Made in Korea Milind Soman

 

Made in Korea Milind Soman

Actually this blog may be labeled as ‘Whatever!’ Worthless spins done by extremely idle, no work mind!

When you say Milind Soman naturally it comes to your mind, ‘Made in India, Pyaara Sonia’, a lilting song rendered by Alisha Chenoy in 1995 which has beautifully captured well sculpted Milind Soman on celluloid in his shirtless Indian avatar. 26 years and still the mystic does not fade away. It made both Milind and Alisha overnight sensation. And then one would wonder where the catch is? Is it because now a days I am totally into k-dramas including ghastly ‘Squid Game’? May be.

The last Korean Drama that I saw was so bull shit that in the end I wondered what exactly did I just saw. It was some ‘Love Marriage Divorce’! Second season. There were so many loose ends in the narration when the second season was wounded up that made chaos the order of the day! But it left some unfathomable stupid hints for the ensuing season, the third. I don’t know whether I would have guts to go through the marathon of the horse shit again but what caught my eye were the performers and the highest class, production values.

Three sets of couples in their 30s, 40s, and 50s with their trials and tribulations while going through that fake institute otherwise known as ‘Marriage’

And there he was Milind Soman of Korea. Bang Sung Hoon. 

Youngest of the couples, even younger than his wife, he was not at all like the typical Korean male leads.

In fact I shudder to call them male leads. They are so heavily made up with thick pink lipstick to top that one might guess they might be taking more time in the makeup room than the female lead, to show up. More feminine they are, more popular they are with the Korean crowds. This guy to the contrary is absolutely anathema to be called a Korean male lead. Because with his sharp jaw line, chiseled face and faultless nose he is handsome in most masculine way. Standing athletic at 184 cm with broad shoulders due to his practice of butterfly stroke he does not fit the glove designed for the ‘Korean Male Lead’ and there starts the comparison.

Like Milind Soman, he represented Korea on the National swimming team from the age of 14 for 14 years and was national champion in butterfly stroke. He represented his University for many years but had to give up due to spinal injury and when started finding short of prerequisite stamina. He then tried his hand at various things but settled as model in the end. Ditto Milind Soman. And like Milind Soman the next step naturally was TV and Big screen.

Here surprisingly  unlike Milind Soman he grabbed his first award of Best New comer rather late at the age of 28. And there is no looking back since then.

He comes as a humble down to earth ‘Hallyu’ star that lives alone in a flat and does not boast about his achievements even after coming from a non filmy modest back ground.

I remembered an interview of Milind Soman given to the greatest Journalist of the century ‘Barkha Dutt’. She tried to catch him on the slippery grounds many times but with strong middle class values Milind did not budge an inch. Even after being born in U K, during his middle class Shiwaji Park abode he attended RSS Shakha for years. She wanted to put her words, mostly biased, about RSS in his mouth but politely he refuted every one of them and stood stoical on his stand, mostly for the good values inculcated in him by RSS Shakha.

Bang Sung Hoon too comes out like him during interviews. When caught on the wrong foot he sheepishly smiles, at times guffaws like a child caught with one hand in a cookie jar. Not leaving his middle class persona any time.

At 55 Milind is an example of perfect physical fitness. Sung Hoon too though nearing 40s is still in the athletics to a great extent. He still swims with the younger contenders leaving his ‘Filmy Persona’ at home, tries his hand at Sky diving, motor cycling and every other sport that he finds challenging including Golf. He is still single, may be waiting for the age of 55 like his elder to get married [ strictly tongue in cheek!]

Milind was and is being given raw deal by the so called stalwarts of Bollywood so he had to be contended with second grade Bollywood, never getting chance to act in so called ‘A’ grade commercials.

Sung Hoon too is getting similar treatment by the Karan Johars of Korea. In spite of being good actor with masculine features to match, also being a good singer with deep husky melodious voice rendering songs in English with flaw less accent he never features in the ‘Best’ list of Korean stars ever.

At 55 Milind Soman is still enigma for his athletic life style, at 38 Sung Hoon has a long way to go .

I seriously wish  the best for both.