Choi Donghoon

I. Introduction

Choi Dong-hoon is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. He ranks as one of the most consistently successful directors working in contemporary Korean cinema, with five of his films becoming commercial hits.

II. Career

After graduating from the prestigious Korean Academy of Film Arts, Choi Dong-hoon first worked as an assistant director on Im Sang-soo's Tears (he subsequently appeared in acting cameos in several of Im's films).

After working on the screenplay for two years, Choi made his feature film directorial debut in 2004 with The Big Swindle and single-handedly re-imagined the heist and crime thriller genre into something uniquely Korean.

His follow-up Tazza: The High Rollers, a gambling flick adapted from Huh Young-man and Kim Se-yeong's manhwa, was the second highest grossing Korean film of 2006.

2009's Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard was lauded as the first Korean fantasy/superhero blockbuster movie, earning Choi a reputation as an artistically innovative and commercially successful writer-director.

He returned to the heist genre in 2012 with the star-studded crime caper The Thieves, which attracted almost 13 million viewers in 70 days to become the second all-time highest grossing movie in Korean film history.

Choi made his first period film with 2015's Assassination, about freedom fighters during Japan's colonial rule, and it was once again a box office hit, crossing the 10 million admissions milestone on the 70th anniversary of South Korean independence.

In 2017, Choi began production on his next film Wiretap, a remake of the 2009 Hong Kong film Overheard. However, production was halted so Kim Woo Bin could undergo treatment for cancer.

At the end of 2019, the director was then reported to be working on a two-part science fiction film.

III. Filmography

Screenwriter

Director

Year	Poster	Title
2004		The Big Swindle
2006		Tazza: The High Rollers (
2009		Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard
2012		The Thieves
2015		Assassination

IV. Awards