Kang Soo-yeon

Kang Soo-yeon (born 18 August 1966) is a South Korean actress. She was born in Seoul, South Korea and was one of the best known and internationally acclaimed stars from South Korea from the mid-eighties to the end of the nineties.

Career

Kang made her acting debut as a child actor in the 1970s. She acted in a number of low profile movies before making a breakthrough performance in the Im Kwon-taek directed 1986 movie, The Surrogate Woman for which she was honored with the Volpi Cup Best Actress award at the 1987 Venice International Film Festival and Best Actress Award at the Nantes International Film Festival. This was the first time a Korean actor has been given the award at the major film festival and at the time people did not even know that South Korea has a film industry. Two years later, she again took the limelight by winning the Best Actress award at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival for her role in the Im Kwon-taek directed 1989 Buddhist theme movie, Come, Come, Come Upward. In the film, Kang played the role of Sun Nyog, a young student who sought refuge in the monastery to escape from her troubled home and study to become a nun, and later fell in love with the person who tried to take away her modesty. Kang actually got her head shaved on-screen in the scene when Sun Nyog became a nun. In the same year, she was invited to serve as a juror in the Tokyo International Film Festival. In 1991 she was a member of the jury at the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.