,
Shindong proposed to his long time girlfriend using a coded message in
the “thank you” column of Super Junior’s 4th album.
April 2007 Car Accident
On April 19, a little after midnight, Kyuhyun, Leeteuk, Eunhyuk,
Shindong, and two managers were on their way back to their apartment
after a session of KBS Super Junior Kiss The Radio. While they were on
the highway, the front left tire busted as the driver was switching
lanes and the van ran into the guard rail/medium on the driver’s side
and skidded for about 30M+. At some point, the momentum caused the van
to flip over on its right side.
Shindong was the least injured out of the members, and has managed
to leave the accident with just cuts and bruises on his face and body.
He has been released from the hospital as a patient.
The accident was caused by a deflated left front tire. The driver
was trying to switch lanes but lost control and collided with the guard
rail.
- Sungmin
Sungmin (born January 1, 1986), real name Lee Sung-min, is a Korean
pop singer and actor. He is one of the four lead vocalists of the South
Korean boy band Super Junior.
Biography
Sungmin was born in the Hogae district of Anyang, Gyeonggi. He has a
younger brother, Lee Sungjin. He entered the 2001 SM Youth Best Contest
and jointly won first place for the Best Outward Appearance award with
future band mate Donghae. Together, they signed a contract with SM
Entertainment and began to receive training in singing, dancing, and
acting.
In 2002, Sungmin was briefly placed in a project R&B group with
Xiah and future band mate Eunhyuk. Along with Typhoon, Rose and Attack,
the six of them made their first television appearance in a show called
Heejun vs. Kangta, Battle of the Century: Pop vs. Rock Moon Hee-jun
taught Typhoon, Rose and Attack on how to properly sing rock while
Sungmin, Xiah, and Eunhyuk were taught other singing techniques by
Kangta. The six trainees quickly separated a year later, however, when
Typhoon, Rose, and Attack debuted as member of rock band TRAX and Xiah
debuted as a member of TVXQ. Both Sungmin and Eunhyuk joined ten other
trainees and formed the group Super Junior 05, being the first
generation of the rotational boy band Super Junior.
Career
Super Junior
Super Junior 05 officially debuted on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s
music program Popular Songs, performing their first single, “TWINS
(Knock Out)”. Their debut performance attracted over 500 fans and also
garnered oversea viewers from both China and Japan. A full studio album
was released a month later, which debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK
K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company
declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group
dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The re-polished group hit big after they released their first CD single
“U” the following summer, which became Super Junior’s most successful
single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March
2009.
During his career with Super Junior, Sungmin has been put into three
subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger main
group. In February 2007, Sungmin was placed in the trot-singing Super
Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-Happy. In
2011, he was also placed as one of the two new members of Super
Junior-M along with Eunhyuk.
And around the first half of June 2011, Super Junior went back to
the recording studio to prepare for their upcoming 5th album that ELFs
all over the world are looking forward to .
During the last 2 weeks of July 2011, SM Entertainment started
releasing different teaser images of Super Junior for their new album.
They started with Eunhyuk, followed by Donghae, Leeteuk, Kyuhyun,
Shindong, Sungmin, Ryeowook, Yesung, Siwon and then, Heechul. They
released their new Teaser for their new single, Mr. Simple, last August
1, 2011. The songs was then released online through Naver, Soribada,
Mnet etc on August 2, 2011, followed by the release of their new album
on August 3, 2011. And on August 4, they held a press conference
followed by the release of their new music video.
On August 22, 2011, Super Junior released Version B of their Mr.
Simple album. The concept for this one is a lot different from their
Version A. They had the military concept in their photoshoot. This
version has song SUPERMAN which they sang during their comeback stage
that got fans hooked. You get to hear Sungmin and the rest of the Super
Junior sing in a low key.
Acting
Sungmin played young Kang Dong-shin in the MBC drama Sisters of the
Sea in early 2005, right before the debut of Super Junior. A year
later, Sungmin guest starred in SBS’s Banjun Theatre drama Finding Lost
Time and played Micky’s high school friend.
Sungmin’s first big-scale film was the Super Junior film Attack on
the Pin-Up Boys, an SM Pictures production that premiered for the first
time in July 2007. He played the role of a pretty school boy who later
gets attacked by an unknown criminal.
In early 2008, Sungmin participated in a short half-hour drama Super
Junior Unbelievable Story with Leeteuk. Sungmin starred as himself, a
member of the popular group Super Junior-T who is constantly
overshadowed by his members.
In 2009, he was cast in the musical “Akilla” starring as the main lead, Ro.
In 2010, he was cast in the musical “Hongildong” starring as the main lead, Hongildong, alongside fellow bandmate Yesung.
SM Entertainment recently announced that Sungmin was cast in the KBS
drama “President” as Jang Sungmin, the ambitious son of Jang Il Joon
the president. The drama will air on December 15, 2010 in KBS2-TV.
And just recently, he is performing as Daniel in the musical “Jack
the Ripper” that was staged on July 7, 2011. The last day of his
performance as Daniel was on August 10,2011 at 4pm. His family (parents
and sungjin), Fellow Super Junior member Cho Kyuhyun, Dong Bang Shin
Ki’s Shim Changmin and F(x)’s Amber were all there to give him support.
MC
Sungmin replaced band mate Kangin as one of the key DJs of Reckless
Radio and was hosting it with Sooyoung of Girls’ Generation in the
later half of 2007. On February 3, 2008, Sooyoung’s band mate Sunny
replaced her position. The program ended in late July 2008.
Other activities
In October 2010, Sungmin was one of the twenty idols from different
South Korean groups that recorded the song, “Let’s Go”, for the purpose
of increasing public participation in the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. He
provided vocals along with labelmates Seohyun, Jonghyun and Luna.
