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[Drama catnip] Spot the cameo!
by Unit
Apart from the obvious confession and (steamy) kiss scenes, one of the things I look forward to the most when it comes to dramas is a delightful cameo appearance. Cameos are a sure-fire way of adding color and thrill to every scene they’re featured in, and with the exception of the Truck of Doom which pops up every now and then, I am a sucker for cameo appearances in dramas. So, what is it about cameos that make them so catnip-y? The celebrity involved? The scenario surrounding their appearance in the drama? The surprise element of it? For me, it’s all of the above.
Now, this essay is definitely not an excuse to fangirl by sneaking Kim Soo-hyun into every paragraph, but it’s hard not to, considering my ultimate oppa is the king of cameo appearances. (Yes, I crowned him so.) I mean, he had the entire cinema and home audience — read, me — screaming at his surprise cameo at the end of 2014’s Miss Granny, and it cannot get any more “Your Majesty” than that.
Cameos are almost always fun. But more than just a fun appearance, I love when they serve to push the plot forward, like Jinyoung’s cameo in Reborn Rich, where he was the one who pulled the trigger that sent the lead character on his journey to rebirth.
I also love when cameos end up being payoffs to something that was set up earlier in the drama. For example, in Hospital Playlist 2, we eventually learn that Uju’s friends went camping every week because their dad was a broadcasting station PD, and Na Young-seok PD cameos as the dad — but not playing himself, and instead getting offended at the comparison between himself and the famous “Na PD.” Heh.
Other meaningful payoffs I liked were Choi Ji-woo’s cameo as herself in Crash Landing on You, where she fullfilled the lifetime wish of one of the North Korean soldiers who became a huge fan after watching Autumn in My Heart. And then there was Kim Joon-hyun’s cameo as himself in Hotel del Luna, because IU’s character was his fan. I especially liked Jin Goo and Kim Ji-won’s cameo in Mr. Sunshine as the courageous freedom fighters who died for their cause — and you just know that this patriotism and their love for each other was why they reincarnated as a soldier couple in Descended From the Sun. I dare you to change my mind!
Crossover-like cameos are an absolute delight, and Shin Won-ho PD seems to love it as much as I do — with some of his characters/actors in each Answer Me series making an appearance in the subsequent installment, and then jumping out of Answer Me entirely to pop up in Hospital Playlist. These are the little breadcrumbs — blink and you might miss it — that I look out for when watching Shin PD’s work, and I give myself a mental pat on the back whenever I catch these references.
Outside the Shin Won-ho universe, who can forget Lee Jae-wook and Kim Hye-yoon’s appearance as their Extraordinary You characters in True Beauty? Or Moon Ga-young and Kim Dong-wook a.k.a. “anchor-nim” cameoing in Shooting Stars as their Find Me in Your Memory characters. These two still displayed their sizzling chemistry in the few minutes they were together on screen, and I had to re-watch the drama after Shooting Stars ended! The best crossover, though, still remains Kim Soo-hyun’s appearance in Crash Landing on You as his character in the movie Secretly, Greatly. And it has to be something in the water in Seoul, because those productions are seven years apart, yet he didn’t age a day!
Cameos that give rise to meta jokes are another fav — like Im Chul-soo’s appearance in Unlock The Boss, talking about his experience working as an insurance agent (his character in Crash Landing on You), working for a consigliere (in Vincenzo), and switching souls (Alchemy of Souls). I re-watched this scene tons of times, and cracked up each time! Lee Jong-seok’s appearance in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-ju was a nice surprise, but it was even more fun when he asked Kang Ki-young’s character if they’d met before. I mean, they were co-stars in W—Two Worlds. And what’s funnier is Kang Ki-young’s reply that Lee Jong-seok could be a comic book character. Heh. Meta is also Lee Sang-woo playing a reporter in Penthouse which starred his wife in a lead role (and who can forget his iconic car door cameo in Shooting Stars)?
Generally, dramas set around the entertainment industry are filled with cameos and meta jokes, and that’s one of the reasons I enjoy them — from Shooting Stars to Behind Every Star to The Producers (also starring Kim Soo-hyun, heh). And this brings me to Suzy’s cameo in You From Another Star, when she told Kim Soo-hyun’s character that he looked like an ex-boyfriend of hers named Song Sam-dong — the name of Soo-hyun’s character in Dream High in which he co-starred with Suzy. Lol.
It’s always nice when actors make an appearance in a project that is helmed by a director they’ve worked with in the past, or when previous co-stars/friends support each other by making cameo appearances in each other’s dramas — just like Kim Soo-hyun appearing in Hotel del Luna to support IU. (By the way, dearest Hong Sisters, any plans to fully flesh out Hotel Blue Moon? None? Okay…)
Unfortunately, this brings up a classic example of my least favorite cameos: the ones where previous co-stars/friends don’t share scenes together. I mean, Taek and Deok-sun did not go through the most epic love triangle in Answer Me 1988 for Hyeri to not share screen time with Park Bo-gum in Record of Youth! And going back to the Hotel del Luna illustration, it would have been nice to watch a proper handover ceremony between the hotel’s previous owner and the new owner, but alas.
While I realize that cameo scenes are most likely decided on by the writer or the director, I still think that if you want to support a friend’s project with a cameo, you should either do it the Lee Jun-ki style as the committed exorcist opposite a deadpan IU in Hotel del Luna, or just slap your face on a banner, ship it off with a coffee/snack truck to the set, and call it a day!
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