Lee Byung-hun

Lee Byung-hun and his future wife, actress Lee Min-jung, were briefly in a relationship in 2006. In 2012, they started dating again. They were married on August 10, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Seoul. On March 31, 2015, their first child, a son, Lee Joon-hoo was born.

In mid-2014, he found himself involved in a blackmail scandal when model Lee Ji-yeon and singer Dahee from K-pop girl group GLAM demanded money from him, threatening to reveal a compromising video of him making sexual jokes if he did not acquiesce. He reached out to the police on September 2, registering a report about the extortion at the Gangnam Police Station. The women later admitted to the charges and were sentenced to one year imprisonment in a hearing at the Seoul District Court on January 15, 2015.

Following this, there were a lot of rumours of infidelity, which Lee vehemently denied. In July 2015, he issued a public apology for the incident.

Lee Byung-hun was born on July 12, 1970, in Gwangju, a city in the South Korean province of Gyeonggi to parents Lee Jong-kun and Park Jae-soon. Son of a successful businessman father, he grew up in relative comfort, surrounded by a loving family. He was self-admittedly a mischievous child. His only sister, Eun-hee Lee, won the 1996 Miss Korea beauty pageant.

His love for cinema first bloomed at an early age. While he majored in French Literature from the Hanyang University, he was sure that he wanted to change his field. He went on to study Theatre and Cinematography at the Graduate School of Chung-Ang University.

Having finished his education, Lee Byung-hun enlisted for the 14th annual public audition hosted by the Korean Broadcast System in 1991. He was accepted and subsequently debuted on television in the TV drama ‘Asphalt My Hometown’, portraying the character of Jinwoo.

Over the next decade, he would gradually carve out a place for himself, even while facing the immense competition in Korean television, with projects such as ‘Family’ (1991), ‘Tomorrow Love’ (1992), ‘Police’ (1993), ‘Asphalt Man’ (1994), ‘White Nights 3.98’ (1998), and ‘Beautiful Days’ (2001).

Despite his success on the small screen, the films he did in the early years of his career were forgettable. Since making his cinematic debut with ‘Who Drives Me Crazy’ in 1995, he worked on one small project after another like ‘Runaway’ (1995), ‘Kill the Love’ (1996), ‘Elegy of the South’ (1997), and ‘The Harmonium in My Memory’ (1999), none of which was commercially successful.

Director Park Chan-wook’s film ‘Joint Security Area’ changed all that. Released in 2000, the film catapulted Lee into stardom. He won his first Grand Bell Award for the best new actor for his portrayal of Sergeant Lee Soo-hyuk of the South Korean army. Director Quentin Tarantino has listed the film as one of his top 20 favourite movies since 1992.

He followed this with the offbeat film ‘Bungee Jumping of Their Own’ (2001). In the following year, he provided his voice in his first animated film, ‘My Beautiful Girl, Mari.’ He also starred in the thriller ‘Addicted’, which was later remade into an American film titled ‘Possession’ (2009).

In 2009, Lee Byung-hun stared in the espionage television drama series ‘Iris’ alongside Kim Tae-hee and Jung Joon-ho. Playing the role of Kim Hyun-jun, a soldier with the South Korean Special Forces, he received five KBS Drama Awards that year, including the Grand Prize (Daesang).

His portrayal of Gwanghae, the 15th Joseon king of Korea, in the Choo Chang-min’s directorial venture ‘Masquerade’ garnered him several best actor awards, including his first Grand Bell in that category. The film is considered to be one of most influential Korean costume-dramas of all time.

The 2015-release ‘Inside Man’ is arguably his best work to date. Written and directed by Woo Min-ho, the film has become the highest grossing R-rated movie in the history of Korean cinema.