One of the most important Korean directors of the 1970s and 80s, LEE Jang-ho got his start working for Shin Film, as an assistant director on the films of SHIN Sang-ok. He instantly became a famed director when he helmed his debut, the smash success <Heavenly Homecoming To Stars>, in 1974. Following that, he set up the outfit Visual Age with fellow directors HA Kil-jong and KIM Ho-seon. Seeking to portray the chasm between the rich and poor and the inherent hypocrisy of...More

One of the most important Korean directors of the 1970s and 80s, LEE Jang-ho got his start working for Shin Film, as an assistant director on the films of SHIN Sang-ok. He instantly became a famed director when he helmed his debut, the smash success <Heavenly Homecoming To Stars>, in 1974. Following that, he set up the outfit Visual Age with fellow directors HA Kil-jong and KIM Ho-seon. Seeking to portray the chasm between the rich and poor and the inherent hypocrisy of contemporary Korean society, LEE strove to make socially relevant cinema with highly experimental works, particularly in the 1980s with blistering films such as <Good, Windy Day> (1980), <Declaration of Idiot> (1983) and <The Man with Three Coffins> (1987). However, he kept his commercial edge, scoring hits with films such as the erotic, and equally socially relevant, drama <Between the Knees> (1984) and the period piece <Eoh Wu-dong> (1985). Though he continued to direct, his pace slowed in the 1990s and through to the millennium as he focused on his career as a film professor and later as the director of the Seoul Film Commission. His most recent work, the religion-theme <God’s Eye View>, screened at the Busan International Film Festival in 2013. Less