Concert
Sungmin has been in three concerts of Super Junior already. All
where sold out and had the chance to showcase his abilities through his
solo segments on the said concert. Super Junior’s Super Show were all
sold out in Asia that they are thinking of expanding it into a world
tour.
And just recently, they have concluded SM Town in Paris. The first
KPOP concert held in Paris, France that surprised them on how warm the
reception of the French were to them.
With the release of their 5th album, Mr. Simple, another concert is
in the works but, it was informed on their press conference on the 4th
of August that there won’t be an Asian tour but will be replaced with a
world tour.
Twitter
Last August 9, 2011, a user with the tweet ID “Mystericsmile” came
out on twitter and claimed to be Sungmin’s official twitter account.
But, later that day, Sungjin, Sungmin’s younger brother officially
announced that his brother doesn’t have any twitter account and that
the user “mystericsmile” was a fake. He also stated that this was the
reason why his brother doesn’t like twitter.
Sungmin used to have an account under the ID, “myblacksmile” but he
removed it after a couple of months and also, he removed his cyworld
for unspecified reasons. He continues to update his fans through his
me2day account.
- Eunhyuk
Lee Hyuk-jae (born April 4, 1986), better known by his stage name
Eunhyuk, is a Korean dancer, rapper, presenter, song writer, and
occasional actor. He is a part of the thirteen member South Korean
boyband Super Junior. His position in the group is the lead rapper and
one of the three lead dancers alongside fellow band members Shindong
and Donghae. To prevent confusion with famous Korean comedian Lee
Hyeok-jae, he decided to use the stage name ‘Eunhyuk’, meaning “Silver
Hyuk”. Besides being part of Super Junior and Super Junior’s
sub-groups, Super Junior-T, Super Junior-Happy and recently, Super
Junior-M, Eunhyuk has made a name for himself by appearing in numerous
CFs, variety shows and music programs. Among the general audience and
fans alike, Eunhyuk is nicknamed the “Dancing Machine” of Super Junior.
His best friend is fellow band mate Donghae, whom he has known for more
than 10 years.
Career
Super Junior
Eunhyuk was born Lee Hyuk-jae in Neunggok, Goyang, Gyeonggi. In 1999
when he turned thirteen, he auditioned for SM Entertainment through the
company’s Starlight Casting System with childhood friend Kim Junsu. Kim
Junsu was selected to sign a contract with the company soon after, but
Eunhyuk failed the audition. He auditioned again the following year and
was finally selected through showcasing his rapping and dancing
abilities. Under SM Entertainment, Eunhyuk was further trained in
singing, dancing, acting, and had brief Mandarin Chinese language
courses. In 2002 Eunhyuk, Kim Junsu, and another trainee Sungmin were
placed in a project R&B group. A year later, the trio along with
three future members from TRAX (Jay Kim, No Minwoo, Kang Jungwoo) made
a brief appearance in a show called Heejun vs. Kangta, Battle of the
Century: Pop vs. Rock, in which Moon Hee-jun and Kangta individually
taught them techniques on different types of singing. Later that year,
Eunhyuk’s trio disbanded, and Kim Junsu debuted as a member of TVXQ in
2003. Eunhyuk and Sungmin were instead placed together in another
project group with ten other male trainees. The twelve boys formed the
group Super Junior 05, being the first generation of the rotational boy
band Super Junior.
With a total of twelve members, Super Junior 05 officially debuted
on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s music program Popular Songs, performing
their first single, “TWINS (Knock Out)”. Their debut performance
attracted over 500 fans and also garnered oversea viewers from both
China and Japan. A full studio album was released a month later, which
debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed when the company
added in a thirteenth member, Kyuhyun, and the company declared a halt
in forming future Super Junior generations. The group dropped the
suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior. The
re-polished group hit big after they released their first CD single “U”
the following summer, which became Super Junior’s most successful
single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March
2009.
Eunhyuk is an acclaimed lyricist and wrote the rap lyrics for a
majority of Super Junior’s songs. The rap lyrics to “Show Me Your Love”
from the winter single with TVXQ was written by him, along with Heechul
and Shindong. The Lyrics to One Love were also one of his works.
Eunhyuk also wrote the lyrics for “여행 (A Short Journey)” from Bonamana
Repackaged Album, while Donghae composed the music. Along with Shindong
and Donghae, he also choreographs some of Super Junior’s dance routines.
During his career with Super Junior, Eunhyuk was put into three
subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger Super
Junior group. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super
Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-Happy. In
2011, he was announced to be one of two new members of Super Junior-M
along with Sungmin.
Hosting
Eunhyuk replaced Kangin’s position in hosting for Mnet’s music
program M!Countdown in late 2006. Hosting with band mates Leeteuk and
Shindong, they did not leave their hosting positions until early 2008.
Eunhyuk has also been the co-host of Super Junior’s Kiss the Radio
(SUKIRA) with Leeteuk, a radio show that promotes Korea’s music and pop
culture. The show was established on August 21, 2006 and has become one
of the more frequently tuned in radio channels of Korea. The radio show
recently celebrated its 5th anniversary. He stopped on 28 Feb 2011 to
focus on SJ-M’s promotions. He promised to be back in 3 months. He
comeback to SUKIRA at June 21, 2011
Eunhyuk is a notable MC in the Korean variety show industry and,
like his groupmates Leeteuk and Shindong, has been involved in many
shows as an MC. Eunhyuk is currently the permanent guest on SBS Star
King & Strong Heart. In Strong Heart, he is known as one of the
three Super Junior members who ppear as Teukigayo, a comedic sketch
act. He had a special position at Strong Heart as “xylophone hitter”
where he temporarily left due to Super Junior M activity. ‘Strong
Heart’ presented a golden xylophone as a special present to thank
Eunhyuk
Eunhyuk is currently the MC for MBC Great Birth, better yet known as
MBC Star Audition, a worldwide search for young talents eager to break
into the Kpop industry. Also, he is MC for MBC every1 Super Junior
Foresight, along with Leeteuk, Kyuhyun and Shindong.
