Jeon Do-yeon spent five years starring in television dramas before achieving instant star status with her film debut opposite Han Seok-gyu in The Contact. She went on to establish a reputation as a "chameleon" who can take on a wide variety of roles, from her performance as a doctor in the hit melodrama A Promise, to that of a schoolgirl in The Harmonium in My Memory to that of a wife having an adulterous affair in Happy End.[2]
In 2001 she very skillfully played a very ordinary bank teller in Park Heung-shik's debut I Wish I Had a Wife. After starring as the tough-talking "Sunglasses" in Ryu Seung-wan's No Blood No Tears, Jeon spent time acting in a TV drama titled Shoot for the Stars. In 2003 she found box-office success in E J-yong's Untold Scandal, based on the famous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses. The following year she reunited with director Park Heung-shik in a dual role for the time-bending melodrama My Mother, the Mermaid.[2]
In 2005 Jeon burst back into the limelight playing a prostitute who contracts AIDS in Park Jin-pyo's hard-hitting melodrama You Are My Sunshine. The performance helped turn the film into a box-office hit (3 million+ admissions), and also won her yet more additions to her collection of local acting awards.[2]
But it was her role in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine in 2007 that would see her emerge in full glory. Although the film itself, which debuted at the Cannes, evoked widely differing assessments from international critics, Jeon's performance was universally praised, and indeed she was presented with a Best Actress award[1] by the Cannes jury -- the first Korean ever to receive an acting award at Cannes.[2] She is also only the second Asian actress to have won this award; the first was Maggie Cheung in 2004 for Clean.
Jeon's win of European cinema's top female acting prize, the Prix d'interprétation féminine du Festival de Cannes was the result of a unanimous decision by the jury led by Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Frears. The last instance of a unanimous decision was for Isabelle Hupert in The Piano Teacher in 2001.
Her most recent project was the low-budget, character-driven two-hander My Dear Enemy directed by Lee Yoon-ki.[3]
Although not as broadly popular with audiences as some other stars, Jeon is widely respected for her acting abilities, and many young actresses cite her as a role model.[2]
On October 10, 2009, Jeon was made a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters at the Pusan International Film Festival by French Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac.[4]
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