Jeon Doyeon Could Earn an Oscar Best Actress Nomination

The Hollywood Reporter Raises Possibility of First-Ever Korean Nominee

Jeon Do-yeon could become the first Korean to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, according to predictions.

Still from the film "Possible Love."

On the 25th local time, U.S. entertainment outlet The Hollywood Reporter spotlighted Jeon Do-yeon, who plays Mi-ok, the wife of a laid-off worker in director Lee Chang-dong's film "Possible Love," and made the prediction. It praised her performance as "a fitting recognition of the remarkable work she has shown in the film," adding, "It's hard to imagine another actor playing Mi-ok." The outlet described her acting as "buoyant and inquisitive, with no expression or tone of voice that feels simple to read. It's a performance that cuts deepest at its most joyful moments."

The outlet also looked back over her decades-long career, from her debut as an advertising model to films including "The Contact," "The Harmonium in My Memory," "You Are My Sunshine," "Secret Sunshine" and "The Housemaid"; the drama "Crash Course in Romance"; and the play "The Cherry Orchard." While a number of Korean actors, including Youn Yuh-jung and Lee Byung-hun, have attracted Hollywood's attention, Jeon has been relatively less prominent in international productions. Lee told the outlet, "It's almost puzzling that the world is only recognizing Jeon Do-yeon now."

Jeon, who is 53 this year, won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 for Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine." "Possible Love," which reunites them after 19 years, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival last September and was selected as South Korea's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix is mounting a campaign for the film in major Oscar categories. It plans to put forward Jeon for Best Actress, Seol Kyung-gu for Best Actor and Jo Yeo-jeong for Best Supporting Actress. Nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay are also key targets.

Still from the film “A Possible Love.”

"Possible Love" currently has a 100% critics' score on the U.S. film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes included the film alongside "The Odyssey" and "Dune: Part Three" on its list of predicted Best Picture nominees for next year's Oscars. It also predicted Jeon as a Best Actress nominee and "Possible Love" as a nominee for Best International Feature.

The Los Angeles Times called it one of the year's best films, writing, "Lee Chang-dong has never shown such delicate, novelistic and accessible humanity as he does in 'Possible Love.'" It added, "The best-of lists exist for performances by actors like Jeon Do-yeon."

Lee said, "It is rare and difficult for actors in non-English-language films to receive Oscar nominations." He added that he hoped "the Academy's appropriate recognition would serve as visible evidence of both the recognition of an actress's achievements and the change the Academy is pursuing."

"Possible Love" first opened at select theaters in South Korea on September 23. It will be released on Netflix on November 6.

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