Actor Kim Min-ha 'surprised' by buzz over 17-kilogram weight loss

Actor Kim Min-ha said she was caught off guard by the public reaction to her recent weight loss.

On Friday, Kim appeared on the MBN and Channel S variety program "Jeonhyeonmu Plan 4," joining hosts Jeon Hyun-moo and Kwak Tube at a naengmyeon restaurant on Baengnyeongdo.

Jeon told Kim she looked dramatically slimmer, noting he had greeted her at the Cheongryong Series Awards last year and she looked like a completely different person now.

Kim lost about 17 kilograms through diet and weight management for an acting role. She said, however, that she had not expected the weight loss to generate such widespread attention.

Jeon remarked that in South Korea, news of an intense diet can dominate conversation for a week.

Kim said she was taken aback herself. "I was genuinely surprised. I thought, is this really something worth all this fuss?" she said.

The conversation also turned to "Hana Korea," a film starring Kim that opened last month. Kim said she practiced the North Korean dialect of Yanggang Province for her role as a North Korean defector, explaining that the accent she used was the complete opposite of what is typically heard in mainstream media. "It's a very strong intonation," she said. When Jeon tried to perform a North Korean accent on the spot and asked her to respond in kind, Kim drew laughs by saying she could only manage her own scripted lines.