Minho (Choi Min Ho)

민호    취 민호

SHINee

Minho was discovered at the S.M. Casting System in 2006 and modeled for Ha Sang-beg's Seoul Collection F/W 08-09 in March 2008. One month later, Minho was chosen as a member of the group SHINee, the five-member boy group debuted on May 25, 2008 on SBS's Inkigayo.

In 2009 and 2010 Minho appeared in both the Korean and Japanese versions of Girls' Generation's music video "Gee". He was also featured in the music video of VNT's debut song 'Sound' in 2010. In 2009, Minho joined the popular show 'Let's Go! Dream Team' as a regular member.

Minho debuted as an actor on November 20, 2010 in a KBS2's drama special, entitled 'Pianist' with actress Han Ji-hye.

In 2011, Minho was named an Honorary Ambassador for Youth 2011. Three years later in 2014, Minho and Yoona were appointed as UNICEF Unihero Campaign Ambassadors "Giving Hope to the Children". In the same year, Minho was listed among the Top Korean Stars, receiving 300 million won as his annual advertising rate. 

On December 7, 2011 Minho was announced for a comedic acting role in SBS's new sitcom, 'Salamander Guru and The Shadows'. The sitcom aired in January 2012.

On April 26, 2012 Minho was confirmed to be the lead role, alongside f(x)'s Sulli and Lee Hyun-woo, for the Korean drama 'To the Beautiful You', a Korean version of "Hana Kimi". The drama started broadcasting on August 15, 2012 on SBS. In preparation for his role as Tae-joon, Minho received personal training from coach Kim Tae-young, former national high jump athlete and a member of the Korea Association of Athletics Federations, for a month and a half. His personal record at the moment is 175 cm.

In September 2012 JQ, who works under S.M. Entertainment to improve and direct the rapping abilities of their artists and used to be SHINee's rap instructor, praised Minho's writing ability and pointed out that he has many good ideas and "a few genius moments here and there". He was especially pleased with Minho's rap lyrics for SHINee's lead single "Juliette" in 2009. Minho has been participating in the rap making of SHINee's songs since debut and has written and co-written several of the rap lyrics for SHINee's earlier songs like "Love's Way", "Love Like Oxygen", "Graze", and "Best Place" in SHINee's debut album 'The SHINee World'. In addition to SHINee's second extended play 'Romeo' he assisted JQ with "Talk to You" and "Juliette" in the rap making.

In July 2013, Minho returned to the small screen with MBC's 'Medical Top Team' as the handsome youngest member of a medical team. The drama received low ratings and was criticized for trying to tell too many stories at once and losing the main focal point of the story, however Minho's acting performance received postive response and was praised for his growth as an actor.

In early 2016, Minho extended his popularity as an actor. He was cast in several projects, including a new historical Korean drama entitled 'Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth', to be aired on December 19, 2016 on KBS2. His debut movie project was titled 'Canola', and he played alongside Youn Yuh-jung and Kim Go-eun with director Yoon Hong-seung, it was filmed in 2015 and was released on the big screen May 2016.

 In 2017 Minho was confirmed for the upcoming JTBC web drama entitled 'Somehow 18'.

After receiving positive response for his acting performance in 'Derailed' (2016), Minho was cast in science fiction action thriller 'In-Rang', the Korean adaptation of the Japanese anime 'Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'. In the movie, directed by Kim Jee-woon, he will appear alongside Jung Woo-sung, Kang Dong-won and Han Hyo-joo. He will play the character Kim Chul-jin, member of an elite police unit. The film is set to be released in 2018.

On April 15, 2019 Minho joined the Marine Corps for his mandatory military enlistment. Minho completed his service on November 15, 2020.