Pretty, feisty actress Lee is new model of women

Actress Lee Si-young, right, lands a left-handed straight in the face of Kim Da-som in the women’s 48-kilogram competition at the National Amateur Boxing Championships in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, Wednesday. / Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

Sweat was pouring off her swollen face and her legs were trembling after a brutal fight, but actress Lee Si-young smiled happily in the ring at the National Amateur Boxing Championships, Wednesday.

With her win in the women’s 48-kilogram event, Lee, who starred in the recent romantic comedy ``How to Use Guys with Secret Tips,’’ became the country’s first mainstream entertainer, male or female, to make it to the national boxing team. Her goal is to medal at the Asian Games in Incheon next year.

But what is driving the 31-year-old in her relentless pursuit of athletic excellence, when her combination of girl-next-door sexiness and natural comedic timing had seemed to promise a decade worth of safe and lucrative, Jennifer Aniston-like roles?

Her management agency, J, Wide-Company, is clearly uneasy about Lee doubling as a boxer. The company’s representatives go out of their way to say that Lee’s stint in boxing will be temporary, and if she lands some sporting brand commercials on the way, then so be it.

Their concerns for Lee are predictable and honestly graceless. No athlete competes with the courage of a boxer, and whenever she steps into the ring, Lee is risking injury, or worse, damaging her face which may or may not be an expensive product of artificial beautification.

And this is a culture that still prefers its actresses to be elegant and sophisticated, which are hardly the adjectives applied to Lee when she puts on her gloves and headgear.

However, Lee seems unfazed by these worries. She has been putting her heart and effort into boxing since she fell for the sport while playing a role in a television drama in 2010. That drama was cancelled, but Lee’s passion for boxing survived and thrived.

``I still believe I have a long way to go. I have great goals to achieve through hard work,’’ Lee said after the bout, noting her ultimate goal is to win a gold medal at the Incheon Asian Games next year. And now few doubt she will try.

Of course, the process of gaining respect as an athlete didn’t come easy for Lee. After joining Incheon City Boxing Team in January, she moved to the city from Seoul to save time for training. In March, she even underwent surgery for a slipped disk. Facing Lee in her moment of truth Wednesday was Kim Da-som, a fighter who was 12 years younger and had a meaner punch.

Kim abused Lee in the opening rounds. However, Lee, trained in an out-boxing style to exploit her reach, gamely maintained her composure. She took blows to the head with open eyes. Her guard was continuously tight. She failed to dominate her more aggressive opponent, but smartly and calmly took the points that were given to her. In the end, the judges favored Lee 22-20.

What made the fans fascinated was not the result. Rather, it was Lee’s pure passion for something in an age when everyone is trained to calculate the gains and losses in whatever they do. So, for those who always fear to lose even without anything to lose, Lee’s punching was perfect catharsis.

Maybe Lee’s sports achievements will boost her acting career in a way that her agency never imagined. Some directors are already calling to make movies loosely based on her journey as a boxer.

Lee has been a star, but not exactly a megastar: her most successful film has been the romantic comedy ``Dangerous Meeting,’’ which sold about 3 million tickets.

When some fret that Lee was approaching her twilight years in show business where a plethora of pretty-faced actresses come and disappear every day, she reset her starting point through the new challenge and showed what can be achieved if we face fear with passion.