LEE Hwa-si, born in 1951, is one of the most unfairly overlooked actresses of the 1970s, fortunately rehabilitated in the 90s with the rediscovery of legendary director KIM Ki-young who introduced her to the film industry. A student of literature, she first met the filmmaker in her early twenties through an acquaintance, but it wasn’t until a while after that he invited her to a screen test. He didn’t even wait to review the film to give her a contract, though, and then s...More

LEE Hwa-si, born in 1951, is one of the most unfairly overlooked actresses of the 1970s, fortunately rehabilitated in the 90s with the rediscovery of legendary director KIM Ki-young who introduced her to the film industry. A student of literature, she first met the filmmaker in her early twenties through an acquaintance, but it wasn’t until a while after that he invited her to a screen test. He didn’t even wait to review the film to give her a contract, though, and then spent the next few months coaching her for her first role in <Transgression> (1974), where she played a Buddhist nun consumed by her lust for a man. After starring in KIM’s <Love Of Blood Relations> (1976), the director cast her in the most memorable role of her short career, that of a bar hostess living on an island devoid of men who ends up having intercourse with a dead body. The commercial failure of the film hit her very hard, but the few people who did watch it at the time of the release didn’t fail to notice LEE’s performance, which conveyed a strangeness fitting the peculiar atmosphere of the movie. Her first scene, in which she peeks over a newspapers looking at the protagonist with a particularly intense gaze, remains today one of the most striking images in KIM’s filmography. Her collaboration with KIM continued with a lead role in <Earth> (1978), playing a woman who grows through adulterous relationships, as well as in <Woman of Water> (1979), <Neu-mi> (1979) and <Ban Geum-ryun> (1981), without mentioning a short appearance in one of KIM’s most eccentric works, <A Woman After a Killer Butterfly> (1978). This kind of risqué roles ended up drawing the attention of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, which took issue with her “decadent image”, and filmmakers were advised against casting her again. Even though most of them brushed off the threat and were still willing to work with her, the repeated commercial failures and the bleak state of the Korean film industry of that period eventually convinced her to put an end to her career and leave Korea for Canada. She didn’t reappear until KIM Ki-young’s filmography gained wider recognition in the late 1990s and she was invited to various film events across the world dedicated to the filmmaker. Now regarded as an actor who could have had a successful career had she debuted at a different time, she was contacted one day by director Gina KIM to give her a cameo in her Korean-American romantic film <Never Forever> (2006). After giving it much thought, she eventually agreed and thus made a comeback to the big screen after 25 years. She has since appeared in a few Korean movies in extra or supporting parts, among which <Rough Play> (2013) and <The Avian Kind> (2014).Less