Song Kang Ho
Song Kang-ho (송강호; born January 17, 1967, Gimhae) is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors in Korean cinema history. The New York Times named him one of the greatest actors of the 21st century in 2020. Trained at Busan theater companies after leaving university, he spent nearly a decade in repertory theater before breaking into film in the mid-1990s.
His career is defined by landmark collaborations with Korean cinema's most celebrated directors. With Bong Joon-ho he made Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), and Parasite (2019), the last winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first non-English film to achieve the latter. With Park Chan-wook he starred in Joint Security Area (2000) and Thirst (2009). With Kim Jee-woon he built a five-film partnership including The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) and Cobweb (2023).
Beyond those partnerships, Song delivered defining performances in The Attorney (2013), a blockbuster dramatizing a human-rights case based on President Roh Moo-hyun's early career, and A Taxi Driver (2017), about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. In 2022, his role in Hirokazu Kore-eda's Broker earned him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, making him the first Korean actor to win that honor. In 2024, after more than three decades in film, he made his television debut in Disney+/TVING's Uncle Samsik, a 16-episode political thriller set in 1960s South Korea.
He holds five Grand Bell Awards, four Blue Dragon Film Awards, and three Baeksang Arts Awards. Gallup Korea named him Film Actor of the Year four times (2013, 2017, 2019, 2020). He is represented by Galaxy Corporation.
Gallery
