Choi Min-sik (Hangul: ìµœë¯¼ì‹ Korean pronunciation: [tÉ•Ê°we minÉ•Ê°ik]; born April 27, 1962) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his critically acclaimed roles in Oldboy (2003) and The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014). He also starred alongside Scarlett Johansson in the 2014 French film, Lucy.
Together with Song Kang-ho and Sol Kyung-gu, Choi is considered both domestically and on the global scene as among the very top echelon of South Korean actors in terms of presence and talent.
Early life and education
Choi was born on April 27, 1962 in Seoul, South Korea. When he was in third grade, Choi was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told by his doctor that there was nothing that could be done for him. Refusing to give up, he has eventually restored his health through an extended stay in the mountains.
Career
Graduating with a degree in theatre from Dongguk University, Choi first made a name for himself on the stage before breaking into the film world with roles in Park Jong-won's early films Kuro Arirang and the acclaimed Our Twisted Hero. In the mid-nineties he continued to act in theater productions as well as in several TV dramas, including The Moon of Seoul with Han Suk-kyu.
1997 marked his return to motion pictures, with a role as a tough-talking police investigator in Song Neung-han's No. 3. After a turn in Kim Ji-woon's debut film The Quiet Family, Choi's breakthrough would come in 1999, when he was cast in the record-breaking Shiri. His portrayal of a North Korean agent garnered him much praise and a Best Actor award from the 1999 domestic Grand Bell Awards. After starring in a theater production of Hamlet in the spring of 1999, Choi took on his first lead role as a husband who discovers his wife's infidelity in Happy End, and in early 2001 starred as a third-rate gangster opposite Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung in the cult melodrama Failan.
In 2002, Choi took on his most high-profile role yet in Im Kwon-taek's Chihwaseon ("Strokes of fire"), where he played the famous nineteenth-century Korean painter Jang Seung-up. The film won a Best Director prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Two years later, Choi would be back at Cannes with Oldboy, Park Chan-wook's Grand Prix-winning story of a man locked up for 15 years without knowing the reason why. Choi's impassioned and cool acting in Oldboy caused his popularity in South Korea to soar, and made his name known to many overseas viewers.
He continued displaying his versatility in 2004 and 2005, playing a trumpet player who agrees to teach a school music class in Springtime, a down-and-out former boxer who struggles to put his life back together in Ryoo Seung-wan's Crying Fist, and a child murderer in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the last film in Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy.
In 2005 he and Song Kang-ho were accused by director and Cinema Service head Kang Woo-suk of upping guarantees for high-profile actors, though Kang later rescinded the statement and apologized.
At various points during 2006, Choi (and other South Korean film industry professionals, together and separately from Choi) demonstrated in Seoul and at the Cannes Film Festival against the South Korean administration's decision to reduce the Screen Quotas from 146 to 73 days as part of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. As a sign of protest, Choi returned the prestigious Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit which had been awarded to him, saying, "To halve the screen quota is tantamount to a death sentence for Korean film. This medal, once a symbol of pride, is now nothing more than a sign of disgrace, and it is with a heavy heart that I must return it."
In the next four years, Choi went on a self-imposed exile from making films, begun in protest over the screen quota but also partly due to the studios' reluctance to hire the outspoken and politically active actor. Instead he returned to his theater roots in the 2007 staging of The Pillowman, his first play in seven years.
During the retrospective on Choi held at the 14th Lyon Asian Film Festival in November 2008, the actor was asked his reaction to the upcoming remake of Oldboy, and he admitted to the French reporters present that he was upset at Hollywood for using what he described as low-style pressure tactics on Asian and European filmmakers so they could remake foreign movies in the United States.
Feeling a renewed passion for acting, Choi made his comeback in Jeon Soo-il's 2009 art film Himalaya, Where the Wind Dwells, in which he was the only South Korean actor working with locally cast Tibetan actors.
Though Kim Ji-woon's 2010 thriller I Saw the Devil drew criticism from some quarters for its ultra-violent content, reviewers agreed that Choi's performance as a serial killer was memorable.
He did voice acting for Leafie, A Hen into the Wild, which in 2011 became the highest grossing South Korean animated film in history. In his 2012 follow-up Nameless Gangster, Choi essayed another complex, layered antihero, and the Yoon Jong-bin film was both a critical and box office hit.
Choi's next film was Park Hoon-jung's New World, a 2013 noir about an undercover cop in the world of gangsters, which also became successful critically and commercially.
For his English-language debut, Choi appeared in Luc Besson's Lucy (2014), in the role of a gangster who kidnaps a girl and forces her to become a drug mule (Scarlett Johansson), but she inadvertently acquires superhuman powers.
