Jang Hang-jun

Jang Hang-jun (장항준; born September 17, 1969, Daegu, South Korea) has spent more than two decades building one of Korean cinema's most distinctive filmographies across genre and register. He graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts, and currently serves as a professor in the Department of Theater and Film at Digital Seoul Culture Arts University alongside his directing career. His path to filmmaking was shaped partly by crisis: growing up in relative privilege before his father's construction business collapsed during high school, a reversal that redirected him toward theater. His debut feature Break Out (2002) established early genre instincts. Sign (2011), a medical crime drama he co-wrote and directed for television, demonstrated range across screens. Forgotten (2017) became a benchmark for Korean psychological thriller, drawing sustained international attention as a Netflix sleeper hit that continued accumulating viewers years after release. Rebound (2023) was a tonal pivot toward sports drama, earning strong domestic response. The King's Warden (2026) is his biggest commercial statement: a historical film set in 15th-century Joseon that follows the bond between village chief Eom Heung-do and the deposed teenage King Danjong during his 1457 exile. Starring Yoo Hae-jin and Park Ji-hoon, it crossed 10 million admissions on March 6 and 12 million on March 12, 2026, making it the 20th film in Korean cinema history to reach that milestone, with a cumulative gross of over $39.1 million. He is married to Kim Eun-hee, the screenwriter behind Netflix's Kingdom and Signal, making them one of Korean entertainment's most formidable creative households.