Jo Hyun Jae was a singer before he turned to acting! Not too many singer-turn-actors in Korea whom I have heard of except for Rain who has tried his hands in acting recently. Though I knew about Jo Hyun Jae's short stint as a singer since I watched Love Letter the serial, I never actually got a chance to hear him sing until now.

Actually, he was one of the members of a Korean boy-band called Guardian where he was supposed to be one of their lead vocals! Now, as much as I like Hyun Jae Ssi, he really doesn't have vocals which can tug at my heart strings. As in, he can sing, no doubt, but nothing fantastic. If Simon Cowell were to judge him, he would pass him off as a mere karaoke singer (which isn't saying much about Guardian now, is it?).



Guardian was probably a one-album wonder. In fact, I think they never released any more albums since.

Samples of Guardian's songs can be found below. Most of the songs in that first and only album was hip-hop, funk etc. (you get the picture). Since I prefer slower tunes, I picked out these 2. To tell the truth, these songs are actually quite nice too. :

http://www.toodou.com/v/RTBenGJTgY8 - I believe he sang most of it, particularly the chorus

http://www.toodou.com/v/AJuvW5NTrxg - this one I can be sure he sang the chorus, all because of this video clip introducing him during promos for Only You: http://www.toodou.com/v/0ePxUaV3OqY , which I think almost made me collapse from watching the utterly shocking images. I mean that dancing... O_o

If you want to hear the rest, here's the link.

Then he also sang a little in his serials as well, most noticably in First Love, which sounded quite nice but as I said, nothing unique about his voice.

In an interview, Jo Hyun Jae once said that the only reason why he became a singer when he was 18 years old was to use it as a stepping stone to becoming an actor, and nothing else. It seems that he never looked back since.

And I say "good decison!". Keep your day job as an actor, Hyun Jae oppa.

That being said, it was really exciting finding all these links to a time where Jo Hyun Jae was still a relative unknown.

And since I'm on the topic, Jo Hyun Jae Ssi has a new movie coming up called G.P. 506! Yay! And it's no simple movie, directed by Gong Su-chang, director of the acclaimed R-Point. It's a horror movie, unfortunately, so I may give this one a miss but hopefully it's a good career move from serials to movies for him. Of course, since they've just started filming G.P. 506, there isn't much about the movie yet, though you can read much about R-Point here.

And of course, the promotional photo!



I say, Hyun Jae Ssi has lost quite a bit of weight there! It's almost like he never recovered those 10 kgs he lost during the filming of Seo Dong Yo!

All pictures and information from: http://www.dearjohyunjae.com/phpbb/