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, said a statement issued on Wednesday by their agencies. It said romance bloomed after they reconnected last October when she was in South Korea to shoot an advertisement.

In it, the couple said: "Because of cinema, we met... 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. A spokesman for Tang's agency told Chinese website Netease the actress is not pregnant.

Kim, 44, received acclaim in South Korea for Late Autumn, in which Tang played a prisoner who falls in love with a South Korean man (Hyun Bin) while on a parole visit to her family in Seattle. Netease said the film 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 South Korea's Grand Bell Awards.

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

It said the romance was exposed in 2012 when Tang, in South Korea to host the Busan film festival, was seen with Kim. A South Korean magazine at that time alleged they were secretly dating in 2011, the website said.

In 2012, it was reported that she had bought land for a house near Seoul, close to where Kim lives.

It will be the first marriage for Tang, who shot to fame acting in Lee Ang's 2007 film, Lust, Caution.

This article was first published on July 4, 2014.
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