Personal life
Eunhyuk has graduated from Pai Chai University.
On April 19, 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T’s release
of their first single “Rokkugo”, Eunhyuk was hospitalized from a car
accident when returning home after a recording of the radio show Super
Junior Kiss the Radio. Eunhyuk only suffered minor injuries, and was
discharged from the hospital on April 23.
It was announced on Feb 25th 2010 that Eunhyuk was diagnosed with
Swine Flu causing him not to attend the encore concert of Girls’
Generation’s Into the New World. Leeteuk and Heechul replaced him. On
March 5, SM Ent. announced that 4 March in the evening Eunhyuk went to
the hospital and it was confirmed that he is fully recovered from flu.
After recovering, Eunhyuk resumed his activities at Shanghai SSII
concert on March 6.
April 2007 car accident
On April 19, a little after midnight, Kyuhyun, Leeteuk, Eunhyuk,
Shindong, and two managers were on their way back to their apartment
after a session of KBS Super Junior Kiss The Radio. While they were on
the highway, the front left tire busted as the driver was switching
lanes and the van ran into the guard rail/medium on the driver’s side
and skidded for about 30M+. At some point, the momentum caused the van
to flip over on its right side.
Eunhyuk was reported to have glass shards in his back, and was said to have stitches.
The accident was caused by a deflated left front tire. The driver
was trying to switch lanes but lost control and collided with the guard
rail.
- Lee Donghae
Lee Donghae (이동해) (born October 15, 1986), better known mononymously
as Donghae (lit. East Sea), is a Korean singer and occasional actor. He
is a part of the thirteen member South Korean boyband Super Junior. He
is one of the three main dancers alongside fellow band members Eunhyuk
and Shindong, and is part of its subgroup, Super Junior-M. Donghae is
also one of the first four Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage
stamps.
Biography
Donghae was born in Mokpo, Jeollanam on October 15, 1986 . Donghae
initially wanted to become an athlete, but under the influence of his
father, who once desired to become a singer, Donghae decided to train
himself to become a singer.
In 2001, Donghae successfully signed a contract with SM
Entertainment soon after he jointly won the Best Outward Appearance
award with future band mate Sungmin on the company’s third annual SM
Youth Best Contest. Under SM Entertainment, Donghae was put in singing,
dancing, and acting lessons that same year. He was then recruited into
a five-member boy band Smile, with future band mate Leeteuk, but the
idea was soon dropped.
In 2004, Donghae- along with Leeteuk- was put into another boy band
and formed Super Junior with eleven other trainees. The group later
became known as Super Junior 05, the presumed first generation of the
rotational music group, Super Junior. Several days before the group
debuted, Donghae made a brief appearance in November 2005 at SBS’s Shin
Dong-yup’s There Is There Isn’t panel.
On the 8th of August 2006, Donghae’s father died due to cancer. The
event still proves to be a difficult memory for him due to the close
relationship they shared. In Super Junior’s 4th Album (2010), Donghae’s
thank you is dedicated almost entirely to his father.
His best friend is fellow band mate Eunhyuk, whom he has known for more than 10 years.
Super Junior
Super Junior 05 officially debuted on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s
music program Popular Songs, performing their first single, “TWINS
(Knock Out)” Their debut performance attracted over 500 fans and also
garnered oversea viewers from both China and Japan. A full studio album
was released a month later, which debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK
K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company
declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group
dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The re-polished group hit big after they released their first CD single
“U” the following summer, which became Super Junior’s most successful
single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March
2009.
In late 2007, Donghae was put into Super Junior-M, the Chinese
subgroup version of Super Junior. Super Junior-M is the 1st
international music group in the Chinese music industry to have members
of both Chinese and Korean descent, and brought an influence in the
mainland music industry to produce multi-national music groups. Super
Junior-M debuted in China on April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual Music
Chart Awards with the release of their first single music video, “U”.
The subgroup released their first Chinese-language studio album, Me on
May 2, 2008 to critical success. The album debuted #1 on many of
China’s and Thailand’s music charts and Taiwan’s G-music combo charts
as #2.
Donghae has tried his hand at composing and songwriting. In late
2009, his first self-composed and self-written song, “Beautiful” was
released with Super Show 2: The 2nd Asia Tour. He wished to produce
more songs in the future given the opportunity and time.
Donghae composed 여행 (A Short Journey), which is on Super Junior’s new 미인아 (Repackage) album, their 4th album to date.
Acting career
Donghae made his acting debut in Super Junior’s horror documentary
Mystery 6, broadcasted in early 2006. The documentary surrounds Donghae
and his peculiar ability to see and feel ghosts.
In August 2006, Donghae played the role of a human turned cyborg in
the Korean version of BoA’s music video drama, “Key of Heart” his first
lead appearance in a music video.
Donghae’s official debut as an actor was in July 2007, with the
release of Super Junior’s debut film, Attack on the Pin-Up Boys.
Donghae stars as a class mate and close friend of Kim Kibum, a high
school student who investigates on a mysterious attack on pretty boys
in various high schools in town.
In late 2007, Donghae was featured in Girls’ Generation’s “Kissing
You” music video. Also, he and Kyuhyun appeared and sang for facial
wash product commercial “Happy Bubble” with actress Han Ji Min. A full
music video was released on August 19, 2009. He appeared in Ariel Lin’s
music video for “螢火蟲” (Firefly), with fellow groupmate, Siwon as his
best friend who is dating Ariel’s character who happens to be Siwon’s
ex-girlfriend. He played Zhang Li Yin’s love interest on her music
video, 晴天雨天 (Moving On), released on October 19, 2009.
