Korean Media News

Another one gets called for the dreaded army duty: Get your tears ready (and the “I will wait for you, Oppa!” signs) for Lee Jun-hyuk, who is preparing for a June enlistment and is currently awaiting his draft papers for an exact date.

Lee’s management gave the statement today, explaining that they are expecting him to go right away once the final notice is received. As a 1984-er, he could technically request an extension if he wanted—which he did once already, when he received a notice before filming began on Equator Man—but now seems like a good time to go. He’s coming off two critically acclaimed and popular projects that have earned him praise and a shinier acting reputation, after playing the dogged, principled prosecutor in last year’s City Hunter and the friend-turned-villain in Equator Man.

You can see how planning one’s draft departure becomes something of a complicated dance of timing and forecasting the future; you’re trying to hit a moving target to leave at the best possible time, after you’ve established enough of a name so that people bother to remember who you are when you return. ‘Cause it would suck to toil for years in obscurity, barely start to get recognition, and then have to leave for two years and start all over again. Conversely, that’s also why you’ll get the occasional celebrity who will leave “early” (for an entertainer, that is; most laypeople get it over with in their early twenties) if their careers aren’t taking off. In that case, better get it over with while you can.

Lee Jun-hyuk, we’ll be waiting. In the interim, we can daydream about all the abs photoshoots that await your return in 2014.

Via TV Report