POPULAR Chinese actress Tang Wei announced her engagement to South Korean director Kim Tae-yong yesterday. The wedding will be held this autumn, according to a press release from Tang’s agency, Champion Star Management Ltd.

    The couple met on the set of their 2009 English-language movie “Late Autumn,” and fell in love when Tang went to South Korea for the shooting of an advertisement in October last year, the press release said. Now, with the blessings of their families and friends, the couple is planning to get married in the fall.

    In a joint statement, Tang and Kim called “Late Autumn” their matchmaker, and said this is the happiest moment of their lives.

    A South Korean magazine revealed the news about Tang’s relationship with Kim last December.

    Tang, who shot to stardom in Ang Lee’s acclaimed 2007 movie “Lust, Caution,” bought land in South Korea for a house, not far from where Kim lives, Korean women’s magazine Woman Joongang said.

    Kim made his debut in 2000 with the hit horror movie “Memento Mori” and cemented himself as one of South Korea’s most talented new filmmakers with 2006’s “Family Ties,” which won several film festival awards.

    In the well-received “Late Autumn,” Tang plays a prisoner who’s granted a temporary parole to visit family in Seattle, Washington. Along the way, she befriends a South Korean man who’s on the run.

    (Song Yingwen)