South Korean actor
Song Kang-ho (born January 17, 1967) is a South Korean actor. Song made his film debut in The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996), and came to national prominence with a series of critically acclaimed performances, including No. 3 (1997), Joint Security Area (2000), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), and A Taxi Driver (2017). Song rose to international prominence for his performances in Snowpiercer (2013) and Parasite (2019),[1] the latter of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Picture.[2] He was awarded Best Actor at the 75th Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Broker.
In 2020, The New York Times ranked him #6 on its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century.[3] He has been named Gallup Korea's Film Actor of the Year four times (2013, 2017, 2019 and 2020).[4][5][6][7]
Early life
Song Kang-ho was born in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea in 1967. He had dream of becoming an actor since in his second year of middle school. After graduating from Gimhae High School, he went on to study at the Department of Broadcasting and Entertainment at Gyeongsang National University in Busan.[8][9]
Career
Early career
In 1990, when Song was 23 years old, he saw the theater company 'Yeonwoo' Stage's "Mr. Choi" in Busan and moved to Seoul to realize his dream. Song asked Ryu Tae-ho, who was the director of Yeonwoo Stage Theater, to at least let him be a cleaner. He made his stage premiere in 1991 in a play called "Dongseung," or A Little Monk and spent the next decade in stage and became famous as a talented actor.[10]
In 1995 Song joined Theater Company Chaimu, founded by theater director Lee Sang-woo, as founding member.[11]
Although he was regularly approached to act in films, he always turned down the opportunity until taking a role as an extra in Hong Sang-soo's 1996 film The Day a Pig Fell into the Well[12] at age 30.[13] and drew attention for playing the gangster's "Pan-soo" in Lee Chang-dong's "Green Fish" in 1997. The following year, after portraying one of the homeless in Jang Sun-woo's documentary-style Bad Movie,[14]
Song played the role of "Jopil," a stuttering gangster, and gained cult notoriety for his performance in Song Neung-han's No. 3 as a gangster training a group of young recruits, winning his first acting award at the Blue Dragon Film Awards.[10][15] Following this, Song was cast in several supporting roles before his high-profile appearance as Han Suk-kyu's secret agent partner in Kang Je-gyu's blockbuster thriller Shiri.[12] In early 2000, Song's popularity increased with his first leading role in the box office smash The Foul King, for which he did most of his own stunts.[citation needed]
It was his award-winning 2000 performance in Joint Security Area as a North Korean sergeant that established him as one of South Korea's leading actors. Song also starred in Park Chan-wook's acclaimed followup, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which centers on a father's pursuit of his daughter's kidnappers.[16] In 2002, Song starred in another major production by Myung Films, YMCA Baseball Team, about Korea's first baseball team which formed in the early 20th century.[17]
Prominence
In 2003, he played a leading role as an incompetent rural detective in another critically acclaimed hit, Memories of Murder, from young director Bong Joon-ho.[18] It was the first of several critically acclaimed movies they would make together, with commentators describing Bong's relationship with Song as a "great actor-director collaboration".[2]
In 2004, Song starred in The President's Barber by debut director Im Chan-sang, which imagines the life of South Korean president Park Chung-hee's personal barber.[12] The following year he also took the lead in Antarctic Journal, a big-budget project by debut director Yim Pil-sung about an expedition in Antarctica that performed weakly at the box office.[19]
In 2006, Song was thrust back in the spotlight, however, with a leading role in Bong Joon-ho's record-breaking creature movie The Host. The film helped to broaden international awareness of Song's talent, and in March 2007 he was named Best Actor at the inaugural Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong.[20]
More high-profile projects followed: The Show Must Go On about an aging gangster,[21][22][23] Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine,[24] Kim Jee-woon's western set in Manchuria The Good, the Bad, the Weird,[25][26] Park Chan-wook's vampire film Thirst in which he notably appeared full frontally nude,[27][28] the North–South spy thriller Secret Reunion,[29][30][31][32] the gangster love story Hindsight,[33][34][35][36] the suspense film Howling,[37][38] the English-language dystopian blockbuster Snowpiercer,[39] the period drama The Face Reader,[40][41] and The Attorney which was inspired by Roh Moo-hyun's early days as a human rights lawyer.[42][43][44]
Song has continued to star in a number of critically acclaimed films, including The Throne, a period film that presents a new spin on the relationship between King Yeongjo and Prince Sado;[45][46] period action film The Age of Shadows,[47][48] and A Taxi Driver, a film that depicts the 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement.[49][50]
More recently, he had a starring role in the critically acclaimed film Parasite, also directed by his frequent collaborator Bong Joon-ho, which became the first South Korean film to win the Palme d'Or, as well as the first to be nominated for and win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In 2021, he was selected as one of the nine judges in the competition section of the 74th Cannes Film Festival to be held from July 6 to July 17.[51] The following year, he was awarded Best Actor at the 75th Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Broker.[52]
Personal life
Song married Hwang Jang-suk in 1995,[53] with whom he has two children. Their son, Song Jun-pyoung, born in 1996, is a former football player for Suwon Samsung Bluewings, despite Song's opposition.[54]
In 2005, Song was found by the police to be drunk driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.095%. His license was suspended for 100 days.[55]
Philanthropy
On March 6, 2022, Song donated 100 million won to the Hope Bridge Disaster Relief Association to help the damage from the massive wildfire that started in Uljin, Gyeongbuk and spread to Samcheok, Gangwon.[56]
On July 22, 2022, Song donated 200 million won each at the start of the March 2020 corona crisis and another 100 million won when the east coast bushfires broke out in March, and joined the 'Honors Club', a large donor group.[57]
