Jung Woo-sung

Jung Woo-sung made his film debut with a leading role in 1994's The Fox with Nine Tails, one of the first Korean fantasy movies and the first to use computer-generated imagery. He debuted together with the actress Ko So-young, who later co-starred with him twice including his breakthrough 1997 film Beat.[5] Directed by Kim Sung-su, Beat is a story of a high school student caught up in gang life against his will. The movie brought Jung widespread fame and started his rise to Korea's A-list actor and one of the most sought-after commercial models.

Jung Woo-sung at BIFF in 2013

In 1999 he starred in another iconic movie of the director Kim Sung-su, City of the Rising Sun, portraying friendship that develops between an unsuccessful boxer and an equally unlucky swindler. His co-lead in the movie, actor Lee Jung-jae, became his lifelong friend.

In the following years Jung played a naval lieutenant in Phantom: The Submarine, and a marathoner in Love.[5]

2001's Musa marks his third collaboration with director Kim Sung-su. In the epic blockbuster Jung played opposite Chinese superstar Zhang Ziyi and received wide exposure abroad as well as in Korea. After spending time in 2002 directing a series of music videos[6] and appearing in a large number of commercials, Jung took on the eccentric lead role in Mutt Boy, the fifth film by director Kwak Kyung-taek.[5]

Jung's next roles would be in highly romantic roles that played off his established screen image. In the box office hit A Moment to Remember he played an architect whose wife (played by Son Ye-jin) is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and in the Netherlands-set Daisy, he played a hired assassin who falls in love with a street artist played by Jun Ji-hyun.[5] He portrayed a happily committed fireman in Sad Movie,[7] and played a demon hunter seeking for lost love in The Restless.[8][9]

Kim Jee-woon's "kimchi western" The Good, the Bad, the Weird inspired by Sergio Leone's work, would become one of Jung's most iconic roles, using his physicality to great effect as the Clint Eastwood counterpart in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.[10] The film was screened out of competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival which also marked its world premiere. Jung attended the festival together with his co-stars. He won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 3rd Asian Film Awards and the Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award at the 2008 Hawaii International Film Festival for his performance. Shortly after Jung would work again with Kim Jee-woon on a short film for W Korea.[11]

Jung Woo-sung on set in 2008

Jung then starred alongside Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan in Hur Jin-ho's romance film A Season of Good Rain,[12][13][14] and Su Chao-pin's martial arts film Reign of Assassins with Michelle Yeoh.[15]

In 2011, it was announced that Jung was cast in the English-language 3D remake of John Woo's The Killer.[16] The film was to be shot in Los Angeles, and reunite him with A Moment to Remember director John H. Lee and Reign of Assassins director John Woo acting also as producer.[17] The project has been put on hold while John Woo works on another film.[18]

Jung drew praise in his first villain role in Cold Eyes, an action thriller that became a box office hit in 2013.[19][20][21][22] He portrayed the ruthless head of a criminal organization specializing in bank robbery, eluding the detectives chasing him with uncanny dexterity.[23] Jung next played a baduk player seeking revenge in The Divine Move,[24][25][26] followed by an adulterous university professor gradually losing his eyesight in Scarlet Innocence.[27][28] Scarlet Innocence had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, meeting with positive reviews from critics.[29] He then took a leading role in the melodrama indie feature Don't Forget Me, also known as Remember You, a remake of the 2010 short film Remember O Goddess, both directed by Lee Yoon-jung. Jung had also co-produced this movie, explaining that he wanted to protect the director's original ideas that other producers wanted to modify.[30]

In 2016, he starred in the noir crime thriller Asura: The City of Madness,[31] his fourth collaboration with director Kim Sung-su. Jung played a crooked detective who attempts to save his terminally ill wife while arresting a corrupt town mayor.[32] Asura premiered globally at the 41st Toronto Film Festival in September, 2016, where it was shown in the Special Presentations section.[33] The actor's second movie shot in 2016 and released in 2017 was Han Jae-rim's political drama The King, whose plot revolves around a senior prosecutor being manipulated by an overambitious younger colleague connected to the mafia.[34][35]

