Eom Jung-hwa back on screen in OK Madam 2, personally cast Choi Soo-young as co-star

Eom Jung-hwa is back. OK Madam 2, directed by Lee Chul-ha, opened August 12 and is currently in theaters nationwide. On August 21, Eom marked the release on Instagram with co-star Choi Soo-young: "a pleasant date with Soo-young."

The film follows Mi-young, a former legendary special agent whose family vacation aboard the luxury cruise ship Eastern Venus becomes a kidnapping crisis at sea. Park Sung-woong plays Seok-hwan. Park Jin-joo plays Seon-ah, the cruise's director-in-charge. Eom personally recommended Choi Soo-young for the role of Anya. "She has intense eyes and also cute charm," Eom said, "so I thought she was well-suited for the role."

A GV screening was held August 19 at CGV Wangsimni in Seoul. Eom appeared alongside director Lee Chul-ha and director Kim Han-min, whose credits include Myeongryung, Hansan: The Emergence of a Legend, and Noryang: The Sea of Death. Kim called the film "a comedy with tight direction and high density and completeness." Actresses who can handle emotional acting and high-difficulty action simultaneously are rare, he added. Eom singled out the underwater sequences as the hardest to film. "It was difficult, but with the thought that I must do it, I memorized the action movements from the beginning and got my body used to them."

Lee Chul-ha said he and music director Dalpa-ran calibrated every cut: "A 1-2 second difference changes the point of laughter." On Park Jin-joo's casting, Lee said it was the hardest role to fill. When she joined, "it felt like gaining a thousand soldiers."

This is Eom's 35th year since debut. Two Baeksang Best Actress wins for Marriage Is Crazy and Dancing Queen. A Daejong Best Actress win for Montage. The 10-million-viewer disaster film Haeundae. The JTBC drama Doctor Cha, which broke 18% viewership.