Jee-woon Kim

Jee-woon Kim

Kim Ji-woon was born in Seoul, South Korea. He began his career as an actor before becoming a stage director with productions such as "Hot Sea" in 1994 and "Movie, Movie" in 1995. He then began scripting for films, his first work, 97's "Wonderful Seasons" won Best Screenplay award at Korea's Premier Scenario contest, whilst his follow up Choyonghan kajok (1998) became not only his directorial debut, but also the source material for Takashi Miike's remake Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (2001) in 2001. With an official selection at the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Film award at the Fantasport Film Festival for "A Quiet Family", his next film, 2000's Banchikwang (2000), was an instant domestic hit, maintaining the #1 spot for over 6 months, with over 2 million admissions, it was also a worldwide festival crowd-pleaser. The short Coming Out (2000) and his contribution to Sam gang (2002) (alongside segments from Peter Ho-Sun Chan and Nonzee Nimibutr) followed and then he made the 2003 horror Janghwa, Hongryeon (2003). He is a fan of film-noir and claims that many of his films contain elements of noir, often mixed with black comedy. His movie Dalkomhan insaeng (2005) his full on film-noir gangster thriller masterwork.
Jee-woon Kim

Movies

Cobweb
Described as an experimental and genre-defying drama shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative.
I Saw the Devil
Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance Soo-hyun, a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.