Donghae starred in SBS drama, It’s Okay, Daddy’s Daughter as Wookgi,
one of three brothers in the drama, which was aired in mid November
2010. He is scheduled in April 2011 to film Taiwanese drama Extravagant
Challenge (Chinese: 華麗的挑戰) with Ivy Chen and fellow band member Siwon
as the three main characters. It is a live-action adaptation of
Japanese shōjo manga Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura to be shot in
Taiwan.
Sponsorship
Donghae is the brand ambassador for Maxim Colours Contact lens
worldwide. A press conference appointing him the brand ambassador was
held in Thailand, 21 June 2010.
Choi Siwon
Choi Si-won (born February 10, 1987), sometimes mononymously
credited as Siwon, is a Korean pop singer and actor. He is a member of
super boy band Super Junior and its subgroup, Super Junior-M, where he
is known by his Chinese name Shiyuan (Chinese language: 始源, meaning
“Origin”). Aside from Super Junior related activities, Siwon is a
successful male model and actor. Siwon is best known for his role in
the 2006 Hong Kong historical action film A Battle of Wits as young
Prince Liang Shi, as well as the lead male in the Korean drama Oh My
Lady! opposite actress Chae Rim and the data analyst and rookie elite
agent from the 2010 spin-off to Iris (TV series), Athena: Goddess of
War. Siwon can speak Korean, conversational Mandarin and English, very
little Cantonese (Shown in his Hong Kong interview), as well as a
little Japanese. He is also one of the first four Korean artists to be
on Chinese postage stamps.
Biography
Although Choi Siwon’s registered birthday is February 10, 1987, he
was actually born on April 7, 1986.[citation needed] Born in Seoul,
South Korea, he was raised in an affluent, strict Protestant
family.[citation needed] He was scouted by a talent agent when he was
16 as he was waiting for friends in front of his high school. He was
recommended to audition for the Starlight Casting System to become an
entertainer. Siwon’s parents disapproved him pursuing in an
entertainment career, so he had to secretly audition. He successfully
passed auditions, and after consideration, his parents allowed him to
sign under the talent agency SM Entertainment. Siwon said that although
his father allowed him to sign the contract, he would not give any help
to his son as he wanted his son to take responsibility in his actions.
He later moved into dormitories with fellow trainees and he was
trained in areas of singing, acting, and dancing. Siwon stated that SM
Entertainment saw potential for him in acting, and thus gave him
training in the field. He made his first appearance in a music video of
The Grace’s Dana when he was still a solo singer in 2003. A year after,
he made a brief appearance in the short drama, Precious Family. In
2005, Siwon made a brief appearance in the KBS drama Eighteen,
Twenty-Nine as the young Kang Bong-man.
On July 22, 2010, Siwon was appointed as a UNICEF envoy.
Music career
Not long after Siwon’s first television appearance, SM Entertainment
released an announcement that he would officially debut as one of the
twelve members in a boy band. This band later became officially known
as Super Junior 05, the first generation of the rotational music group
Super Junior. A few months before the debut of Super Junior 05, Siwon
made his first official media appearance with band mate Han Geng as one
of the runway models in a fashion show by Bum Suk.
Super Junior 05 officially debuted on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s
music program Popular Songs, performing their first single, “TWINS
(Knock Out)”. Their debut performance attracted over 500 fans and also
garnered oversea viewers from both China and Japan. A full studio album
was released a month later, which debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK
K-pop album charts.
In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed when the company
added in a thirteenth member and the company declared a halt in forming
future Super Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix “05″ and
became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group hit
big after they released their first CD single “U” the following summer,
which became Super Junior’s most successful single in the music charts
until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March 2009.
In late 2007, Siwon was put into Super Junior-M, the Chinese
subgroup version of Super Junior. Super Junior-M is the first
international music group in the Chinese music industry to have members
of both Chinese and Korean descent, and brought an influence in the
mainland music industry to produce multi-national music groups. The
subgroup specializes in singing Mandarin songs, including versions of
Super Junior’s Korean songs, bringing the K-pop influence over to the
Chinese music industry. Super Junior-M is the first international music
group in the Chinese music industry to have members of both Chinese and
Korean descent. Not long after Super Junior-M’s debut, they became one
of the most celebrated boy-bands in China. The band’s popularity
skyrocketed further after their highly anticipated Mini-album, “Super
Girl” was released on September 2009.Super Junior-M debuted in China on
April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual Music Chart Awards with the release of
their first single music video, “U”. The subgroup released their first
Chinese-language studio album, Me, on May 2, 2008 to critical success.
The album debuted on Taiwan’s G-music combo charts as #2 and #1 on many
of China’s and Thailand’s music charts. Siwon also appeared in Girl’s
Generation music video “Hoot”.
Siwon’s fans are called The Siwonest, a play on words referring to
Siwon’s name translating into “cool,” and can therefore be seen as “The
Coolest.”
Acting career
After Siwon’s appearances in Eighteen, Twenty-Nine and Precious
Family, he was casted in a larger role for the mini-series Spring
Waltz, playing the supporting role Park Sang-woo, the teenage cousin of
a diligent and working young woman. Not long after Siwon’s musical
debut, he was casted in a large supporting role in the Hong Kong epic
film A Battle of Wits as Prince Liang Shi, starring opposite Andy Lau.
The cast promoted the movie throughout China with a short tour of four
cities in November 2006. While the film received mixed reviews, Siwon
garnered positive notices for his performance. He also received praises
from co-star Lau, stating that Siwon is a wonderful actor and that he
sets a good example for young Hong Kong idols.
Half a year after the release of A Battle of Wits, Siwon starred in
the high school mystery/comedy film Attack on the Pin-Up Boys with
other Super Junior members. He played one of the lead roles as a
controlling and severe class president who was one of the popular
possible subjects of being attacked by mysterious forces. Despite
positive critical ratings, that film did not do well in the box-office,
but all four versions of the film’s DVD were all sold out and broke
chart records. A few months later, Siwon was cast in mini-drama Legend
of Hyang Dan as the lead role, Lee Mong-ryong.
