LEE Hae-young, born in 1973, debuted as a screenwriter after meeting LEE Hae-jun at the advertisement college of the Seoul Institute of the Arts. Together, they penned the script for KIM Jee-woon’s short <Coming Out> (2000), which used the figure of the vampire as metaphor to explore society’s prejudice against people of non-binary gender identities. They collaborated again on the original scripts for <Conduct Zero> (2002) and <Au Revoir, UFO> (2004), an...More

LEE Hae-young, born in 1973, debuted as a screenwriter after meeting LEE Hae-jun at the advertisement college of the Seoul Institute of the Arts. Together, they penned the script for KIM Jee-woon’s short <Coming Out> (2000), which used the figure of the vampire as metaphor to explore society’s prejudice against people of non-binary gender identities. They collaborated again on the original scripts for <Conduct Zero> (2002) and <Au Revoir, UFO> (2004), and contributed together to screenplay of RYOO Seung-wan’s <Arahan> (2004). His debut feature <Like a Virgin> (2006), which he co-directed and co-wrote with LEE Hae-jun, was a rare coming-of-age story that touched on queer themes, as it followed a young trans woman who decides to enter a ssireum (Korean traditional wrestling) competition, hoping to pay for her sex reassignment surgery with the prize money. LEE’s first solo feature was <Foxy Festival> (2010), a comedy that aimed to debunk the idea that unfamiliar sexual practices such as SM and doll fetishism would be abnormal. In 2012, he wrote the script for the revenge thriller <26 Years> (2012), which imagined a revenge plot against a real-life infamous figure. For his next directorial project, LEE made the Colonial Era psychological horror-thriller <The Silenced> (2014). Featuring PARK Bo-young and UHM Ji-won, the film drew acclaim overseas, and an invitation to the Fantasia International Film Festival. His latest release was <Believer> (2017), a crime action film that also enjoyed a long life on the festival circuit, having been screened at the Sitges Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.
Less