Film and television career

Debut

Prior to the group's debut, the members had individually appeared in television dramas, with Leeteuk being the first member of the group to act; he made a very brief cameo appearance as a moviegoer in All About Eve in 2000. Heechul, Siwon, and Kibum are still frequent television actors after Super Junior's debut in 2005, especially Kibum, who starred in four long television dramas after Super Junior's debut.

Siwon was among the first of Super Junior to have participated in silver-screen productions, appearing in the Hong Kong historical action drama film, A Battle of Wits as the supporting role of Prince Liang in 2006. In 2007, Heechul, Kang-in, and Shindong lent their voices to the three chipmunks in the Korean release of Alvin and the Chipmunks. In 2008, Kang-in had a major role in the Korean-language film, Pure Manhwa (tentative title).

As a group, Super Junior starred in Super Junior's Mini-Drama, a television program hosted by the group that was released in late 2006. The group wrote, produced, and acted in the separate mini dramas. The subject matters of the dramas were chosen from the top three choices from viewers. The also participated in comedic reality shows such as Super Junior Show (2005-2006), Super Junior Full House (2006), Super Adonis Camp (2006), and other similar shows. In contrast, the group released a horror documentary, Mystery 6 in early 2006 that tells a story of a ghost. The members also starred in various music videos of artists under SM Entertainment. The most notable performance was in Zhang Liyin's debut music drama video, "Timeless" (2006), featuring Han Geng and Siwon.

Masters and jockeys

Few days prior to debut, Heechul became the co-DJ with Park Heebon for SBS's Youngstreet Radio Show. He had been the DJ for five more months until busy schedules required him to leave the show when he became an MC for SBS's Popular Songs and KM'S Show Music Tank. Leeteuk, Kang-in, and Shindong made their debut appearance as MCs for M.NET's M!Countdown five days after Super Junior's music debut. The three members remained together as the hosts throughout the year until Kang-in was replaced by Eunhyuk due to his busy schedule for hosting MBC's radio program Good Friend Radio and music show Show! Music Core. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk also host their own radio show, KBS's Super Junior Kiss the Radio, and usually invites singers to discuss their musical career. Sungmin was a DJ with Sunny of Girls' Generation for Reckless Radio before the program ended in July 31, 2008. Shindong is also a regular DJ for MBC's Stop the Boring Time Radio.

On November 11, 2007, the premiere of Explorers of the Human Body aired on SBS. The show introduced the thirteen members of Super Junior as regular guests for the program. Kyuhyun, who was recovering from a car accident during the first half of the show's filming, joined the show in the later episodes. The show aimed to answer questions about the human body with a total of thirteen episodes. Super Junior members experiment with their own bodies to verify answers. The first season ended with thirteen episodes on February 3, 2008. A second season is considered.

Attack on the Pin-Up Boys


Eleven members, excluding Kyuhyun and LeeTeuk, appeared in the group's debut film Attack on the Pin-Up Boys. The first film released by SM Pictures, it premiered on July 26, 2007 in Korea. "Wonder Boy", performed by Super Junior, is used as the theme song of the film. Although the film was promoted as a typical high school comedy, the movie gained positive reviews from critics[citation needed], praising that the movie had a well-oriented plot unlike most idol films. However, ticket sales remained low in the premiere month despite it's unexpected success in the sales the first week.

Throughout the remaining of the year, the film failed to attract more than 102,600 viewers and was proven to be a big loss for SM Pictures. However, both versions of the film's DVD became a best-selling record and were sold-out in both Korea and oversea markets, which is more than enough to make up for the production loss of 8.5 billion won.

Influence and impact

Super Junior is credited as literally the biggest boy band in the world and the largest group SM Entertainment has ever created. When Super Junior was formed, successful boy band acts such as TVXQ and Shinhwa were already in fame, and many doubted Super Junior would reach the same notability in the industry because of the overwhelming amount of members. I-13, a thirteen-member girl group that debuted on the same day as Super Junior, received very little commercial success, and later disbanded.

During the course of Super Junior's career, a fair amount of similar musical groups were formed, in hope to reach the same success. SM Entertainment created another group, the nine-member Girls' Generation, and marketed them as the female version of Super Junior. JYP Entertainment also recruited thirteen boys to be in a boy band, which were all revealed in the show, Hot Blood Men. However, not all thirteen debuted, and the members were split into two smaller splinter groups, each debuting at different times: Four members in 2AM and seven members in 2PM. Together, the two groups form the eleven-member boy band, One Day. Ast'1, a boy band under DSP Entertainment, released a promotional video in March 2008. In the short preview the boy band expressed that they would "Knock Down Super Junior", which resulted in a lot of criticism lashed into the group. However, they clarified that they had no means to create conflict, and explained the reason why they want to defeat Super Junior is because they see Super Junior as their answer of success.

Source: wikipedia