Born in 1970, Min Kyudong graduated from the Korean Academy of Film Arts and completed a Master’s degree in film at University of Paris 8 before he was hired by an advertising agency in 1996. He made an impressive debut as a co-director of <Memento Mori> (1999) with Kim Taeyong. Min’s second film <All for Love> (2005), revealed where his interests lie. <All for Love>, which was produced by Soo Film, a production company Min established with his younger b...More

Born in 1970, Min Kyudong graduated from the Korean Academy of Film Arts and completed a Master’s degree in film at University of Paris 8 before he was hired by an advertising agency in 1996. He made an impressive debut as a co-director of <Memento Mori> (1999) with Kim Taeyong. Min’s second film <All for Love> (2005), revealed where his interests lie. <All for Love>, which was produced by Soo Film, a production company Min established with his younger brother Min Jinsoo, had much more commercial sensibility than his debut film. It shows many couples and their love stories, and this style of filmmaking, resembling the popular <Love Actually>, brought him commercial success. Min’s third film, <The Antique Bakery> (2008), which was based on a well-known Japanese manga, was another showcase of the director’s wide-ranging interests, by deftly mixing up various subject matters that are difficult to deal with in a movie, such as homosexuality, childhood trauma, and a patriarchal family system. His 2011 film <The Last Blossom>, which was based on an original piece by famous TV drama writer Noh Heekyung, introduced, just as in his previous works, several leading casts at once to unfold its storyline, but also proved that there is an audience for elderly-centered films. 2012 was a busy year for Min as he released the enormously popular romantic comedy <All About My Wife>, starring Lim Soojong, Lee Seongyoon and Ryoo Seungryong, and the short <Beginning> as part of the horror omnibus <Horror Stories>. With both of these projects he demonstrated his far-reaching versatility behind the camera. He also participated on the second instalment on the omnibus horror series before helming the erotic period drama-thriller <The Treacherous>, featuring Kim Gangwoo and the infamous Joseon Era King Yeonsan. 2016 saw him return for a third helping of <Horror Stories>. His next directing effort, the drama film <Herstory> (2017) told the real-life story of the Shimonoseki Trial, when victims of forced sex slavery and forced labor under the Japanese occupation went into a legal battle against the Japanese government in the 1990s to be recognized as such and receive compensation. In 2020, in collaboration with the Directors Guild of Korea and Korea-based VOD platform Waave, Min created and produced <SF8>, an 8-part anthology series, with each episode from a different director and based on a science-fiction novel from a young author. Min himself directed the first episode, <The Prayer>.Less