Kim Myung min

Early years

Kim Myung-min debuted as an actor when he won the 6th SBS public talent audition in 1996. Over the next five years he appeared in a number of television series in various supporting roles.

Kim' first leading role came with critically appraised 2001 horror film Sorum, the feature debut of the director Yoon Jong-chan, telling the story of a taxi driver moving into a decrepit building that hides several dark secrets. For this part Kim received Best New Actor award at 2001 Busan Film Critics Awards and Director's Cut Awards

Building on his new status of a lead actor, Kim started to work on several film projects, many of which however ended unfinished, mostly due to financial problems. At that time he also suffered from injuries incurred while he was shooting action scenes.

When he starred in the 2004 KBS family drama More Beautiful than a Flower, he was expected to have a successful career as a lead actor. But all of his contracts fell through. He tried many things to restart his career but failed. Finally, he decided to emigrate to New Zealand to study and go into business. At the last minute he was offered the title role in Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin, a 104-episode TV series based on the life of Korea's beloved hero of the Imjin War. The series, which aired in 2004-2005, put Kim in the spotlight and brought him a host of awards including Grand Prize at KBS Drama Awards.

Later career

He has been playing leading roles in movies and TV series since Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin. A comical ex-gangster Oh Dal-gun in Bad Family, a detective in Open City. He played a surgeon in two productions: as Jang Joon-hyuk in White Tower and as Ryu Jae-woo in Wide Awake. Through his acclaimed performance in White Tower, he gained the nickname Myung-min Bon Joa which means "the true guru in acting." Unlike many actors and actresses who make strong impressions through certain roles and become typecast with the viewers, he has been very successful in creating new characters and impressions as he plays different roles. He has taken roles that usually require deeper knowledge of the professions, such as military admiral, surgeon, and orchestra conductor. His performance as a maestro in the 2008 TV series Beethoven Virus created a sensation in Korea referred to as "Kang Mae Syndrome" and earned him fresh acclaim from critics and viewers.

In late 2008, it was announced that his next project is a film about a character living with Lou Gehrig's Disease, titled Closer to Heaven. To realistically portray the role of the dying patient, Kim painstakingly lost 20 kilos during the course of the filming. He was widely commended for this feat and thus gained the coveted Best Actor Awards in Korea's leading film ceremonies, the 46th Grand Bell Awards and the 30th Blue Dragon Film Awards. The movie was released in South Korean theaters on 24 September 2009 where it remained on top of the charts for 3 consecutive weeks and garnered more than 2 million visitors.

Closer to Heaven was followed by another film, Man of Vendetta, where Kim portrayed the role of a father for the first time The character, Joo Young Soo, is an ex-pastor who tracks down the kidnapper of his 5-year-old daughter, 8 years after she had gone missing. Production started in January 2010 and the movie was released on July 1, 2010. Though the movie was rated 18+, it proved to be successful in the boxoffice.

In January 2011, Kim appeared as Joseon's Sherlock Holmes in highly popular historical comedy-mystery film Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow. The movie was released on Lunar New Year and it topped the charts for a few weeks. Blockbuster Detective K was followed by sports movie, Pacemaker, where he played the role of Man-ho, a marathon runner. The movie wrapped up filming in August 2011, and is targeted for release on the last quarter of 2011.

Summer of 2012 saw Kim as Jae-hyuk, a pharmaceutical agent in disaster movie Deranged. The movie revolves around Jae-hyuk's struggle to save his infected family from the outbreak of mutated horsehair worms that has wreaked havoc in South Korea. On the release day, the movie took the number one spot over Hollywood film The Amazing Spider Man at number two, with 149,170 tickets. The highly successful movie directed by Park Jung-woo became the fastest Korean film in 2012 to reach 2 million admissions, eight days after its July 5 release date, and topped the boxoffice for three consecutive weeks. The movie was also screened in selected theaters in North America , got an extended screening thereafter, and was also invited to Spain's prestigious Sitges Film Festival in October 2012.

In early February 2012, Kim signed the contract to star in the movie The Spies, his second collaboration with Woo Min-ho, director of his 2010 film, Man of Vendetta. The movie tells about Agent Kim and his three North Korean comrades who are working undercover in South Korea. The movie was released locally on 20 September.

Kim made a comeback to the small screen after four years in The King of Dramas. He next played a brilliant but cynical lawyer who gets into an accident and loses his memory in A New Leaf (2014).

In 2015, Kim reprised his role as Detective K in Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island, the second installment in the Detective K series. It was a commercial success, with box office earnings of US$27.8 million. The television series Six Flying Dragons followed, in which he played the intelligent and remarkable Jeong Do-jeon, who served as the First Prime Minister of the Joseon Dynasty.

He was next cast in the films Pandora and Proof of Innocence, which were released in 2016.

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