Chinese actress Tang Wei to wed Korean director Kim Tae Yong later this year

Actress Tang Wei at the Hong Kong Film Awards held on April 13, 2014. -- PHOTO: APPLE DAILY 
Actress Tang Wei at the Hong Kong Film Awards held on April 13, 2014. -- PHOTO: APPLE DAILY 
Chinese actress Tang Wei with South Korean director Kim Tae Yong, who is now her fiance, photographed together in Seoul in April 2011. -- PHOTO: CHINA FOTO PRESS 

Beijing/Seoul - Chinese actress Tang Wei is engaged and will wed South Korean director Kim Tae Yong later this year, the couple announced.

They met while working on the English-language film Late Autumn (2010), directed by Kim, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by their agencies.

It said romance bloomed after they re-connected last October when she was in Korea to shoot an advertisement.

In the statement, the couple said: "Because of cinema, we met and came to know each other. From friends, we became lovers. In future, we will call each other husband and wife. Although we each have to learn a new language, we believe this is the happiest moment for us."

The statement said they will wed in the autumn in front of family and friends.

A spokesman from Tang's agency told Chinese website Netease that the actress is not pregnant.

Kim, 44, received acclaim in South Korea for Late Autumn, in which Tang starred as a prisoner who falls in love with a South Korean man played by Hyun Bin while on a parole visit to her family in Seattle.

Netease said the romance won Tang, 34, nine awards for Best Actress in South Korea, including one at Seoul's Baeksang Arts Awards in 2011. In 2012, it became the highest grossing Korean film in China.

Kim took the Baeksang Best New Director prize for co-helming the 2000 horror movie Memento Mori. His 2006 drama Family Ties won several awards including Best Film at Korea's Grand Bell Awards.

It will be the second marriage for the director, who was divorced in late 2011, Netease said.

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