For a good decade and a half, from the mid-1980s till the end of the 1990s, Kang Soo-yeon was one of the most significant actors in Korean television and film. After that period, she made the odd cameo (With a Girl of Black Soil 2007, Sunny 2011), even tried her hand at crime-horror (The Circle 2003) or performed in limited roles in films such as the bombastic Hanbando (2006) or Im Kwon-taek’s valedictory Hanji (2010). The focus of our LKFF retrospective is, however, on her earlier work: from one early example of Kang’s television career in High School Diary (1983) to Park Jong-won’s neglected Rainbow Trout (1999) where she lends her star quality to a talented ensemble.

The sudden and unexpected death of Kang Soo-yeon this past May shocked entertainment professionals, ordinary Koreans, especially those who had grown up watching her performances, and film critics around the world. After all, since winning the ‘la Coppa Volpi’ at the 1987 Venice film festival for ‘la miglior interpretazione femminile’ (the first winner had been Katherine Hepburn in 1934) Kang in a sense belonged to world cinema. And it is in a globalised limbo of streaming services that her final film role still has yet to materialise. Release of the sci-fi dystopian thriller Jung_E (정이), with Kang as a brain-cloning scientist, still awaits the whims of Netflix schedulers.

It really does appear to be true that Kang was scouted right off the street, spotted as potential talent by an upcoming TV station before she had begun elementary school. From children’s TV programmes it wasn’t a big shift to taking small film roles as well. By 1976 she carries off a fairly substantial part as a post-war orphan in the film Blood Relations; in 1979 she is the central character in A Letter from Heaven, the sentimental tale of a girl learning to live with grief. Mi-gyeong writes to her dead father in heaven, the kind local postman writes replies in his guise. It is probably the first of Kang’s performances that older Koreans remember to this day: the sparkling eyes, the smile, the killer dimples, the sheer skill of the acting – it seems all there from the start. She was, by the way, all of thirteen-years old.

A first adult role came with Whale Hunting II (1985). When Lee Mi-sook, female star of Bae Chang-ho’s original 1984 hit Whale Hunting, declined the part for family commitments, Kang Soo-yeon took it. Although this follow-up feature wasn’t the success of the earlier film, Kang’s pickpocketing amnesiac Young-hee was an irresistible mix of cheekiness and vulnerability. Women actors of Lee Mi-sook’s slightly older generation would get used to seeing Kang taking on parts that once might have seemed destined for them. The year she made her international breakthrough with The Surrogate Woman (1986), Kang embodied Soon-na, another example of wounded cheekiness, in We Are Now Going to Geneva (1987). From cheerful teenager Kang was being transformed, it seemed, into a staple of melodrama, that good-girl-gone-bad who is still retrievable through love of a good man, or her mother.

Kang Soo-yeon, however, chose to work with directors who saw her potential for a much wider range of expression. For example, the 1980s was Im Kwon-taek’s finest decade.

Twice he called on Kang to realise extremely challenging roles, first as Ong-nyeo in The Surrogate Woman then only a few years later she became his Soon-nyeo, the tormented nun of Come, Come, Come Upward (1989). In the next decade, generally a tough one for Korean filmmakers, she worked with two of the most original artistic filmmakers in Korean cinema: Jang Sun-woo and Lee Myung-se. Her role in The Road to the Race Track (1991) as the cryptically named J calls upon her to be at once deliciously dishonest and elusively sexual in this parodic portrait of  intellectual life at century’s end. It is hard not to read the film as a bittersweet critique of that 3-8-6 generation who, born in the 1960s and having struggled for political change during their youth in the 1980s, were settling into a conformist, disillusioned thirty-something existence in the 1990s. Postmodern blues, Seoul style.

Park Jong-won made some of the best films of the 1990s, though he is largely unknown outside his country. The 1999 Rainbow Trout gives us a chance to see Kang working with a team of both veteran and upcoming actors. Future star Sul Kyung-gu plays her husband. New Year 2000 saw the release of Lee Chang-dong’s contemporary classic Peppermint Candy, starring Sul Kyung-gu: Sol was poised on the crest of the wave of Korean film’s surge into the new century.

One television episode and five films cannot present anything like a full portrait of Kang Soo-yeon’s career. From well over forty films, we have picked features which should make clear the fact that in a relatively brief period of intense artistic activity, Kang achieved more, created more than most actors could hope to realise in a career of many decades.

         Mark Morris

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Kang Soo-yeon, as Ho-jeong, sparks well off fellow actors, the elegant Jin Hee-kyong as Yeon and Kim Yeo-jin playing the low-key Soon; among this talented ensemble it was actually Kim who gained most critical praise. Kang’s Ho-jeong ends up involved in an adultery suit, a reminder that until the draconian criminal statutes concerning adultery were overturned in 2015, the law could be a nasty weapon in the hand of any well-off vindictive husband or wife.

