Song Kang-ho

Song Kang-ho was born in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea on January 17, 1967. He had wanted to be an actor since eighth grade. He never professionally trained as an actor, beginning his career in social theater groups after graduating from Gimhae High School. He earned a degree in broadcasting from Busan Kyungsang College.

Song joined Kee Kuk-seo's theatre company, which emphasized instinctive acting and improvisation. He made his stage premiere in 1991 in a play called A Little Monk and spent the next decade as a stage actor. Although he was regularly approached to act in films, he always turned down the opportunity until taking a role as an extra in Hong Sang-soo's 1996 film The Day a Pig Fell into the Well at age 30.

Song married Hwang Jang-suk (황장숙) in 1995, with whom he has two children. Their son, Song Jun-pyoung, born in 1996, is a football player for Suwon Samsung Bluewings, despite Song's opposition. Their daughter is named Ju-yeon (주연).

The following year, after portraying one of the homeless in Jang Sun-woo's documentary-style Bad Movie, he gained cult notoriety for his performance in Song Neung-han's No. 3 as a gangster training a group of young recruits, winning his first acting award at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Following this, Song was cast in several supporting roles before his high-profile appearance as Han Suk-kyu's secret agent partner in Kang Je-gyu's blockbuster thriller Shiri. In early 2000, Song's popularity increased with his first leading role in the box office smash The Foul King, for which he did most of his own stunts.

It was his award-winning 2000 performance in Joint Security Area as a North Korean sergeant that established him as one of South Korea's leading actors. Song also starred in Park Chan-wook's acclaimed followup, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which centers on a father's pursuit of his daughter's kidnappers. In 2002, Song starred in another major production by Myung Films, YMCA Baseball Team, about Korea's first baseball team which formed in the early 20th century.

In 2003, he played a leading role as an incompetent rural detective in another critically acclaimed hit, Memories of Murder, from young director Bong Joon-ho. It was the first of several critically acclaimed movies they would make together, with commentators describing Bong's relationship with Song as a "great actor-director collaboration".

In 2004, Song starred in The President's Barber by debut director Im Chan-sang, which imagines the life of South Korean president Park Chung-hee's personal barber. The following year he also took the lead in Antarctic Journal, a big-budget project by debut director Yim Pil-sung about an expedition in Antarctica that performed weakly at the box office.

In 2006, Song was thrust back in the spotlight, however, with a leading role in Bong Joon-ho's record-breaking creature movie The Host. The film helped to broaden international awareness of Song's talent, and in March 2007 he was named Best Actor at the inaugural Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong.