Korean actress Kang Soo Yeon dies at 55 following cardiac arrest

Veteran Korean actress Kang Soo Yeon has reportedly died aged 55. Kang breathed her last on Saturday, following a cerebral hemorrhage, two days after she was taken to a hospital in Southern Seoul for a cardiac arrest.

According to the report in The Hollywood Reporter, Kang had recently shot scenes for Netflix original sci-fi movie Jung-E, from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang Ho. The film will debut on the streamer later this year.

A funeral is set for Wednesday, with its committee led by Busan International Film Festival co-founder and current Gangneung International Film Festival chairman Kim Dong Ho. The ceremony will be livestreamed on Korean Film Council’s YouTube channel.

Born in Seoul in 1966, Kan Soo Yeon was an acting icon in the 1980s and 1990s. She debuted at the age of 4 as a child actor for local broadcaster TBS, and soon became a prominent child actor. In 1977 she appeared in the family drama 3 Stars, followed by films including Chorus of Doves, Two Tomboys and All That Falls Has Wings. At 21, she reached a turning point in her career when Kang’s performance in The Surrogate Womb, directed by Im Kwon Taek, won her the best actress award at the Venice International Film Festival, becoming the first Korean actor to win an acting prize at one of the world’s three most prestigious international film festivals - Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

Then in 1989, she won best actress for Come, Come, Come Upward, another film by the same director, at the Moscow International Film Festival. While most of her best-known roles occurred before the industrialization of the Korean film industry in the 21st century, Kang took the title role in SBS historical drama series Ladies of the Palace in 2001. She took a break from her acting career after the 2011 drama Hanji, in which she also served as a producer; and the short film Jury. In 2015, she was named co-director of the Busan International Film Festival, a position she shared with Lee Yong Kwan and held until 2017.

May 09, 2022 at 02:26PM AXE Movies