Mark Morris

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The peak years of maverick director Jang Sun-woo’s career roughly coincided with those of Kang Soo-yeon, from the late 1980s till the end of the 1990s. Given Kang’s courage in taking on difficult roles, it is no surprise that they would meet up in this controversial film, one considered by some critics to be his best film and her best, most challenging role. Kang’s performance as the artfully dodging J swept the best actress domestic awards in 1992. 

Mark Morris

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Im Kwon-taek began the decade of the 1980s with Mandala, probably the finest film ever made about Buddhism as part of human society. At the end of the decade, he turned once again to Kang Soo-yeon, this time to embody the troubled character Soon-nyeo. The film leaves us room to speculate whether Soon-nyeo is one more melodramatic victim or rather a living bodhisattva with a spiritual mission to rescue damaged humanity, rather than just herself.

Mark Morris

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Im Kwon-taek had the confidence and wisdom to make Kang Soo-yeon his Ong-nyeo, The role was the most significant one of her career: it allowed her to shed the image of cheerful, sparky girl/teenager and become the most remarkable actor of the next decade and a half. While the film was not a success at first release, that changed dramatically when the Venice film festival awarded her Best Actress for 1987–the first international film star of Korea.

Mark Morris

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The clash between city and country, urban middle classes and hard-edged rural folk, may have roots in mythical archetypes, although John Boorman’s 1972 Deliverance made sure that the myth was relevant to contemporary cinema. In this ensemble, Sul Kyung-gu appears in his first main role as husband to Jeong-hwa (Kang Soo-yeon), while Lee Eun-ju – fated to have a tragically brief career – debuts as Se-hwa.

Mark Morris

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Beloved within Korea as a young actor, Kang became well known on the international stage with her breakout role in Im Kwon-taek’s The Surrogate Woman in 1987. Kang won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 44th Venice International Film Festival for her role, making her the first Korean actor to receive an award at a major international film festival.

Kang was the co-director of BIFF from 2015-2017.

Considered a national treasure, Kang passed away on 7th May 2022 of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 55.

5 key films from Kang’s illustrious career will screen in the LKFF 2022 programme. 

The 17th London Korean Film Festival 2022 will take place from 3 November – 17 November.

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ANNOUNCES 2022 DATES

OPENING FILM – ALIENOID

SPECIAL FOCUS DEDICATED TO KOREAN FILM LEGEND KANG SOO-YEON

UNVEILS NEW FESTIVAL ART

Full LKFF2022 programme details will be announced on 4 October including screenings, introductions, Q&As and more.

For any press requests please contact festival publicist Sanam Hasan: shasanpr@gmail.com 

The world’s longest running film festival dedicated to Korean cinema, the London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) returns with its 17th edition. LKFF will run from 3 November – 17 November 2022 in cinema venues across London. Tickets go on sale 4 October.

With the biggest programme dedicated to Korean cinema outside of the country itself, the festival is proud to return with an exciting programme of 35+ films across strands including Cinema Now, Special Focus, After Dark: K-Horror, Indie Talents, Women’s Voices, Documentary, Shorts and Artist Video.

Korean Sci-fi film, Choi Dong-hoon’s Alienoid opens the festival on 3rd November at the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA) with the director in attendance. A box office hit in Korea starring leading talent including Ryu Jun-yeol, Kim Woo-bin and Kim Tae-ri, the LKFF Opening is the film’s UK premiere.

The programme includes a Special Focus strand dedicated to internationally celebrated, acclaimed actress Kang Soo-yeon. Beloved within Korea as a young actor, Kang became well known on the international stage with her breakout role in Im Kwon-taek’s The Surrogate Woman in 1987. Kang won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 44th Venice International Film Festival for her role, making her the first Korean actor to receive an award at a major international film festival. Considered a national treasure, Kang passed away on 7th May 2022 of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 55.

Founder and former chairman of the Busan International Film Festival, Kim Dong-ho and Director of the Korean Film Archive, Kim Hong-joon will be participating in the Forum event dedicated to Kang and the Korea’s cinema landscape of her era. Kang was the co-director of BIFF from 2015-2017.

LKFF is proud to reveal this year’s LKFF artwork designed by Korean duo Hong Eunjoo and Kim Hyungjae.

Eunji Lee, Film Curator London Korean Film Festival:

“We are proud to be back exclusively in cinemas for this landmark 17th edition. The LKFF is celebrating this milestone with a unique programme of UK and European premieres of culturally important titles from Sci-fi spectacle as well as more low-key cinematic beauty. For the first time in two years, our festival will see a larger number of guests in attendance. This year we are pleased to welcome many prominent filmmakers and scholars from Korea, joining us for live introductions and Q&As. You can feel the joy of discovery with all the Korean films across the nine strands and accompanying special events.”

Screenings at last year’s festival were very well received by audiences, closely selling out at 8 cinema venues. This year’s festival returns to 10 cinemas within London and two regional venues: Cine Lumiere, Garden Cinema, Lux, Rio Cinema, V&A Museum, ICA, Genesis Cinema, Picturehouse Central, Regent Street Cinema and HOME Manchester and Glasgow Film Theatre.

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