'Lost' Star Returns Home

Kim Yoon-jin, a rising star in Hollywood due to her growing part in the ABC drama "Lost", has returned home. She stars in "Diary of June" alongside Sin Eun-kyeong and Eric Moon, playing the part of a mother who must come to terms with the suicide of her son because of bullying at school. The movie is released on Dec. 1.

Kim's return to the Korean film scene comes three years after her performance in "Ardor" won her Best Actress in the Cheongryong (Blue Dragon) Movie Awards. Kim caught a 10-hour flight from shooting "Lost" on location in Hawaii to be there for the premiere.

These days the actress is busy enough for 10 of her. "Lost", with a new series going into production in July, is holding a regular 20 million viewers spellbound in its Wednesday night slot. In the show, Kim plays Sun, a Korean woman with a dark secret.

The shooting schedule for the show's second season is expected to go on until May. If a third season is filmed, Kim will have to stay on in Hawaii for one more year. Meanwhile, the shooting of 'Georgia Heat' which cast Billy Bob Thornton as Kim's opposite, causing quite a buzz, has been delayed till next summer aiming at the pause between 'Lost' season two and three.

Kim has come a long way since her rookie days, when she ran about from audition to audition with a seven-minute demo-tape that she edited herself from her scenes in the Korean blockbuster "Shiri" and an interview on CNN.

"Diary of June" was shot in only two months this summer. The woman she plays in the film finds out only after her son's suicide that he was an outcast at school. Kim portrays the mother's collapse with great intensity. Scenes where she cries out at images that show her son was abused by his classmates offer a clear answer to why Kim Yoon-jin is all the rage both in Hollywood and its Korean equivalent Chungmuro.