Korean Actress Min Ji-Oh Draws Inspiration From K-Pop For English-Language Role In Last Madame: Sisters Of The Night
Min Ji-Oh came out of a 10-year hiatus to play Gini Chang’s mentor in the Last Madame prequel.
Acting’s a tremendous drug: When you do it well, it’s such a great feeling that you want to do it again — it’s hard to walk away.
Just ask Min Ji-Oh, the Korean actress in Mediacorp’s spy drama Last Madame: Sisters of the Night.
Min, 42, used to act in movies and TV shows in South Korea — her credits include 2010’s It’s Okay, Daddy’s Girl, starring Moon Chae-Won — before taking time off to start a family with her Korean-Australian husband, an actuary at an American company. In 2015, her spouse’s work brought them to Singapore; their son was born two months after the move.
Cut to 2020. The housewife started to feel the itch to act again. Plus, she felt her command of English has improved since she first arrived here. “Acting is my dream job,” she tells 8days.sg over Zoom. “I want to do this until I die.”
But there was just one problem: she didn’t know who to reach out to.
That was until, by sheer coincidence, a friend got her in touch with Ochre Pictures, the folks behind Last Madame. (Turns out that friend Is also a friend of Last Madame star Jeff Chou’s — nope, Min never met him.)
One thing led to another, and Min landed a small part in the Rebecca Lim-led hijack thriller Third Rail (see Episode 6’s ‘The Forsaken’) and then a meatier role in Last Madame: Sisters of the Night.
In the prequel to the award-winning 2019 series, she plays Hidemi, the world-weary mentor to Gini Chang’s rookie karayuki-san-cum-double agent Nozomi in 1920s Singapore.
Min remembers being incredibly starstruck on her first day of filming, an outdoor scene in the forestial Canterbury Road area.
“I looked at the call sheet — [lead actors] Fang Rong and Zhang Zetong were on it,” she says. “I was really nervous meeting them because, to me, they are celebrities!”
Partnership: Min Ji-Oh says she got along swimmingly with onscreen protégé Gini Chang when they first met during a test shoot.“I was worried [that we might not click] because we come from different backgrounds, she’s young and I’m not that young,” Min admits. “But she has a really nice personality.” It also helps that Chang spoke Korean. “Her [Korean] is at the intermediate level,” she says. “We talk about Korean culture, relationships — so, it was quite easy to build a bond with her.”
Did she have a hard time playing her first major role in almost 10 years?
Getting into character wasn’t a big issue, she says, because the showrunners had put together a copious amount of research materials.
Prior to filming, she and the cast attended a Japanese etiquette boot camp where they learnt about the ins and outs of wearing a kimono.
Squeezing into the garb took some getting used to, though. “We would always say ‘Oh my God, I cannot sit down, I cannot eat.’”, she adds. “My backbone hurt for the first two weeks. But the human body can adapt to anything.”
The real challenge was nailing the English dialogue, so much so that “sometimes I just wanted [to give up] and stop memorising my lines.”
And when the going gets tough, she would turn to K-pop for some pick-me-up.
“In the middle of the shoot, I was watching [BTS’] Jimin’s music video, ‘Set Me Free’,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine how many times he practiced the dance choreography to make this video. [His work ethic] inspired me to work harder on my English. I told myself, ‘I cannot stop here — I need to do more.'”
When it comes to Korean dramas, Min isn’t as plugged in because she’s too busy being a mother and a housewife.
“When I have free time, I would try to watch a Singaporean drama, or read an English book,” says Min, who lists Oppa, Saranghae!, Love at First Bite and Silent Walls — all featuring Tasha Low — as her recent favourite local shows.
“Honestly, watching Korean dramas is a waste of time,” she continues. “I know there are many good quality dramas — I saw a few clips of See You in my 19th Life on YouTube — but my priority is to learn English and Chinese.”
What does Min’s husband make of her Sisters of the Night performance?
“He just finished all episodes and he liked my acting,” she says. “But he said I should be more elegant when I cry because Hidemi is not just a mother but also the top girl of the brothel.
"He likes the tragic story about the karayuki-sans as well as Qing Ling’s [Fang Rong’s character] back story, and he actually wanted to see more of the sadness about the karayuki-sans. As for my intimate scenes, he avoided talking about them…”
Last Madame: Sisters of the Night (M18) is now on meWATCH and Mediacorp YouTube Drama Channel.
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