In January 2010, Siwon starred in the SBS drama Oh My Lady!. It is a
romantic comedy about a top star who finds himself living with his
manager, a 35 year old woman who is trying to earn money to have
custody of her child. This was Siwon’s first lead role in two years. He
also starred as Agent Kim Jun-Ho, a data analyst and rookie elite agent
in the drama Athena, a spin-off of drama Iris. Both roles portrayed by
him earned highly positive praises from critics, senior actors, and
fans alike. There is speculation in whether the series will be
reintroduced in a second season, with Siwon playing a much larger role.
His acting career also extends into various music videos for fellow
label mates, such as SNSD’s Hoot, and Zhang Liyin and TVXQ’s Xiah’s
duet Timeless (Zhang Liyin song), where Siwon starred along with fellow
Super Junior member Hangeng, which received critical praise. Siwon also
made appearances in several commercial films, as well as guest
appearing or hosting TV shows.
Siwon is scheduled in April 2011 to film Taiwanese drama Extravagant
Challenge (Chinese: 華麗的挑戰) with Ivy Chen and fellow band member Donghae
as the three main characters. It is a live-action adaptation of
Japanese shōjo manga Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura to be shot in
Taiwan.
On August 1, Siwon has been confirmed to be the male lead character
on a new KBS drama POSEIDON. According to the production staff, Siwon
will take part as a member of maritime police. POSEIDON will be
broadcast in September to follow up ‘Myeongwol the Spy’ as a
blockbuster drama which is about the commitment of maritime police. He
has since attended script-reading sessions with other cast members.
As a Model
Siwon is best known for his “handsome appearance” and muscular
physique. His looks have earned him spots on various idol “best” lists,
such as being put at eleventh place in the show Idol Chart’s “Most
Flawless Body” list. His body if often referred to as the best by his
fellow Super Junior members and many fans, and he is sometimes called
“sculpture man” because his body appears “perfectly chiseled out.” His
fans also comically refer to his abdominal muscles frequently as
“chocolate abs.” He is also the tallest among Super Junior members
along with Zhou Mi from Super Junior-M, standing approximately 183
centimeters tall.
Super Junior’s leader Leeteuk jokingly mentioned in an episode of
SBS’s show Strong Heart (Korean TV show) that Siwon is purposely placed
in the middle in most Super Junior photos because “putting him in the
middle gives the illusion that all members of the group are really
handsome.” It was also mentioned that he usually sings the first verse
to their songs so that the audience would see an “appealing visual.”
Apart from acting and Super Junior, Siwon has also appeared in various
catalogs and commercials. He modeled along with Sulli of girl group
F(x) (band) in the March 3rd 2010 André Kim fashion show, receiving
much praise and media attention. He has also been featured in notable
magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, High Cut, and Men’s Health, as
well as modeling for large brand names such as Armani, Lacoste, Gucci,
Evisu, and several other brands. Siwon also makes several prominent
appearances in Korean brand Spao’s catalogues along with SNSD and other
Super Junior members. He also recently endorsed and modeled for the SK
Telesys “Reaction” smart phone, also appearing in the phone’s comical
mock-action commercial, as well as Acer products. He has recently
modeled for Burberry.
Personal life
Siwon continued his education after his debut with Super Junior in
2005. He graduated from Gu Jeong High School in February 2006 and later
went on to attend Inha University. For continuity of his role in A
Battle of Wits, his company arranged him to travel to Beijing, China
along with labelmate Hyoyeon of Girls’ Generation in 2004 to learn
about the country’s language and history. He studied there for three
months before his return to Korea to prepare for his debut in Super
Junior a year later. Siwon is extremely close to fellow Super Junior
member Han Geng, with both of them claiming that they are “sworn
brothers.”
Siwon hails from a wealthy family. Siwon’s father, Choi Ki Ho, is
the CEO of Boryung Pharmaceutical Group, and has also worked for the
Hanhwa Distribution Group and Korean Slim Fashion. Siwon was once asked
on KBS’s Win Win whether it was true that his family owned a
helicopter, to which he solidly denied. His family’s background has led
him to be featured at the third spot in Idol Chart’s Royalty in the
Korean Idol World list, with fellow band mate Sungmin being featured at
ninth place.
Siwon is known for being very religious, sometimes being referred to
by fans as “God’s #1 Fan,” “Soldier of Light,” and “Shisus.” His fellow
Super Junior members laughingly stated that he continuously tried to
bring atheist member Heechul to church. Siwon later said in a CNN Talk
Asia interview that after his career, he would like to become a
missionary.
He is also a drummer, having performed with his senior label mates
TRAX in September 2006 on SBS’s music show Popular Songs due to the
fact that their drummer, Rose, had left the band. He is skilled in
Taekwondo and became the youngest in Korea holding the fourth rank in
the black belt. He is also extremely proficient in sports. Siwon has
been quoted that he has a very low metabolism, and thus gains weight
relatively quickly, resulting in him having to exercise constantly.
Siwon is known and often teased by show hosts and fellow Super
Junior members for his excessive use of hand gestures, his special way
of greeting by holding only three fingers up, his ability to “send
electrical currents through his eyebrows,” and his way of making
mundane actions look like a commercial film. Among fans, he is known to
have comical facial expressions when shocked or overly happy.
On May 18, 2010, Siwon underwent surgery to remove his inflamed
salivary gland. He had been taking anti-inflammatory medicine for the
inflammation during filming for the SBS drama Oh My Lady. However, his
condition worsened and he had to undergo an operation for it.
Siwon has an active and verified Twitter account by the username ‘siwon407′.
