Sung Dongil, born in 1967, Sung Dongil was first active as a stage actor starting in 1984 before moving to television through an open call audition held by public broadcaster SBS in 1991. It was only in 1998 that he was first noticed by viewers through his scene-stealing performance in the hit 1960s-set drama series <Eunshil> (1998-1999), playing “Red Socks”, a theater handyman with a strong Southwestern accent who is in unrequited love with a nurse. The audience re...More

Sung Dongil, born in 1967, Sung Dongil was first active as a stage actor starting in 1984 before moving to television through an open call audition held by public broadcaster SBS in 1991. It was only in 1998 that he was first noticed by viewers through his scene-stealing performance in the hit 1960s-set drama series <Eunshil> (1998-1999), playing “Red Socks”, a theater handyman with a strong Southwestern accent who is in unrequited love with a nurse. The audience response was such that what was initially planned as a bit role was eventually given by the showrunners the same importance and screen time as a supporting character, and he earned his first endorsement contracts.
Unfortunately, that early success proved a curse in disguise, as Sung would have trouble departing from that comedic role. He tried more serious roles in 1999, but viewers were missing the screen persona he was known for, and so he was dropped from these shows before the end. He would stick to comedy fare for the next decade, and in 2001 he made his film debut in <Running Seven Dogs>.
Sung landed his first big film role in the 2006’s <200 Pounds Beauty>, at the time the most successful Korean romantic comedy ever. Subsequently, he displayed his comic skills and easy charm in a number of commercial films such as <Once Upon a Time> (2008), <Take Off> (2009) and <Foxy Festival> (2010). 2011 proved to be a big year for Sung following his roles in <Children…>, <Suicide Forecast>, <The Client> and <S.I.U.>. The next year brought him another four projects in the form of <Miss Conspirator>, <Mr. Xxx-Kisser>, <The Grand Heist> and <Marrying the Mafia 5>, as he has become known as a reliable performer in the industry for both film and TV. His next big role came in the big-budget 3D baseball-playing gorilla family feature <Mr. Go>. Though it underperformed, Sung’s slimy sports agent was well-received by critics. He then did score a hit with his next film, the Lunar New Year family comedy <Miss Granny> (2013), and he was one of the only performers to star in the hit series <Reply 1997> (2012) and its two spin-offs, always playing the father of the respective main protagonist. He was one of the two leads in the buddy cop comedy <THE ACCIDENTAL DETECTIVE> (2015), which was a success and spurned a follow-up three years later. In the action comedy <Midnight Runners> (2017), he played a professor at the national police school who develops a fondness for the two student protagonists who decided to take action on their own to save victims of kidnapping, and in Kim Hongsun’s <The Case> (2017), he starred as a former cop who holds the key to a serial murder case that may or may not be connect to a 30-year old cold case. He was next seen in the comedy <LOVE+SLING> (2018) and the war epic <The Great Battle> (2018). He reunited with Kim and ventured into the horror thriller genre again by starring in <Metamorphosis> in 2019, followed by the feelgood drama <Pawn> in 2020. Kim cast him again for his latest, <Project Wolf Hunting> (2022).
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