KIM Bo-sung, born Heo Seok in 1966, learned taekwondo and hapkido when he was young before making the switch to boxing. As he was paying little attention to his studies in high school and would often end up in fights with other students, he quickly gained the reputation of a delinquent. As a matter of fact, the reason he usually wears sunglasses in public is that he’s still suffering from a visual impairment caused by a severe blow on the left eye he took while fighting al...More

KIM Bo-sung, born Heo Seok in 1966, learned taekwondo and hapkido when he was young before making the switch to boxing. As he was paying little attention to his studies in high school and would often end up in fights with other students, he quickly gained the reputation of a delinquent. As a matter of fact, the reason he usually wears sunglasses in public is that he’s still suffering from a visual impairment caused by a severe blow on the left eye he took while fighting alone thirteen people who were threatening a classmate. After high school, determined to work in the film industry, he spent six years taking minor roles in various movies starting with <If You Want> (1987), sometimes even working as part of the film crew, until he met director KANG Woo-suk who offered him the male lead role in <Happiness Does Not Come In Grades> (1989), for which he won Best New Actor in Film at the Baeksang Art Awards. After making his television debut in youth drama <A Tree Blooming With Love> (1990), he starred in the youth drama film <Let’s Look At The Sky Sometimes> (1990) and took one of the main roles in CHUNG Ji-young’s anti-war epic <White Badge> (1992), playing against AHN Sung-ki. He gained wider recognition playing an upright and macho detective in <Two Cops> (1993), but his career really took off when this role was promoted to the lead cast in the follow-up <Two Cops 2> released in 1996. He would reprise again the role in 1998 for the third part. In the early 2000s, he appeared in several comedies such as <Oh! Lala Sisters> (2002) and <Boss X File> (2002), while his attempts to break his typecasting remained unsuccessful. His unfortunate participation in <A Bloody Battle For Revenge> (1992), better known as a case study of a commercial failure, finally payed off as the director, LEE Kyong-kyu, had since became one of the most famous TV entertainers in Korea and invited him several times to his TV shows. In one of them, KIM had a regular skit that proved popular in which he was tasked with writing poetry. In 2011, he surprised many by starring in a Russian production, the action film <The Fifth Execution> (2011). He enjoyed a very unlikely revival in 2014 thanks to a TV commercial for a traditional sweet Korean beverage in which he apparently fully embraced his image as a corny and old-fashioned action hero, yelling “loyalty!” like crazy while breaking open a fridge and punching rice sacks. The video instantly went viral, with his catchphrase becoming an Internet meme, which led him to make guest appearances in several TV shows and receive more commercial offers. Less