As an entertainment reporter, I am often asked: "Who is the most beautiful in the flesh?" Even in the world of entertainment, where a fresh drop-dead gorgeous face is making her debut every five minutes, the actress Ko So-young is perhaps the most beautiful.
Making her comeback after a nine-year break, Ko stars as the angelically innocent Eun-soo, who suffers a breakup with her boyfriend due to opposition from their parents, in the SBS drama "Blue Fish".
Ko has a unique image and atmosphere. She looks confident, beautiful, luxurious and trendy. However, she has turned down several offers of drama parts, including the lead in a soap titled " Bad Love ", in which she was to star opposite K-pop superstar Rain. Against this background of refusal, many were on tenterhooks right until the night of the first show wondering whether Ko would really be in it.
But she was, and her character was the polar opposite of the parts she used to play. But the result was a crushing defeat. The viewer ratings hovered around 6 percent and did not get better. Critics blamed the worldly Ko's casting as a monotonous innocent for the failure. Audiences no longer warm to innocents, so it seemed Ko made the wrong choice.
She was offered the lead in "200 Pounds Beauty" and instead plumbed for "Go Go Sister". Unfortunately, "Beauty" was the surprise smash hit of the year, attracting 6.8 million moviegoers, while "Sister" barely lasted two weeks in the theaters.
That wasn't the end of her unlucky streak. There has also been unkind speculation following news that she owns an under-construction building valued at W10 billion (US$1=W938) in glitzy Cheongdam-dong in southern Seoul. Ko reportedly came under a tax probe at the end of March.
The land she owns costs W160 million or so per square meter. She now has a building constructed -- six stories above ground and two below -- on a 445.2 sq.m site. According to a real estate expert, the land may be worth at least W6 billion and the cost of construction may amount to more than W1.5 billion. Some experts predict it will fetch W10 billion once complete since there are few tall buildings around the site.
Ko bought the land on May 24, 2005. Real estate experts say she may have made a 30 percent profit because cost of land has much increased compared to two years ago. A real estate expert hinted, "Ko seems to aim at putting the building to lease". The question people have been asking is how she earned such a huge amount of money without appearing in dramas or movies since 2002.
But those close to her say she has kept making lucrative commercials for brands like THEFACESHOP, Hillstate apartments and Giordano. Considering that stars with similar name value get more than W500 million for shooting a commercial, it is not surprising that she should own such an expensive building.
One person close to Ko says she suffered various rumors regarding her long-period break and ownership of the building, but actually the building and site did not cost nearly as much 10 billion. "The cost of land amounts to W5-6 billion. It seems that the value of building has been inflated because she is a celebrity".
Ko brought defamation charges against 35 netizens with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, accusing them of spreading false rumors about her private life through Internet message boards, cafes and blogs. Her legal representative, DeRyook International Law Firm, said, "Some netizens have spread lies in cyberspace for several years saying that Ko is personally close to a particular person she has never met".
"As an unmarried woman and a public entertainer, I felt shock and shame, but I refrained from direct response and instead asked the portal sites to delete the comments, hoping that the rumors would naturally be revealed to be false", Ko says. "But every time I was the subject of discussion, these lies were deliberately repeated and spread off-line. I have no choice but to sue the writers". Despite that, the public is bound to keep watching.
This story has been contributed by Yoo A-jeong from SportChosun.
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