Top Korean actress JUN Ji-hyun(Gianna JUN) will embark on a media tour this July to promote her first Hollywood feature, Blood: The Last Vampire. Her management agency SidusHQ announced this month that the film, in which JUN plays the main role, is to be released in the U.S., Canada, Central and South America through Universal Studios in September.
The model-turned-actress, going by her English name Gianna Jun, is the lead star in the big budget US – France – Hong Kong co-production. Set in the Tokyo of 1970, JUN plays Saya, a vampire working for a covert US government agency that hunts and destroys demons. She is assigned to a military school where she must find out which of her fellow classmates is a demon in disguise. The film is an adaptation of a Japanese anime of the same title directed by Kitakubo Hiroyuki in 2000.
Following the US release, France’s largest independent film studio and the film’s financial backer Pathé, as well as renowned Hong Kong-born producer Bill Kong are planning to release Blood: The Last Vampire in France and Hong Kong respectively this October.
The English-language horror-thriller is JUN’s Hollywood debut. Rising to celebrity status with her 2001 Korean feature My Sassy Girl, Jun’s fame spread throughout Asia and she went on to star in several more features including Windstruck (2004) and Daisy (2006).
Nigel D’Sa
koreanfilm.or.kr
