Im kwon taek biography

Im Kwon-taek was.
Im Kwon-Taek (born May 2, 1936, Jansung, Cholla province, Korea) is a South Korean film director, dubbed “the father of Korean cinema”.
Im Kwon-taek is one of South Korea's most renowned film directors.

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Born in Changsong, Cheollanam-do, 2 May 1936. He grew up in the southern city Kwangju, where he completed senior high school. His family suffered considerable hardships and losses in the Korean War, so he had to move to Pusan in search of work: he was a labourer before trying to start a business recycling US Army boots into shoes. He moved to Seoul in 1956, where a film director Chung Chang-Hwa offered him work as a production assistant in exchange for room and board. Five years later Chung recommended him as a director, and he completed his first feature in 1962. He was a prolific director of films in various popular genres until the late 1970s but felt a deepening urge to make more serious films that first found in outlet in his 1978 film, Genealogy (1979) (Genealogy). Since 1981's Mandala (1981), he has been considered Korea's leading director. He and his films have won every possible prize in Korea's three annual film awards ceremonies, and a growing number of international festival prizes too. His film Sopyonje (1993) (is the most honoured Korean film ever ma

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Im Kwon-taek Retrospective

For the cinephile, the work of Im Kwon-taek (born in 1936) remains a paradox. The filmmaker’s aura places him among the foremost South Korean directors but, at the same time, he is one of the least known giants in the history of cinema. Out of his prolific filmography – which now counts one hundred and three feature films, including fifty made between 1962 and 1972 – how many have we seen? How many have been released in our country? He has not been the privilege or preserve of a small group of experts, as we would likely have noticed some French publications on his work, but these are sorely lacking. So far, only one study (by Lee Soojin) on the film Chunyang (Chunhyangdyeon, 2000) is available, along with a few articles in specialist journals. But recognition of Korea’s cinematographic brilliance was late in coming, growing gradually from the 1990s onwards, and Im Kwon-taek is no exception. Although some retrospectives had laid a few waymarks, as in Nantes in 1983 and 1989 (an early tribute to Im Kwon-taek) then at the Paris-based Korean Cu

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Interview

Korean Cinema’s
Living History

Im Kwon Taek

Director Im Kwon Taek is a living legend in the Korean film industry. He has been working consistently for 60 years and has produced 102 films. His fierce thoughts and passion to make an “Im Kwon Taek-like movie” and “films that only Koreans can make” have left a monumental mark in the history of Korean cinema.

Written by
Yu Pureum

Photographed by
Im Kwon Taek Film
Museum of Dongseo
University

Director Im Kwon Taek’s childhood was accompanied by turbulent times. He was born during the Japanese colonial period. When he was in the third grade of elementary school, Korea was liberated from Japan, but soon the Korean War broke out and an intense ideological battle began. It was an era when you spent your time wondering how to survive day-to-day.

The Path of Fate