Years active 1996-present Name Cho Chang-ho McCune–Reischauer Cho Ch'ang-ho | Revised Romanization Jo Chang-ho Hangul 조창호 Role Film director | |
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Born 1972 (age 42–43) Hongcheon County, South Korea Occupation Film director, screenwriter Alma mater Seoul Institute of the Arts Movies Lovers Vanished, The Peter Pan Formula, Fantastic Parasuicides Similar People Woo‑seul‑hye Hwang, On Joo‑wan, Kim Jae‑rok, Kim Nam‑gil, Ok Ji‑young | ||
Cho Chang-ho (born 1972) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. Cho wrote and directed The Peter Pan Formula (2006) and Lovers Vanished (2010).
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Career
Born in 1972 in Hongcheon County, Cho Chang-ho studied film directing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. He began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Yim Soon-rye's Three Friends (1996), Kim Ki-duk's Birdcage Inn (1998) and Bad Guy (2002), and Byun Hyuk's Interview (2000). In 2002, Cho wrote and directed A Little Indian Boy, a short film about a disabled boy and his sister who live by the seashore.
He made his feature directorial debut in 2005 with The Peter Pan Formula, a coming-of-age film about a high school swimming prodigy who suddenly decides to quit, then faces skyrocketing credit card bills when his mother becomes comatose after a suicide attempt. It was invited to screen at several international film festivals, and it took the Jury Prize at the 9th Deauville Asian Film Festival, while Cho won Best Young Director (or Best First Feature Film) at the 27th Durban International Film Festival (On Joo-wan won Best Actor at DIFF as well). The Peter Pan Formula received a theatrical release in South Korea in 2006.
In 2007, alongside fellow directors Park Soo-young and Kim Sung-ho, Cho joined Fantastic Parasuicides, an omnibus of three short films that center on people who undergo surreal experiences in the moment they decide to kill themselves. In Cho's segment "Fly Away, Chicken!," Kim Nam-jin played a suicidal police officer who witnesses two men sexually assaulting a woman, then later uses two of the three bullets in his gun to kill them, leaving the last one for himself.
Cho then cast Kim Nam-gil and Hwang Woo-seul-hye in Lovers Vanished (2010), a moody melodrama about an HIV/AIDS-infected fugitive who becomes the chef of an emotionally withdrawn restaurateur. Cho said, "The first phrase that pops into mind when I think about this movie is 'maximization of emotion.' Vanished asks how a person overcome with despair can continue to exist and become curious about his future. I wanted to deliver that message by showing the process of how the two people try to achieve their love."