Kang Dae-ha


Kang Dae-ha was a South Korean screenwriter, producer, film and art director and poet.

Biography

Kang Dae-ha was born in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, Korea in 1942, and majored in creative writing at Seorabeol Arts University. He initially considered becoming a painter, but after graduating high school he turned to literature, writing poetry for coterie magazine The Cliff. His poem, The Paean, was recommended in the December 1965 issue of the monthly literary magazine Contemporary Literature. Before going on to get a third recommendation—the last step to becoming a professional poet—he instead entered the film industry, gaining recognition for his 1970 screenplay, Somebody's' House. Throughout his career he wrote more than fifty screenplays, including A Girl's First Love, and Green Fallen-Leaves.
In 1976, Kang debuted as a film director with the action film Immoral Man, based on his own screenplay, which was produced by Gukje Film Promotion and starred Lee Nak-hoon and Yeo Su-jin. Although the film depicts kidnapping, murder, and illicit drug dealing, the themes of Kang's subsequent works related more to Korean culture and religion. His second film as director, Three Generations of Widows, was also based on his own screenplay, and was set in a town of haenyeo on Jeju Island in post war Korea.
Kang's later works include The Fire Arrow, which dealt with Confucian tradition in ancient Korean society regarding women's faithfulness to their husbands, and Mayago, which was based around Korean shamanism.
Kang died of liver cancer in Seoul in 1995.

Filmography

As director