1. Ryoo Seung-wan is called Korea's 'action kid' for his unique action and rough life style, and he directed films such as Crying Fist and The Battleship Island.
20 Facts About Ryoo Seung-wan
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Ryoo Seung-wan was born in 1973 in Onyang, a small town in South Chungcheong Province.
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Ryoo Seung-wan became his family's sole breadwinner after he lost his parents while in middle school.
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Ryoo Seung-wan later dropped out of high school in 1992 and worked for six months to raise enough money to cover a year's worth of basic living expenses for his family.
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Ryoo Seung-wan's debut was initially planned as a full-fledged feature film, but various issues forced him to instead shoot separate short films sharing common characters and themes.
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From 1996 to 1999, Ryoo Seung-wan shot four low-budget short films starring himself, his younger brother Seung-bum, and several friends.
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One review described Ryoo Seung-wan Seung-bum's acting debut as "a startling, naturalistic turn," and he won Best New Actor at the Grand Bell Awards.
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Ryoo Seung-wan's follow-up Dachimawa Lee, titled after industry slang, the short Dachimawa Lee was a wild and hilarious a 35-minute short film parodying films he grew up with: Korean action films of the 60s and 70s, Bruce Lee and Shaw Brothers flicks, the machismo kitsch Korean melodramas, and of course Jackie Chan.
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Misunderstood as a Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino clone, Ryoo Seung-wan's film was an exhilarating mix of all the elements that made Die Bad one of the best debuts films in Chungmuro's recent history, but it added a nasty streak of ultra-realism.
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The latter was contributed by Jung Doo-hong, occasionally an actor, but better known as the best action choreographer in the country, whose extreme realism balanced Ryoo Seung-wan's more fantasy-oriented cinematic sensibilities.
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Steadily impressing critics and audiences since his debut in 2000, Ryoo Seung-wan displayed amazing energy and range in the film, such that he often overshadowed his older, more prestigious colleague.
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In 2009 Ryoo Seung-wan directed four mini-movies for the Korea Tourism Organization targeted at the Chinese market.
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Ryoo Seung-wan's next movie The Berlin File was an espionage thriller about a North Korean spy who is betrayed and cut loose when a weapons deal is exposed.
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In 2015, Ryoo Seung-wan wrote and directed Veteran, an action film about an amoral and powerful third-generation business tycoon doggedly pursued by a detective investigating the mysterious injuries of a truck driver.
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In 2021, Ryoo Seung-wan directed Escape from Mogadishu, a film based on real events of the Somali Civil War in the 1990s.
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Ryoo Seung-wan is called Korea's 'action kid' for his unique action and rough life style.
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Ryoo Seung-wan has edited films Arahan, The City of Violence, and Crying Fist.
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Ryoo Seung-wan met Kang Hye-jung in the Independent Film Council workshop.
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Ryoo Seung-wan was working as a workshop assistant, and they started dating after collaborating on a movie project.
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In 1997, Ryoo Seung-wan married Kang Hye-jung after 4 years of dating.