Actor Yoo Hai Jin, who set a fifth 10-million admissions film record with the movie The King's Warden, was selected as the most influential male actor.
On the 30th, his agency VAST Entertainment said Yoo Hai Jin won the grand prize in the most influential male actor (film) institutional sector at the 2026 Brand Customer Loyalty Awards.
The 2026 Brand Customer Loyalty Awards is an awards ceremony in which the Korea Consumer Forum, together with an American brand research and consulting corporations, selects the most influential winners by institutional sector each year through consumer surveys. Among them, Yoo Hai Jin was chosen as the most influential figure in the male film actor institutional sector.
The reason behind Yoo Hai Jin's award is widely seen as the strong influence of The King's Warden, which recently kept breaking box office records for Korean films. The King's Warden (abbreviated as WangSaNam) is a work that depicts the story of 1457 Cheongnyeongpo, a village chief who volunteered for exile to revive his village, and a young deposed former king who was sent into exile. In it, Yoo Hai Jin played the role of Eom Heung Do, who risked his life to manage the final moments of Joseon King Danjong (Park Jihoon) after the throne was seized from him at a young age and he was killed, earning praise.
In particular, WangSaNam drew attention as it surpassed a cumulative audience of about 16.73 million, rising to number two on the list of highest-grossing Korean films of all time. With this, Yoo Hai Jin achieved his fifth 10-million admissions film in his personal career, following The King's Man, Veteran, A Taxi Driver, and Exhuma. The cumulative audience for films in which he starred even exceeded 100 million.
Buoyed by that success, he was also chosen as the most influential film actor. Yoo Hai Jin is scheduled to release a new film, Assassin(s), later this year. Assassin(s) is known as a work that traces the suspicions and background of the Aug. 15 shooting incident. Yoo Hai Jin is expected to once again move audiences from the center of a modern Korean historical event. His 2026 trajectory, beginning with WangSaNam and continuing with Assassin(s), is drawing even more attention. <
[Photo] OSEN DB, provided by SHOWBOX.
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