Japan wins Grand Prize at Seoul Int'l Drama Awards

Poster of Japanese series "Shoe-Shine Boy" [TV Tokyo]

Japanese TV series "Shoe-Shine Boy" won the grand prize award at the fifth annual Seoul International Drama held last week, beating out over 170 works from a total 43 different countries.

"Shoe-Shine Boy," based on a novel about the life of a shoe shiner during the aftermath of World War II, began its run in Japan on TV Tokyo in 2009.

"Thank you very much for this award. It seems that nowadays there is a distance among people and we made this drama to bridge that gap in forming human relationships," Kan Ishibashi, the director of "Shoe-Shine Boy," said in his acceptance speech.

The top prizes for single drama, miniseries and series drama category went to Canada's thriller "The Summit," Korea's historical dramas "The Slave Hunters" and "The Great Queen Seondeok," respectively.

Director Nick Copus took home the award for best director for "The Summit" while playwright and screenwriter Craig Warner scored the top honors for best writer in "The Last Days of Lehman Brothers," which aired in U.K's BBC Worldwide.

Finnish actor Carl-Kristian Rundman won the best actor award for his role in drama "Easy Living" and both Margo Ros and Maike Meijer from the Netherlands grabbed wins best actress for their roles in the TV series "Tower C.".

The jury's special prize went to Malaysia's "Ghost 2," Chile's "Where is Elisa?" and India's "Pvaitra Rishta.

Separately, in the People’s Choice category for favorite actors and actresses hosted by portal site Yahoo! Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan, votes named "Brilliant Legacy" star Lee Seung-gi, Taiwanese actor Vic Chou, Taiwanese actress Ruby Lin and Chinese actress Charamine Sheh as the winners.

The drama festival also featured the special stage performances from singers Baek Ji-young, Hong Gwang-ho, boy band 2AM and Japanese group SKE48.

Reporter : Lucia Hong luciahong@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@