In 2017, Jung stars in Steel Rain, playing a former agent from North Korea's intelligence bureau.[36] In 2018 he played an officer of the elite police unit in the science fiction action thriller Illang: The Wolf Brigade. The film, based on the Japanese anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, was his second collaboration with director Kim Jee-woon.[37][38]

In 2019, he is set to star in drama film Innocent Witness as a lawyer.[39][40] His performance earned him the Grand Prize in film at the Baeksang Arts Awards.[41] The same year he starred in the thriller Beasts that Cling to the Straw.[42]

Jung is set to star in the sequel of Steel Rain, titled Summit: Steel Rain.[43] Jung is set to produce upcoming Netflix series The Silent Sea.[44]

In 1995 Jung appeared in his first major television role in SBS drama series Asphalt Man, playing an aspiring race driver who leaves to United States to realize his dream. The part not only expanded his popularity but also brought him critical acclaim with Best New Actor award at 32nd Baeksang Arts Awards and SBS Drama Awards.

In 2010 Jung returned to the small screen after 15 years' absence in the big-budget spy series Athena: Goddess of War, playing an NTS (National Anti-Terror Service) agent. Athena was a spin-off to the 2009 highly successful KBS2 drama IRIS.[45] With a budget of ₩20 billion (US$17 million), the series was shot on location in Italy, New Zealand, Japan and the United States.[46] The aired in SBS channel, and its pilot episodes gathered 22.8% of the audience share.[47] Jung and another actor were injured during filming in January 2011, causing a week's postponement of one of Athena's episodes. The series was also edited into a two-hour movie version, and released in 2011 as Athena: The Movie.

He made his Japanese drama debut with a guest appearance in episodes 6 and 7 of Good Life ~Arigatou, Papa. Sayonara~.[48]

Jung followed that with another TV series Padam Padam which marked the establishment of new cable broadcasting station jTBC. Jung said he "decided on this drama because (he) was drawn to the way Noh Hee-kyung writes 'family drama.' Whether mother-son or father-son, the love and pain experienced by families is something (he)'d like to try portraying in a realistic way."[49] He played a man who has recently been released from jail after serving a 16-year sentence for a crime he didn't commit.[50][51] The series premiered on December 5, 2011.

In 2000 Jung had started to try his hand at directing. His first works were music videos for one of the top South Korean pop music group G.o.d.. In 2012, he directed and starred in the promotional commercial for cable channel XTM.[52][53] And a year later, Jung was among four celebrities who directed a short film using smartphone Samsung Galaxy S4 with the theme "Meet a Life Companion." His short Love explored the feelings of first love, and recorded 1.8 million views on YouTube.[54] He then directed another short film for Samsung Galaxy S4, this time for the project "Story of Me and S4." In Jung's short Beginning of a Dream, Choi Jin-hyuk starred as an ordinary office worker who dreams of leaving his mundane existence and entering a world of fantasy; he is approached by a blue fish, rides a sports car at supersonic speed, sees a boy floating past holding a balloon, hangs out with a hippie band in their van, and meets himself as a young boy at a bus stop.[55][56]

In 2014, Jung along with Chinese actors Francis Ng and Chang Chen, directed three short films for Three Charmed Lives, an omnibus commissioned by the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Critics praised Jung's short The Killer Behind the Old Man as the strongest and most stylish entry. In it, a son hires an ultra-methodical hitman (played by Andy Choi) to assassinate his own father, but the killer however finds himself transfixed by the man's slow-moving and ordered life, and thus hesitates to carry through with his mission.[57][58] Jung was invited to present The Killer Behind the Old Man at the 9th London Korean Film Festival in November 2014.[59]