Genie, Make A Wish Kim Woo-bin's Arabic acting draws attention.
The Netflix series Genie, Make A Wish is a fantasy romantic comedy about the lamp spirit Genie (played by Kim Woo-bin), a career-interrupted spirit awakened after more than a thousand years, who meets the emotion-deficient human Ga-young (played by Suzy) and engages in events over three wishes. As Kim Woo-bin creates a character unlike any before and captures the hearts of viewers worldwide, his efforts toward Arabic acting draw attention.
To bring out the exotic presence of Genie, Kim Woo-bin devoted a lot of effort to practicing Arabic lines. In the months before filming he listened to Arabic recordings more than a thousand times per line, and even during brief waiting or rest times on sets such as photo shoots, he was reportedly often seen listening to recordings alone and diligently practicing.
He also focused on detailing the pitch of pronunciation to naturally convey Genie's dignity and deep emotion in a cave-like voice and nuance, and was known to have shown relentless effort by learning lines on set with the help of an Arabic teacher.
Thanks to this intense effort, Kim Woo-bin's Arabic acting has received viewer reactions such as "There are many Arabic lines but he delivered them naturally" and "He's sexier when he speaks Arabic in that cave voice."
Beyond the Arabic lines, Kim Woo-bin also spared no effort on visual transformation and action acting. From long hair extensions reaching his waist to layered exotic Middle Eastern costumes, he consistently pulled them off every shoot, creating an overwhelming visual as if he stepped out of One Thousand and One Nights. Adding vivid, high-difficulty wire action, his pretraining and thorough immersion in front of the green screen drew admiration from the on-site staff.
Meanwhile, Genie, Make A Wish is streaming exclusively on Netflix.
[Photo] Netflix
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