ZHANG Hang-jun, born in 1969, made a name for himself as a screenwriter and director of comedy films and TV series. After graduating in 1992 from the Seoul Art College (now Seoul Institute of the Arts) in film, he was invited through one of his professors to help on the set of KIM Young-bin’s <No Emergency Exit> (1993). He was first noticed at the age of 27 for the screenplay of comedy-drama <The Adventure of Mrs. Park> (1996), directed by KIM Tae-kyun, but he ...More

ZHANG Hang-jun, born in 1969, made a name for himself as a screenwriter and director of comedy films and TV series. After graduating in 1992 from the Seoul Art College (now Seoul Institute of the Arts) in film, he was invited through one of his professors to help on the set of KIM Young-bin’s <No Emergency Exit> (1993). He was first noticed at the age of 27 for the screenplay of comedy-drama <The Adventure of Mrs. Park> (1996), directed by KIM Tae-kyun, but he had to wait until 2002 before he had the chance to prove his worth as a director, with the action comedy <Break Out> (2002). A friend of acclaimed screenwriter and director JANG Jin, ZHANG joined in 2002 his entertainment production collective Film It Suda as the head of the screenplay department but kept working on his own projects on the side. His sophomore directing effort, romantic comedy <Spring Breeze> (2003), remains to this day his most famous work. Despite his contribution as a script editor to another hit comedy of the early 2000s, <Ghost House> (2004), he struggled to get another project green-lighted and resolved to move to the small screen. He first took part in 2008 in an experimental concept proposed by cable TV station OCN whereby he was pitted against director KIM Jung-woo in a “movie battle”, and submitted <Manners In Battle> and <Obscene Society>, two movies he had to realize in the span of 5 months. He later appeared on several TV shows and wrote screenplays for TV series, among which the self-referential satirical comedy <The King of Dramas> (2012). He jumped again into the director’s chair in 2011 with the medical TV series <Sign>. In 2017, for his first theatrical outing in nine years, he surprised many by coming up with a mystery thriller, <Forgotten>, which was welcomed by 1.4 million moviegoers. ZHANG is married to acclaimed playwright and TV series screenwriter KIM Eun-hee.Less