- Ryeowook
Kim Ryeo-wook (born June 21, 1987), best known mononymously as
Ryeowook, is a Korean singer-songwriter and occasional actor. He is one
of the four lead vocalists of the super boy band Super Junior, and is
also a member of Super Junior-K.R.Y and Super Junior-M, two subgroups
that are branched out from the main group. Along with four other
members of Super Junior, he is one of the first Korean artists to
appear on Chinese postage stamps.
Biography
Kim Ryeowook was discovered through the CMB Youth ChinChin Festival
in 2004 and signed a contract with SM Entertainment soon afterwards
after impressing judges with his singing talent. Trained in areas of
singing, dancing, and acting, Ryeowook placed particular efforts into
his vocal training and music composition as he was most concerned in
those areas. He plays piano, and will play the accompaniment for other
members solos every so often during concerts.
Career
Super Junior
Ryeowook was the last to join Super Junior before Kyuhyun, only
joining the group several weeks before their official debut in 2005.
Having undergone only two months of training under SM Entertainment,
Ryeowook’s late addition was rumored to be a replacement of a previous
SM trainee that was supposed to debut as a member of Super Junior 05,
the first generation of Super Junior.
On November 6, 2005, Ryeowook along with eleven other members of
Super Junior 05, officially debuted on SBS’s Popular Songs performing
the first single “TWINS (Knock Out).” The group released their full
studio album a month later, and the album debuted as #3 on the monthly
MIAK K-pop album charts. As the group’s second single, “Miracle”, came
to an end, his talent agency was about to recruit new members for the
next Super Junior generation, Super Junior 06, with Ryeowook staying as
an undergraduate member. However, plans changed and the company
declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group
dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The new group hit big after they released their first CD single “U” the
following summer in 2006, which became Super Junior’s most successful
single in the music charts, leading Super Junior to set #1 records in
their music career since then. A year later in the fall of 2007, the
group released their second official album, Don’t Don, which became
Super Junior’s best-selling album and Korea’s second best-selling album
of the year.
In late 2006, Ryeowook became a member of Super Junior’s first
subgroup, Super Junior-K.R.Y. The trio debuted on November 5, 2006 on
KBS’s Music Bank. In early 2008, Ryeowook was placed in another Super
Junior subgroup, Super Junior-M. The subgroup specializes in singing
Mandarin songs, including Mandarin versions of Super Junior’s Korean
songs, bringing the K-pop influence into the Chinese music industry.
Super Junior-M is the first international music group in the Chinese
music industry to have members of both Chinese and Korean descent. The
seven-member group debuted in China on April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual
Music Chart Awards with the release of their first single music video,
“U”. The subgroup released their first Chinese-language studio album,
Me on May 2, 2008. The album debuted on Taiwan’s G-music combo charts
as #2 and #1 on many of China’s and Thailand’s music charts.
Ryeowook is also featured in one of K.Will’s song “Teardrops”.
Ryeowook is the first member of Super Junior to have a solo in a Super
Junior album in their fourth album entitled Bonamana in the song One
Fine Spring Day.
Acting
Ryeowook made his acting debut in the film, Attack on the Pin-Up
Boys, a high-school comedy/mystery film, in which he plays the
eccentric vice president of the student council. Ryeowook’s acting
gained positive feedback from critics and he was nominated Best
Supporting Actor and Best Comedic Performance at the Korean Movie
Awards.
Musical
Ryeowook acted with Park Hyung Sik(ZE:A) and Lim Jeong Hee in the
musical “The Temptation of the Wolf”. This musical is started from 12
July until 3rd Of October.
Composing
Ryeowook successfully composed a song by himself titled “Memories in Breeze”
Ryeowook’s first composition to be officially released was “Love U
More”, found on the repackaged Sorry, Sorry Version C. He co-wrote the
lyrics with fellow Super Junior member Sungmin. Ryeowook is also
credited for musical arrangement in the liner notes of the album.
- Kim Kibum
Kim Ki-bum (born August 21, 1987), sometimes mononymously credited
as Kibum, is a Korean pop singer, actor, and a member of the super boy
band Super Junior. He made his debut in the Korean television drama
April Kiss in 2004. Although debuted as an actor, he achieved higher
results as a singer after his music debut with Super Junior in 2005.
Since the release of the group’s third studio album “Sorry, Sorry”,
Kibum did not take part in any of the group’s promotional activities
except for music video shoots for “Sorry, Sorry” and “It’s You”, due to
acting pursuits.
Early life
Kibum was born in Seoul, South Korea. He has a younger sister, Kim
Saehee, who lives with their mother. He also has cousins in Florida,
California, Atlanta and New Jersey. One of his cousin is a famous actor
and model, Shin Dong Wook. At the age of ten, he moved to Los Angeles,
California, United States where he attended his high school years at
Santa Monica High School.
In 2002, he was discovered by a talent agent from South Korea and
was recommended to audition for the Starlight Casting System, a casting
system organized by SM Entertainment, and also the home of top Korean
pop acts like BoA , Shinhwa and TVXQ. Kibum soon signed a contract with
SM Entertainment and became their official trainee, being trained in
areas of singing, acting, dancing, and other performing talents such as
hosting and modeling. He placed particularly strong efforts in acting,
as he explained that he is most interested in that area. Although he
resided in Seoul at the time, he constantly returned to Los Angeles to
visit his family and to attend short school sessions.
Career
Television
Before debut, Kibum was often seen participating in runway modelling
and appearing in advertisements for KTF, C&C phone, NF Sonata,
OLIVE, My Chew, Ottogi Noddle and Elite Uniform with his SM senior BoA.
He was also seen in many other ads with fellow future co-star,
Ahyoomee, Go Ara, and future bandmate Kim Heechul.
