Ko-pick: The 30-Year Career of Jung Woo-sung: From Beat to 12.12: The Day (2025)

The 30-Year Career of Jung Woo-sung: From Breakout Star in Beat to Becominga ‘10-million Actor’ in 12.12: The Day

Korea’s contentindustry is home to a significant amount of acting talent with its starsappearing on TV commercials, billboards and advertisements on shop andrestaurant windows across the country as well as across Asia and furtherafield. It’s testament to the appeal of Korean actors that has grown over thespan of several decades. It’s no secret that Korea has a large pool of talentboth behind and in front of the camera.

What is moredifficult, however, is for actors to remain hugely popular in maintaining theirappeal as their persona evolves and that of the wider film industry. One actorwho has achieved this is Jung Woo-sung who has maintained his popularity for thirtyyears.

Jung made hisdebut in 1994 with Park Heon-su’s The Fox with Nine Tails that wasproduced by Shun Chul who ushered in the so-called planned film, a form ofproducing that focused on planning that became widespread in the industrythereafter. Jung emerged at a time when the Korean film industry was undergoingrapid transformation with a new generation of directors and producers seekingto experiment as the ways in which films being financed was also changing.

His next film Beat(1997) would launch Jung as a major star and he would further solidify hisstatus as a bankable leading man in films in the late 1990s and 2000s such as Cityof the Rising Sun (1999), A Moment to Remember (2004) and TheGood, The Bad and The Weird (2007). He would continue to find box officesuccess embracing a range of roles in the 2010s with Cold Eyes (2013) asa villain, Steel Rain (2017) as a North Korean agent and InnocentWitness (2019) as an attorney.

Even though theearly 2020s presented the industry with an existential crisis following theCovid-19 pandemic and the changes in viewing habits brought about by streaming,Jung found further success in Hunt (2022) and most notably 12.12: TheDay (2023) that has surpassed 13 million admissions. His directorialfeature debut A Man of Reason (2023), which he also starred in,premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2022 and was released in 2023.

This week, wedelve into some of Jung’s most iconic roles beginning with Beat andconcluding with his most recent box office achievement: 12.12: The Day.

Beat

Released in 1997, Beat,was one of several projects Jung would work with director Kim Sung-su including12.12: The Day. The film based on graphic novel by Huh Young-man wasalso partly inspired by Jung’s early life as a high school dropout. Thenarrative focuses on three young men who are never far away from the criminalunderworld having failed to graduate from high school. Jung’s character alsofalls in love with a woman played by Ko So-young from an affluent familyechoing the melodrama that has long been seen in many Korean films such as TheBarefooted Young (1964).

Beat was a cultural moment, the images of theyoung protagonist on his motorbike with his arms embracing freedom becameiconic. He famously says at the beginning of the film in the narration, “I hadno dream” reflecting how in a society that was rapidly changing after thepolitical upheaval of the 1970s (documented in 12.12: The Day) and 1980sthat a young generation were falling through the cracks.

For all itspessimism, the film is full of energy embodied by Jung’s alluring performance. It’s also richly stylized capturing a newaesthetic that would be characteristic of the films of the late 1990s and early2000s – Attack the Gas Station (1999), Save the Green Planet (2003)are such examples.

City of the RisingSun

Also the subject offailed dreams was Jung’s subsequent project with Kim Sung-su, and ChaSeung-jae, one of the most notable producers of this period (Christmas inAugust (1998), Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000). It would also seeJung pair up with Lee Jung-jae who have become close friends mirroring theirchemistry on screen as it tells the story of two young men, one of a failed boxerDo-chul (Jung) and the other a gambler and swindler, Hong-ki (Lee). They work together to collect debts and while LeeJung-jae’s character seeks to exploit and swindle his friend, Do-chul remainsloyal despite the impulses telling him otherwise.

It’s aninteresting relationship, one of distrust from Do-chul’s perspective, but there’salso a companionship between them both, a bromance as they both navigatesociety’s treacherous terrain. Jung’s character, in spite of all his flaws, isrelatable – he is lonely, isolated, traits we also see in Beat. Hedoesn’t find solace in a motorcycle here but rather watching the sun rise withHong-ki.

A Moment toRemember

An altogetherdifferent film, A Moment to Remember (2004), came at the heydayof Korean melodrama in the late 1990s, early-to-mid 2000s (Christmas inAugust, Il-Mare (2000) One Fine Spring Day (2001), TheClassic (2003). It’s a genre that’s been characteristic of Korean cinemasince its origins in the early 1990s during the Japanese colonial period andeven today’s films, from blockbusters to mid-budget comedies will invariablyfeature some melodrama even if the genre itself is not as popular as it oncewas.

Directed by JohnH. Lee, the film based on the Japanese television drama Pure Soul, Jungplays a rough and ready carpenter and soon to become architect, who attractsthe attention of a fashion designer, Soo-jin (Son). From different socialclasses, the pair fall in love but the obstacle in this narrative is thedesigner’s early onset Alzheimer’s. Unable to remember him, her diseaseprogresses.

Jung’s handsomepersona was ideal for this role as was Son Ye-jin’s who appeared in TheClassic, April Snow. Grief and pain are emotions that are difficult toarticulate and convey but they’ve been channeled through various characters andgenres in Korean cinema over the years manifesting in different ways. Jung’scharacter, broken as he sees his wife fade away before his eyes, is emblematicof how Korean performers can powerfully capture the complexities of sufferingin a manner that resonates with audiences.

The feature was arousing success pulling in 2.5m admissions and is now widely seen as one of themost famous films from this genre.

Asura: The City ofMadness

In the 2010s Jungtook on some darker roles evident in films such as Cold Eyes (2013), ScarletInnocence (2014) and Asura: The City of Madness (2016) that was the fourthtime he worked with director and writer Kim Sung-su.

Asura, much in the same vein as The Unjust(2010), Gangnam Blues (2015), Inside Men (2015) and The King(2017), it takes viewers into a world fixated on power and greed centering on acorrupt detective (Jung) who is forced to work with a prosecutor (Kwak Do-won) tobring down a ruthless city mayor (Hwang Jung-min).

Unlike many of hisroles in the 2000s, Jung’s police detective is hard to fully empathize with ashe digs a hole for himself going to desperate and brutal lengths to ensure hiswife who has terminal cancer has all the care she needs. While there areelements to this role that audiences would be familiar with - his determination to be at his sick wife’sbedside but this is a far grittier affair, even compared to his films in the1990s.

The nastiness ofthe characters in Asura would surprise viewers illustrated in itslackluster and top heavy performance at the box office selling 2.5 milliontickets after opening very strongly – led by its formidable cast.

The King

Opening less than four months later was Han Jae-rim’s The King thatsees a similar tone with Jung playing a powerful prosecutor in the 1990s whomeets a young aspiring attorney (Jo In-sung) from a working class background. Againcapturing a world where prosecutors and politicians are collaborating together andexploiting a system that favours them, it’s a grim portrayal of those at theupper echelons of society and power.

The film’s strong production values from Han Jae-rim (The Face Reader)together with the casting of Jung Woo-sung and Jo In Sung make the film lookvery slick, not dissimilar to the work of Martin Scorsese who is revered forhis films tacking the criminal underworld in mesmerising fashion. It also further underscores how much of Jung’swork in the 2010s was a departure, in many respects, to the persona he created inhis earlier career.

Despite opening in January, the film accrued 5.3 million admissionsfurther illustrating Jung’s draw at the box office.

Steel Rain

In what was another challenging role for Jung, he took on the role as aNorth Korean agent in Yang Woo-sik’s Steel Rain (2017) once againpairing up with Kwak Do-won. Based on the webtoon of the same name (created byYang), the film follows a North Korean agent (Jung) who escapes the isolatedcountry with its injured leader amidst a coup that could trigger a secondKorean War, this time with nuclear weapons.

The release came at a time when the relationship between the two Koreaswas beginning to improve under South Korea president Moon Jae-in’s SunshinePolicy that was ushered in under the governments of Kim Dae-jung and RohMoo-hyun. The two central characters in the film, the agent from North Koreaand Chief of Foreign Security Affairs (Kwak) from the South form a friendship despitethe hostilities, not unlike JSA that saw North and South Korean troopsforming a bond that was released during Kim Dae-jung’s tenure.

Korean films have often reflected the precarious relationship betweenboth countries, Jung’s performance echoes earlier depictions of North Koreansin South Korean films (a protagonist, one audiences develop sympathy for) eventhough both countries technically remain still at war.

The film that was widely praised for its well-executed sequences andgripping story sold 4.4m admissions and led to a standalone sequel, SteelRain 2: Summit (2020)– also starring Jung, this time as the South Koreanpresident.

Hunt

Jung acts as again as an agent, but this time from South Korea in LeeJung-jae’s feature debut Hunt that premiered in the Midnight section atthe Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

Set in the 1980s during Chun Doo-hwan’s authoritarian rule, the story centreson two spies played by Jung Woo-sung and Lee Jung-jae trying to locate a mole,a North Korean spy, in the National Security Agency. The pair who don’t trusteach other, at each throats, reunite on the big screen for the first time sinceCity of the Rising Sun.

With all the ingredients of an espionage thriller, it’s pulsating fromthe get-go with its impressive execution but like so many big-budget Koreanfilms at the center of the film is Korea’s turbulent history as it makesreference to the tragic Gwangju Uprisingof May 1980 that left a deep and profound scar on Korea’s journey to become whatis now a thriving democracy.

12.12: The Day

Jung would once again play a character closely related to history in KimSung-su’s box office smash hit 12.12: The Day.

Much attention has focused on Hwang Jung-min’s role as Chun Doo-gwang, whois very much at the center of the film as the man who led the military coup of1979. But what makes the film so accessible and relatable is how it puts emphasis on the decisionspeople made during that chaotic period. Jung’s character as the commander ofthe capital garrison who makes the choice to stand up to Chun, not for personalgain (like his role in The King) but for the sake of the country is keyto the film’s appeal. Although he fails, it highlights how it was the actionsby people as agents of history that would ultimately dictate Korea’s trajectory.

The film put Jung in the “10-million” club (films that sell over 10 million tickets atthe box office) of actors that includesSong Kang-ho and his 12.12: The Day and Asura co-star HwangJung-min. Thirty years after his debut, he is as popular as ever.

Edited by Shim Eunha

Written by Jason Bechervaise