About

Jang Dong-gun (Korean: 장동건 / Chinese: 張 東健) is a South Korean actor.^[1] He is famous as one of the stars representing the early stage of Korean Wave^[2] phenomenon in East Asia in 2000s.

His clumsy Japanese speech in a TV commerical movie (TVCM) became a laughingstock among some rudeness Japanese people, and many MAD videos reusing this TVCM have been posted to the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) since around 2010.

Origin

The source video of his fad is a TVCM for mail-order service of cosmetics, mainly for women in midlife, by the Japanese company OZIO.^[3] In this video originally aired in 2005, he was standing on sandy shore (or lakeside) and shouting his love to the lady in front of TV by Japanese language.

This TVCM became a topic because of two reasons. One was that it was quite rare case that South Korean actor was used in Japanese adverts in those days. And the other was his Japanese speech.

Spread

Though he tried speaking Japanese quite seriously, his clumsy Japanese shouting was nothing more than a ridiculous scene for many Japanese people. A few comedians also make fun of his speech in TV or radio shows in that year. But, few parodies for this TVCM made by internet users appeared on the web in those days.

The situation was changed after video sharing service had become commoditized on the Japanese web in 2007. This TVCM started to be set to the subject of mockery again by being reused in MAD videos around March, 2010. Since then, more than 250 MAD video of him have been uploaded to NND. Those videos are tagged under "チャンドンゴン" that is his name written in Katakana characters.^[4]

Needless to say, those parodies are made for making fun of only his clumsy Japanese speech. People have no intent to derogate from his character, even though they make him shout "Shine!" (eng. Die!) in many MAD videos.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

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