Actor couple makes 'double headlines'

Lee Byung-hun won the “Best Actor” category for his role in the Korean crime thriller“Inside Men” (2015) at the 10th Asian Film Awards in Macau on Thursday. / AP-Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

Married actors Lee Byung-hun and Lee Min-jung generated separate headlines Friday as each star’s screen performance has been recognized inside and outside the nation.

Byung-hun, 45, won the “Best Actor” category for his role in the Korean crime thriller“Inside Men” (2015) at the 10th Asian Film Awards in Macau on Thursday. Popular Chinese stars like Donnie Yen from “Ip Man 3” and Feng Xiaogang from “Mr. Six” were also nominated in the category.

Lee Min-jung from SBS's “Please Come Back, Mister" / Courtesy of SBS

Meanwhile, Min-jung, 34, has won positive reviews for her performance in the SBS TV comedy drama “Please Come Back, Mister.” She plays a mother who gets reconnected with her dead husband via a man possessed by her husband’s spirit. Scenes from Thursday’s episode showed her emotional range as she sadly talks to her dead husband in a scene that became much-talked about the next day.

“The actress’s realistic portrayal of her role derives from the improvement in her performance,” online daily My Daily said in an article titled “Lee Min-jung, Now Different.”

“Her performance, after she gave a birth to her first child (in March 2015), has certainly deepened. Her emotional attachment to the role must have been special because they shared the same ‘mother of one’ scenario.”

In 2012, the couple denied rumors about their romantic relationship but they walked the isle a year later.