Kibum debuted on April 21, 2004, the premiere date of the KBS drama,
April Kiss. He plays the young role of Han Jungwoo. Kibum’s largest
role among Korean audiences was in the KBS drama, Sharp 2, starring
alongside labelmates Go Ara and Kim Heechul. Soon after the premiere of
Sharp 2 in early 2005, Kibum debuted as a member of Super Junior, which
tightly interfered with his acting career. He was then given a small
role in the MBC drama, Marrying a Millionaire, appearing in only one
episode where he plays the young Kim Younghoon. However, he reprised as
a lead actor in the MBC daily sitcom, Rainbow Romance, sharing the lead
with Kim Heechul for 243 episodes a year later. In the fall of 2006,
Kibum’s second drama with Go, Snow Flower aired on SBS, attracting more
audiences.
In April 2008, it was announced that Kibum would be starring in yet
another daily MBC drama, Chunja’s Happy Events alongside Wang Bitna
after sixteen months of hiatus in the acting industry. The drama’s
premiere date was on May 19, 2008.
Film
Kibum’s first silver-screen appearance was in Attack on the Pin-Up
Boys, a 2007 high school Korean film that starred all members of Super
Junior except Kyuhyun. He plays the narrator of the story; a student
who investigates the mysterious happenings at school. Despite positive
critical ratings, the film did not do well in the box-office, but all
four versions of the film’s DVD were all sold out and broke chart
records. 2010, Kibum’s new movie (Jumunjin) is set to be released on
the 21st of January. The basic premise is about a love story of a ghost
man (Kibum) meeting a girl that lives in the country side and they form
a relationship. He has also been cast in an upcoming play called A
(Middle) Nap (낮잠).
Music career
2005–present: Super Junior
In early 2005, Kibum’s talent agency released an official
announcement that Kibum would make a second debut as a singer. Along
with eleven other members, Kibum with Super Junior 05, Super Junior’s
first generation, debuted on November 6, 2005 on SBS’s Popular Songs,
performing the group’s first single “TWINS (Knock Out).” The group
released their full studio album a month later, and the album debuted
as #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. As the group’s second
promotional single, “Miracle”, came to an end, his talent agency was
about to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation,
Super Junior 06, planning to replace Kibum with a new member. However,
plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super
Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix “05″ and became
officially credited as Super Junior.[4] The new group hit big after
they released their first CD single “U” the following summer in 2006,
which became Super Junior’s most successful single in the music charts,
leading Super Junior to set #1 records in their music career since then.
Kibum placed aside his acting career and was active as a member of
Super Junior, especially during promotions for the group’s second album
Don’t Don in the fall of 2007 and Super Junior’s first concert tour in
early 2008. Don’t Don became Super Junior’s best-selling album and
Korea’s second best-selling album of the year, while Super Show’s live
concert album became a record success in South Korea, Thailand, and
Taiwan.
Kibum is known for his English rapping ability in the group and
remains as one of the lead rappers of Super Junior. Kibum also actively
appears on variety shows . Kibum makes frequent appearances on Love
Letter and other popular South Korean variety programs, promoting the
group’s music and product. Even after both debuts Kibum continued to be
a popular symbol for endorsements, being an endorser of many items in
South Korea. Kibum was picked as the co-presenter of Thailand’s 12 Plus
Powder along with the primary presenter, bandmate Choi Siwon, in early
2008. However, the co-presenter was switched to bandmate Donghae for
another product of 12 Plus – “roll-on”.
In 2009 Super Junior released their third LP, “Sorry, Sorry”. During
promotions for the first single, “Sorry, Sorry”, Kibum was absent which
led to speculations that he left Super Junior. SM Entertainment, as
well as all the band members denied this. When Super Junior released
their second single, “It’s You”, Kibum was noticeably absent again from
all promotions. SM finally issued a statement stating that Kibum was
busy with solo projects, and re-confirmed he would be absent from
promotional activities due to prior engagements, and that he hadn’t
left Super Junior. It was later confirmed that Kibum would not appear
on the Super Junior tour (July 2009), “The Super Show II” due to an
injury to his foot, which lead to six weeks of rest from physically
straining activities. After the release of “Sorry, Sorry – Answer”,
Kibum was completely absent from the video and the song. In the group’s
latest release, “It’s You”, Kibum had no singing solo. Kibum revealed
his upcoming plans in the near future, although they still remain
tentative as of now. He stated, “Firstly, I am in the process of
preparing for the play and releasing the drama. Whether I will
participate in the fourth album, resume solo activities, or continue
acting, need to be further discussed with my company.”
It is also confirmed that Kibum will not be particip
ating in the 4th album, as he will be focusing on his acting career.
On the August 1st, 2011 Super Junior released their fifth album
teaser (Mr. Simple) without Kibum, but he still supports Super Junior
and is still a member and also he is enjoy his acting in drama.
- Kyuhyun
Cho Kyu-Hyun (born February 3, 1988), best known mononymously as
Kyuhyun, is a Korean pop singer. He is the youngest member (maknae) of
the boy band Super Junior. In Super Junior, he is a main vocalist. He
is also one of the first four Korean artists to appear on Chinese
postage stamps. In China, Taiwan, and other Chinese speaking
communities he is referred to as “Cáo Guīxián” (Chinese: 曺圭賢) which is
based on the Chinese pronounciation of the Hanja spelling.
Biography
Kyuhyun has a sister named Cho Ara. Kyuhyun’s father is in the
education business and owns an academy. Kyuhyun’s mother also runs an
art academy. Largely due to his parents’ involvement with the education
business, he spent a lot of time studying and preparing for exams.
Kyuhyun was initially urged to study law and had stated that if he
did not become a singer, he would have chosen to become a lawyer. His
original plans were abandoned once Kyuhyun joined a band in high
school, where he became more interested in music and singing. His
father was against his dream of singing but soon made a deal with
Kyuhyun; if Kyuhyun did well on his college entrance exams and was
accepted into a university, he would be allowed to pursue music
Kyuhyun was accepted into Kyunghee University and his father allowed
him to continue with his musical career. He graduated from Kyunghee
University with a major in Post Modern Music.