He then played Yi Sun-sin in the blockbuster period epic The Admiral: Roaring Currents about the Battle of Myeongnyang, regarded as one of the admiral's most remarkable naval victories. Roaring Currents became the all-time most watched film in South Korean film history, the first ever to reach 15 million admissions and the first local film to gross more than US$100 million.
Filmography
- Kuro Arirang (1989)
- That Which Falls Has Wings (1990)
- Our Twisted Hero (1992)
- May Our Love Stay This Way (1992)
- Sara is Guilty (1993)
- Mom, the Star, and the Sea Anemone (1995)
- No. 3 (1997)
- The Quiet Family (1998)
- Shiri (1999)
- Happy End (1999)
- Failan (2001)
- Chi-hwa-seon (2002)
- Oldboy (2003)
- Taegukgi (2004) - cameo appearance
- Springtime (2004)
- Crying Fist (2005)
- Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005)
- Himalaya, Where the Wind Dwells (2009)
- I Saw the Devil (2010)
- Leafie, A Hen into the Wild (2011)
- Nameless Gangster (2012)
- New World (2013)
- In My End Is My Beginning (2013) - cameo appearance
- Lucy (2014)
- The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014)
- The Great Tiger (2015)
Television
- Love and Separation (MBC, 1997)
- Miss and Mister (SBS, 1997)
- Dad Is the Boss (SBS, 1996)
- Their Embrace (MBC, 1996)
- The Fourth Republic (MBC, 1995)
- Till We Meet Again (SBS, 1995)
- The Last Lover (MBC, 1994)
- The Moon of Seoul (MBC, 1994)
- Ilwol (KBS, 1993)
- The Burning River (MBC, 1993)
- Sons and Daughters (MBC, 1992)
- The Beloved (KBS1, 1992)
- Years of Ambition (KBS2, 1990)
Theater
- The Pillowman (2007)
- Leave When They're Applauding (2000)
- Hamlet (1999)
- Taxi Driver (1997)
- Equus (1990)
Awards
- 2015 KOFRA Film Awards: Best Actor (The Admiral: Roaring Currents)
- 2014 Grand Bell Awards: Best Actor (The Admiral: Roaring Currents)
- 2014 Korean Association of Film Critics Awards: Best Actor (The Admiral: Roaring Currents)
- 2014 Asia Star Awards: Actor of the Year (The Admiral: Roaring Currents)
- 2013 KOFRA Film Awards: Best Actor (Nameless Gangster)
- 2012 Blue Dragon Film Awards: Best Actor (Nameless Gangster)
- 2012 Asia Pacific Screen Awards: Best Actor (Nameless Gangster)
- 2012 Buil Film Awards: Best Actor (Nameless Gangster)
- 2010 Director's Cut Awards: Best Actor (I Saw the Devil)
- 2005 Fantasia Festival: Best Actor (Crying Fist)
- 2005 The Village Voice Annual Film Critics Poll: Best Performance, Rank #40 (Oldboy)
- 2004 Director's Cut Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Asia Pacific Film Festival: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Max Movie Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Korean Film Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Chunsa Film Art Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Grand Bell Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2004 Baeksang Arts Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2003 Golden Cinematography Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2003 Korean Association of Film Critics Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2003 Blue Dragon Film Awards: Best Actor (Oldboy)
- 2001 Director's Cut Awards: Best Actor (Failan)
- 2001 Korean Association of Film Critics Awards: Best Actor (Failan)
- 2001 Blue Dragon Film Awards: Best Actor (Failan)
- 2001 Busan Film Critics Awards: Best Actor (Failan)
- 2001 Deauville Asian Film Festival: Best Actor (Failan)
- 2000 Asia Pacific Film Festival: Best Actor (Happy End)
- 1999 Director's Cut Awards: Best Actor (Shiri, Happy End)
- 1999 Grand Bell Awards: Best Actor (Shiri)
- 1999 Baeksang Arts Awards: Best Actor (Shiri)
- 1998 Golden Cinematography Awards: Most Popular Actor
- 1997 Seoul Theater Festival: Best Actor (Taxi Driver)
- 1992 Asia Pacific Film Festival: Best Supporting Actor (Our Twisted Hero)
- 1990 KBS Drama Awards: Best New Actor (Years of Ambition)
References
External links
- Choi Min-sik at C-JeS Entertainment
- Choi Min-sik at HanCinema
- Choi Min-sik at the Korean Movie Database
- Choi Min-sik at the Internet Movie Database
- Choi Min-sik at Korea Tourism Organization
- Choi Min-sik Fan Club at Daum