Kim Jee-woon

Kim Jee-woon (Korean: 김지운; born July 6, 1964) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and producer.^{[unreliable source?]} He was a theater actor and director before debuting with his self-written and directed film, The Quiet Family in 1998. Kim has worked with increasing levels of success in cinema, showing accomplished acting and a detailed stylization in his films. He is currently one of the most recognized screenwriters/directors in the Korean film industry.

His films A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and A Bittersweet Life (2005) were both critical and commercial successes. He is also known for the films The Foul King (2000), The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), I Saw the Devil (2010), and The Age of Shadows (2016).

Kim Jee-woon was born on July 6, 1964, in Seoul, South Korea and is the youngest of six siblings. He grew up in Samgak-dong, a neighborhood between present day Jongno and Euljiro. His grandfather was a tailor. When he was young, Kim's father frequently took him to the cinema, where he was exposed to many classic European films. This exposure inspired him to dream of becoming filmmaker.

In 1983, Kim entered the Department of theater at Seoul Institute of the Arts. After dropping out of school, Kim stayed in Paris for three months in 1991 and watched about 100 films during Cahiers du Cinéma's 40th anniversary film festival. Kim built up his career in the field by writing and directing several plays, including Hot Sea (1994) and Movie Movie (1995). He also acted onstage in the musical Guys and Dolls (1983) and Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull.

Kim began his film career as assistant director for Lee Sung-soo's 1994 film The Young Lover. In 1996, Kim started his career as a screenwriter by chance, because he was in a car accident and had to pay for the repairs, which amounted to KRW 6 million ($5,300). Kim won a competition in the movie magazine Premiere with his script entitled Wonderful Seasons.

In 1997, Kim went to a ramen shop, and the lady owner used Cine21 magazine instead of a tray. The magazine had an advertisement about the 1st Cine21 Screenplay Contest stating it was a week before the deadline. Kim wrote a film script entitled The Quiet Family, and won first prize. The screenplay went into several film production companies, but couldn't find the right director. Eventually, Kim got the opportunity to direct his first feature film, The Quiet Family (1998), a horror/drama/comedy about a family who owns a mountain inn and whose guests continue to commit suicide. The film was his first collaboration with actors Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho. The film won Best Live Action film at the 1999 Fantasporto film festival, and Best Director and Best Film at the Malaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema. It was also nominated for Best Film at the 1998 Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival.

In 2000, Kim directed and wrote his second feature film, The Foul King (2000), which reunited him with Song Kang-ho. The film follows an unproductive and incompetent bank clerk (played by Song Kang-ho) who escapes his demanding, alpha-male boss by entering the pro-wrestling ring and fighting under a pseudonym, "The Foul King." The two worlds eventually end up colliding. Song Kang-ho mentioned that the film The Foul King (2000) is his personal favorite. The film won Best Director at the 2001 Milan International Film Festival and an Audience Award at the Udine Far East Film Festival.

In 2001, Kim directed and wrote a short film entitled Coming Out (2001). The film is about vampires, among other things, and Kim wrote and directed Coming Out as part of a project to distribute three digital short films online. It was also commissioned by venture group Media 4M, and the project also included shorts by Jang Jin and Ryu Seung-wan. Coming Out was shot with a Canon XL-1 camcorder during a time when digital filmmaking in South Korea was still in its infancy, and it went on to inspire many other digital productions. It was shown at the Fantasia Festival and the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in 2001, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 2005. Coming Out was also included as a special feature on the UK DVD release of The Quiet Family, and a review at DVDActive praised it as "delicate, cerebral and contemporary cinema at its most profound."