Lee Chang-dong

Lee Chang-dong is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and novelist whose films examine memory, social exclusion, grief, and moral uncertainty.

Peppermint Candy: A 1999 South Korean film that follows a man’s life backward from despair to the political violence of his youth. Its reverse chronology links one man’s collapse to South Korea’s recent history.
Reverse chronology: A narrative structure that presents events in reverse order, moving from later consequences toward earlier causes. Peppermint Candy uses this structure to reveal how personal trauma accumulates across decades.
The Green Fish: A 1997 South Korean crime drama about a returning soldier drawn into a gangster’s world. This feature marked his directorial debut and introduced his concern with social dislocation.
Song Kang-ho: A South Korean actor known for leading roles in films including Memories of Murder and Parasite. He played the protagonist in Lee’s debut feature The Green Fish.
Cannes Film Festival: An annual international film festival held in Cannes, France, that awards the Palme d’Or. Secret Sunshine earned Jeon Do-yeon the festival’s Best Actress award, and Burning competed for the Palme d’Or.
Oasis: A 2002 South Korean film about a socially marginalized man and a woman with cerebral palsy who form a relationship. Its romance challenges conventional portrayals of disability and social belonging.
Long take: A film shot that continues for an unusually long time without an edit. Extended shots in his films let emotional discomfort unfold without editorial interruption.
South Korean New Wave: A broad movement in South Korean cinema that emerged around the late 1980s and transformed filmmaking in the following decades. His early films belong to the generation that reshaped South Korean cinema after political liberalization.
Jeon Do-yeon: A South Korean actor acclaimed for roles in films including Secret Sunshine and The Housemaid. Her performance as Shin-ae in Secret Sunshine received the Best Actress award at Cannes.
Academy Award for Best International Feature Film: An annual Academy Award recognizing a feature-length film produced outside the United States with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. Burning became the first Korean film shortlisted for this award, bringing Lee’s cinema wider attention.

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Yoon Jeong-heeRelated: He directed the film that brought Yoon back to the screen after a long absence.