April 2007 car accident
In the early morning of April 19, 2007, Kyuhyun with Super Junior
members Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk, and two managers were all
hospitalized due to a serious car accident when returning from the
Super Junior Kiss the Radio show that night. Kyuhyun, who was sitting
behind the driver’s seat when the accident occurred, was the most
injured and had a fractured hip, pneumothorax from broken ribs, and
facial scratches and bruises. He was slipping in and out of
consciousness and was mute due to shock. Kyuhyun spent 6 days in the
ICU before he was moved to a regular hospital room. Kyuhyun also did
not need the respiratory machine anymore to support his breathing,
though it was said that he was only able to walk on his own one month
after the accident. Kyuhyun was discharged on July 5, 2007 after 78
days.
The accident was caused by a deflated left front tire. The driver
was trying to switch lanes but lost control and collided with the guard
rail.
Career
Pre-debut
Cho Kyuhyun won third place at the Chin Chin Singing Competition in
2005. He soon signed under SM Entertainment and was featured in the
video remake of TVXQ’s single “Hi Ya Ya”.
Prior to Kyuhyun’s addition to Super Junior, it was intended for the
original twelve members to be separating and “graduating”, as the band
was still presented as a project group at the time. The company then
decided to drop the ’05 suffix following the growing popularity of the
group.
Debut
Kyuhyun made his first appearance as a part of Super Junior in a
news broadcast on May 23, 2006 when the group was introducing their new
single, U. Kyuhyun made his debut performance on May 26, 2006 at SBS’s
I-Concert performing the new single “U”, where it was also the group’s
first return performance as a permanent group. Towards the end of 2006,
Kyuhyun, along with Yesung and Ryeowook, was placed in Super Junior’s
first subgroup, Super Junior-K.R.Y. The trio debuted on November 5,
2006 on KBS’s Music Bank.
Super Junior-M
In early 2008, Kyuhyun was placed in a second Super Junior subgroup,
Super Junior-M. The subgroup specializes in singing Mandarin songs,
including versions of Super Junior’s Korean songs, bringing the K-pop
influence over to the Chinese music industry. Super Junior-M is the
first international music group in the Chinese music industry to have
members of both Chinese and Korean descent. The 7-member group debuted
in China on April 8, 2008 at the 8th Annual Music Chart Awards along
with the release of their first single music video, “U”.
Not long after Super Junior-M’s debut, they became one of the most
celebrated boy-bands in China. The band’s popularity skyrocketed
further after their highly anticipated Mini-album, “Super Girl” was
released on September 2009.
SM The Ballad
It was revealed that Kyuhyun along with TRAX’s Jay, SHINee’s
Jonghyun, and rookie singer Jino have formed a project group under
their label.
SM The Ballad released their debut album, Miss You on November 29,
2010. They debuted on Inkigayo on November 28, 2010. In their debut
album, Kyuhyun had his solo song, “Love Again”.
Stage
From the 15th of December 2010 to mid-January 2011, he acted with
Yoo Jun Sang, Im Ki Jun, Kim Mu Yul and Dana Hong in the musical The
Three Musketeers at the Chungmu Art Hall. He won a Golden Ticket
Musical Rising Star Award for his performance of the role of D’Artagnan.
Solo
In 2009, for the promotions of Super Junior’s third studio album
Sorry Sorry, Kyuhyun performed as one of the lead vocalists and
traveled with the other members to overseas events, including Jackie
Chan’s Bird Nest Concert on April 8, 2009 with Zhang Liyin. The album
brought immense popularity to the group after their long hiatus,
allowing Super Junior to appear regularly in several variety shows and
endorsements. They also held their second official Asia Tour, Super
Show II.
Kyuhyun featured on Yoo Youngsuk’s 20th anniversary tribute album,
singing his first solo: a remake of Yoo’s hit song “7년간의 사랑” (“7 Years
of Love”). He first performed the song on July 10, 2009 on Yoo Hee
Yeol’s Sketch Book, the episode airing 2 days later. The song was
released as a digital single, and Yoo Youngsuk’s album was available
online on June 30, 2009, with all proceeds going to UNICEF.
He and bandmate Donghae performed a special song “Happy Bubble” for
a facial wash product commercial “Happy Bath” with actress Han Ji Min.
A full music video was released on August 19, 2009.
Kyuhyun, along with the rest of Super Junior-M, returned in
September 2009 to China to promote their first mini-album: Super Girl.
On January 6, 2010, Kyuhyun released his solo song “Listen To You”,
it is the main theme song for Korean drama “Pasta”. When the song was
first released on the music site monkey3 (www.monkey3.co.kr), it garnered a lot of attention and reached #1 on the real time chart.
On August 5, 2010, Kyuhyun released his third solo song “희망은 잠들지 않는
꿈 (Hope, a dream that never sleeps)” as OST for popular TV drama 제빵왕
김탁구 (Baker King, Kim Tak Goo).
Aside from the official solo releases, Kyuhyun has also performed a
variety of other songs such as “Believe”, Qi Qin’s “Won’t Let My Tears
Accompany Me Through The Night (不讓我的眼淚陪我過夜)”, Nicholas Teo’s “Tears of
Polaris”, Jam Hsiao’s “Forgive Me” and “A Goose’s Dream” with Jonghyun
of SHINee. Kyuhyun also collaborated with The Grace in early 2008 to
perform “하루만 (Just For One Day)” for The Grace’s first album 한번 더, OK?,
and along with fellow Super Junior member Ryeowook and labelmate TVXQ’s
Xiah and Changmin for the song 소원 (Wish), which appeared on TVXQ’s
repackaged version of Mirotic. During the SMTown Live ’10 World Tours
he sang the song “Call With My Heart” and “Way Back Into Love” with
Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun.
Source : Super Junior
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