Media Person of the Year: Bae Yong Joon
The overwhelming popularity in Japan of the bespectacled Korean actor carries with it a multitude of meaning that has yet to be fully grasped, despite the equally overwhelming coverage he's received. On the most obvious level -- the one having to do with Bae's hold on the imaginations of older Japanese women -- the press have exhausted every analytical resource to reveal something that was hardly news: These women are starved of romance, which most lack in their own marriages and many have never even experienced.
Given the sappy sentimentality of "Winter Sonata," the soap opera that made Bae a star, the sort of romantic love these women long for is a pipe dream, and Bae's character is so tragically "good" that his main appeal to his fan base -- his consummate sensitivity -- can just as easily be viewed as a weakness when applied to real life.