China fans impressed by Beijing accent of South Korean actress Kim Go-eun

Kim Go-eun's intuitive acting skills have seen her scoop an array of film industry awards. Photo: Weixin

• Seoul-born, moves to Beijing in 1994, sees favourite Chinese film 20 times
• Returns to South Korea, makes film debut in 2012, wins slew of awards

South Korean actress Kim Go-eun recently won her first Best Leading Actress in Film award at the 60th Baeksang Arts Awards for Exhuma, receiving a warm response from her large fan base in China.

Kim, 32, is well-known for her natural and intuitive performance, and is popular among Chinese cinephiles for her Beijing-accented Mandarin.

In 1994, at the age of four, Kim moved from Seoul to Beijing with her parents and older brother and lived in China for a decade because of her father's job.

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She studied at the No 3 Junior school and No 4 Secondary School in Beijing's Miyun county, before returning to Seoul at 14.

Kim said her dream of working in the film industry was inspired by the 2002 film Together, directed by China's Chen Kaige. She had watched the film more than 20 times.

She attended Kaywon High School of the Arts intending to become a backstage worker or screenwriter. But she was captivated by performance there and went on to study drama at the Korea National University of Arts.

Kim made her debut in the 2012 film A Muse, playing Eun-gyo, a 17-year-old secondary school student who had a forbidden love affair with a 70-year-old poet.

Kim stunned the audience with her performance, described by the film's co-star Park Hae-il as "fresh, dreamy and attractive", and swept the Best New Actress awards that year.

Despite her success in that role, Kim refused to be typecast.

She challenged herself with a variety of characters that included a woman with a developmental disability, an orphaned gang member, and a shaman - the role in Exhuma that won her the 2024 Baeksang.

Kim made her debut on television with the 2016 drama Cheese in the Trap. Her second drama in the same year, Goblin: The Lonely and Great God, was an overnight sensation across Asia.

She played a cheerful secondary school girl who is the only person who can end the protagonist's painful immortality by pulling out the sword in his chest that had been there for centuries.

Fans of Kim admire her youthful and fresh-faced appearance, calling it "girlish beauty".

Some fans in China compare Kim's career with Chinese actress Tang Wei, who also made her film debut in an R-rated movie and went on to win multiple prestigious South Korean film awards.

Tang is a two-time winner of the Baeksang Best Actress film award for her performances in Late Autumn in 2010 and Decision to Leave in 2022.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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