Someone has finally won the heart of Japan-based Korean beauty Yoon Sona (30). Renowned for her “majime” (seriousness) and refusal to enter into relationships easily, the popular talento surprised everyone with yesterday’s announcement of her engagement. Her eligibility has been used more than once on variety shows that try and fix celebrities up with each other, but she has refused every time. The man who has finally won her over is described as a 36-year old Korean entrepreneur, who runs businesses connected with the movie industry and restaurants in Seoul. They are said to have been introduced by a mutual friend in March and, with the approval of both sets of parents, have already planned their wedding. It will be held at the plush ShinRa Hotel in Seoul on September 16. Yoon, who plans to continue her career in Japan, shuttling back and forth to Seoul, will hold a press conference at the hotel on Friday. An up and coming star of Korean TV drama, Yoon gave it up to come to Japan six years ago. The timing couldn’t have been better, as it was before the co-hosted World Cup in 2002 and the subsequent boom in Korean culture here. She has mastered the Japanese language and established herself as a regular on the variety show circuit as well as appearing in TV dramas. She has also launched a singing career using the name Sona.
• Another Asian starlet was back in Japan for the first time in four years. Taiwanese talento Vivian Tsu (31) was in Tokyo to promote the movie “Kutsu wo Koisuru Ningyo” (The Shoe Fairy). She met up with comedy duo Kyaeen, with whom she recorded a hit single “Timing” back in the 90s, when she was a TV regular here.
• “Hero”, Monday’s one-off reprisal of the hugely successful 2001 Fuji TV drama, managed a very respectable 30.9% audience rating. It is the 7th-highest rating for the year, and the best by a non-sports related show. With SMAP heart-throb Kimura Takuya (33) in the lead role, the show’s success was hardly a surprise – the original managed over 30% for each of its 11 episodes. But with a subtitle announcing the retirement of soccer star Nakata Hidetoshi appearing on the screen just after the show started, it was perhaps only the idol appeal of Kimutaku that could have kept viewers from changing the channel.