Lee Eun-ju

Lee Eun-ju was a South Korean actress who starred in hit films such as Taegukgi and The Scarlet Letter. She was born in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea, on December 22, 1980. She studied piano for much of her youth, without giving much thought to becoming an actress. She moved to Seoul after graduating high school and was first noticed in the mid-1990s as a model for school uniforms. After finding work as a model, she began to be offered roles in various TV dramas, including Start and KAIST. Her film debut came in 1999, when she played the younger sister in Park Chong-wan's award-winning feature Rainbow Trout. Her first lead role came as the title character in Hong Sang-soo's Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors in 2000. Following this, she teamed with actor Lee Byung-hun in the 2001 hit film Bungee Jumping of Their Own, and also scored a hit opposite Cha Tae-hyun in the melodrama Lovers' Concerto. Lee's later career was marked by several turns in films that failed at the box-office, plus a key role in the record-breaking Korean War film Taegukgi in 2004. In the same year, she appeared in the very popular Korean drama Phoenix, and later that year she starred in her last feature, Daniel H. Byun's The Scarlet Letter, which screened as the Closing Film at the 2004 Pusan International Film Festival. Lee was known for her delicate and excellent emotional expression, as well as her unique atmosphere compared to actors of the same age. She once said in an interview, "I'm called a new generation star, but I don't want to be the kind of person who achieves instant fame and then is quickly forgotten. I want to learn step-by-step how to become a good actress, and gradually work my way up. A star achieves brilliance, but is soon forgotten; to become an actress takes more time." On the night of February 22, 2005, only a few days after her graduation from Dankook University, Lee died by suicide at her apartment in Bundang, Seongnam, after slitting her wrists and hanging herself. She was 24 years old. The family blamed the suicide on severe bouts of depression and mental illness and said she had been suffering from insomnia due to the nude scenes she had done in The Scarlet Letter, but it could also be traced from Bungee Jumping of Their Own, where all her characters since then have died, so she was too invested in her characters. She left a suicide note scrawled in blood, in which she wrote, "Mom, I am sorry and I love you." A separate note said, "I wanted to do too much. Even though I live, I'm not really alive. I don't want anyone to be disappointed. It's nice having money. I'll be a cow in my next life and live comfortably." Lee was cremated and enshrined in a crypt at Goyang. Hundreds of her fellow actors and entertainers attended her funeral. Her death shocked and saddened many fans and colleagues, and sparked a public debate on the pressures and difficulties faced by celebrities in the Korean entertainment industry. Lee is still remembered by her fans every February, and her films and dramas are often re-aired as a tribute to her legacy.