Kang Soo-yeon

Background

She was born in Seoul, South of Korea and was one of the best known and internationally acclaimed stars from South of Korea from the mid-eighties to the end of the nineties.

Career

Kang made her acting debut as a child actor in the 1970s. This was the first time a Korean actor has been given the award at the major film festival and at the time people did not even know that South of Korea has a film industry. In the film, Kang played the role of Sun Nyog, a young student who sought refuge in the monastery to escape from her troubled home and study to become a nun, and later fell in love with the person who tried to take away her modesty.

Kang actually got her head shaved on-screen in the scene when Sun Nyog became a nun.

In the same year, she was invited to serve as a juror in the Tokyo International Film Festival. By the end of the 90s, she had acted in 32 movies and after her movie Rainbow Trout was released in 1999 winning her the Baeksang Arts for Best Actress, she cut down her work in movies and took to acting in television drama.

Kang was invited to be a juror in the 5th Pusan International Film Festival in the year 2000. In 2001, Kang starred in the popular 150 episodes television Drama aired on Business School television titled Ladies of the Palace (Yeo-in Cheon-ha).

The television drama managed to garner her new visibility among mainstream audiences.

After a brief hiatus from the movie scene, she make her comeback in the movie The Circle playing the role of an attorney. Kang has since then appeared in another movie titled Hanbando in 2006. In 2007, she make another foray into mainstream television after a gap of six years by acting in the MBC television Drama by the name of Moonhee. and become chairman of Busan Film festival.

Achievements

• She acted in a number of low profile movies before making a breakthrough performance in the Im Kwon-taek directed 1986 movie, The Surrogate Woman for which she was honored with the Volpi Cup Best Actress award at the 1987 Venice International Film Festival and Best Actress Award at the Nantes International Film Festival. In the 1990s, Kang appeared in a number of movies, the best known of which are Jang Sun-woo"s acclaimed Road to the Racetrack which won her the Chunsa Film Art and Blue Dragon Film for Best Actress, the box office hit movie titled That Woman, That Manitoba by Kim Ui-seok, Lee Myung-se"s film about adultery titled Their Last Love Affair and Im Sang-soo"s debut film Girls Night Out. Her performance in the television Drama as Jung Nan-jung enabled her to win the Performance Award awarded by Business School television

Membership

In 1991 she was a member of the jury at the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.