A Shop for Killers' star Lee Dong-wook jokes winning top award in Yoo Jae-seok's show is 'quite burdensome'

He's not only an action genius, but one in comedy too.

At a Jan 15 press conference for his upcoming K-drama A Shop for Killers, South Korean actor Lee Dong-wook was also asked about a different show - comedian Yoo Jae-seok's YouTube series Pinggyego (Just An Excuse) in which he won a top award.

"Now I feel burdened with wanting to make everyone laugh as much as possible, so with every action I take, I always want to make people laugh," the 42-year-old joked.

"You know, it's quite burdensome. I don't think I'm going to be on another one of his shows anymore."

In Pinggyego, guests on the show have lighthearted chats with Jae-seok. In a December 2023 episode, the inaugural Pinggyego Awards was held with categories akin to a real awards show and Dong-wook won the Daesang (Grand Prize).

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When it comes to being called an "action genius" though, Dong-wook humbly disagreed with the title - though his past roles speak for themselves.

"I'm not a genius, I wouldn't call myself that," Dong-wook said.

He has played a sword-wielding magical nine-tailed fox in Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 (2023), a cop in Bad and Crazy (2021) and a billionaire with knives growing out of his back in Blade Man (2014).

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In A Shop for Killers, he takes on the role of Jeong Jin-man, a retired mercenary who secretly runs an unusual shop selling weapons.

When he dies unexpectedly, his niece Jeong Ji-an (played by Kim Hye-jun) becomes the target of assassination due to his dangerous legacy.

Though this isn't Dong-wook's first action role, he revealed that the kind of training required is different this time round.

"Most of the action that I've shown until now has a lot of fantastical elements to it, so I did a lot of wire action and my character would sometimes use magic," he explained.

"I also did a lot of action using long swords but this time round, I used a lot of firearms and shorter daggers as well, so I think it's more realistic. It was quite new and practising the action scenes was very tough."

'Just to make it fun for my fans'

One thing that visibly stood out during the press conference was Dong-wook's ash grey hair.

He shared: "I changed my hair colour just to make it fun for my fans… At first I thought this hair colour was kind of new to me and I kept forgetting that I had changed it until it’s brought up [by others]."

He was asked about his chemistry with Hye-jun, and he recalled how they were "very close friends" on set.

"We felt at ease with each other and sometimes I could be very clumsy but Hye-jun would be enthusiastically caring towards me so she helped me out a lot," he replied.

Hye-jun, 28, felt the same: "I relied on him a lot. When I went to the action academy, I had a lot of hard times.

"Nobody was really on my side because everyone was like, 'You have to do it anyway,' but Dong-wook told me that I shouldn't get hurt and to do whatever I can… I was very touched."

A Shop for Killers premieres today (Jan 17) on Disney+.

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syarifahsn@asiaone.com

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