What you should know about Kim Tae-hee and the stars of ‘Hi Bye, Mama!’

The
idea of characters who can see ghosts interacting with those who can’t is a
staple in K-dramas, but what if the lead character is the ghost and she’s been
following her husband who has now remarried, and her daughter? And what if,
somehow, she is brought back to life? That is the crazy premise behind Netflix’s
“Hi Bye, Mama!,” a series made with SBS that surprised everyone with its charm
and went all the way to no. 1 on the Netflix Philippines’ Most Watched list.
But as you’re about to find out, the show had one huge thing going in its
favor: Its fantastic cast.

Kim Tae-hee

There’s
no other way to say this, but Tae-hee is one of the OG K-drama stars, having
risen to stardom as the original evil stepsister Yoo-ri in the iconic 2003
series “Stairway to Heaven,” Soo-in in the charming 2004 campus romance “Love
Story in Harvard” (just love this genre’s naming convention) and the National
Security Service agent Seung-hee in the immensely popular 2009 spy-action
series “Iris.” She won awards, did a bunch of films and was so popular she
played the lead role of the Korean actress Yoon-na who who dates a very ordinary
Japanese security guard played by Hidetoshi Nishijima in a Japanese romantic comedy
series in 2011 titled “Boku to Star no 99 Nichi.” And, of course, in 2017, she
married yet another OG Hallyu superstar, Rain, with whom she has two daughters.
She began her TV comeback in 2015 but “Hi Bye, Mama!” is true start of her
comeback. The show is her first streaming international project. It is similar
to the career bump that Son Ye-jin got from “Crash Landing On You,” but is
different because Tae-hee was a much bigger name before she slowed down her
career and it can be argued the 40-year-old even more popular now around the
world because of this show. She plays Cha Yu-ri, the compassionate, vigorous young
woman who is killed in a tragic car accident and has been a ghost for five
years now, watching her husband and daughter but unable to touch or help them. In
2019, she is suddenly brought to life and must deal with the consequences of
this event.

Lee Kyu-hyung

The
36-year-old Kyu-hyung is a true star on the Korean stage because of his acting
and singing talents, but he should be a familiar face because of his film and
TV appearances. He had small parts in “Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth,” “Goblin”
and “Stranger.” But he had much bigger parts in “Prison Playbook,” “Life” as a doctor
colleague of Lee Dong Wook and an award-winning turn as Seok-ki in 2019’s “Doctor
John.” He plays Cho Gang-hwa, Yu-ri’s cardiothoracic surgeon husband, who is
left heartbroken after losing his wife to the point he can no longer even
operate. He has tried to move on, even marrying someone new, but his world is
turned upside down when Yu-ri returns from the dead.

Go Bo-gyeol

Of
all of the actors in “Hi Bye, Mama!,” it is Bo-gyoel’s career which should have
the biggest boost. You’ve seen the 31-year-old actor before, usually playing much
younger characters because of her petite size, tiny eyes and delicate features.
She had small roles in everything from “The Producers” and “Bubble Gum” to “Cinderella
and the Four Knights” and “Arthdal Chronicles.” Her most memorable roles were
as the kind class president Yoon-na in “Goblin” and the lone female rebel in 2017’s
“Queen for Seven Days.” Here, she plays Oh Min-jeong, a nurse who falls in love
with Gang-hwa and winds up married to him, raising his daughter. She tires her
best to be a good wife and mother, but finds herself isolated from others and
from Gang-hwa, and all this before Yu-ri shows up again. This is Bo-gyeol’s biggest
role yet so it would be good to see what else she can do.

Shin Dong-mi

Now
here is an actress with a LOT of credits to her name. Her most recent hit was
the editor Joo-young in “She Was Pretty.” In K-drama after Dong-mi usually
plays the best friend, and she is the same here, playing Hyung-jeong, who is Yu-ri’s
best friend and runs a quirky café, Misaeng, that npbody goes to but serves as
the hangout for the main characters in this series. She is the first one that
Yu-ri says what is really going on to, and tries to find ways of helping her.
She also finds herself in a close friendship with Min-jeong AND Yu-ri so she’s
conflicted as well.

Oh Eui-sik

Another
familiar face, Eui-sik is a comedic actor who basically does only K-dramas. He
was—deep breath—“Oh My Ghost,” “Fight for my Way,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “Wok
of Love” and “Touch Your Heart.” You’d probably recognize him as the
weightlifting team senior Woon-ki in “Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo.” Here,
he is Geung-sang, Gang-hwa’s best friend, a psychiatrist in the same hospital
and Hyung-jeong’s husband. He is, however, not a very good psychiatrist, very quick
to be scared and not very sensible. The idea of ghosts really frightens him.

Seo Woo-jin

Woo-jin
is just frickin’ adorable as Seo-woo, Yu-ri and Gang-hwa’s 6-year-old daughter
who never met her biological mother and grown up thinking of Min-jeong as her
mom. Because of her mother’s constant unearthly presence, she can see ghosts. Here’s
the best part: Woo-jin is a boy! He was chosen because he looked like a young
Tae-hee, has done modelling and this is already his fifth K-drama.

Yang Kyung-won

Even
if he appears towards the end of the show, there’s no way you’ll miss Kyung-won.
Yes, he plays the funny Sgt. Piyo Chi-su in “Crash Landing On You,” as well as previous
smaller parts in “Fight for my Way,” “Let’s Eat” and “Arthdal Chronicles.”
Here, he plays Guk-bong a menacing exorcist, who has come to clean up another
shaman’s mess—and that includes Yu-ri. We will certainly be seeing more of this
guy.

“Hi
Bye, Mama!” has a HUGE cast, unusual for a romantic comedy. This is because
there is a large cast of actors playing ghosts at the charnel house Yu-ri was
at. But there are formidable actors in supporting roles as well. Veteran
actress Kim Mi-kyung (“Healer”) is Yu-ri’s mother. Yoon Sa-bong is excellent as
Ms. Mi-Dong, the shaman who is assigned to the charnel house and winds up
trying to protect Yu-ri. There are a series of cameos, and it doesn’t get
better than Lee Jung-eun (the housekeeper in Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite”) playing
a nameless shaman.

All 16 episodes of “Hi Bye, Mama!”
is streaming on Netflix.

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Source: PDI