Kang Soo-youn

Kang Soo-youn is one of those actresses who made history so quietly and so early that the rest of the world almost missed it — almost. When she won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1987 for Surrogate Mother, she became the first Korean actress to claim a major international prize, and she did it in her early twenties, which is frankly absurd. Korea's "first world star" is a title that gets thrown around, but in her case it genuinely fits — she opened a door that the entire Korean film wave would eventually walk through. Losing her in May 2022 at just 55, right when Korean cinema was finally getting the global recognition she had been pointing toward for decades, stings in a particular way. She deserved to see that moment fully arrive.

Name (English)

Kang Soo-youn

Name (Japanese)

カン・スヨン

Reading

かん・すよん

Born

August 18, 1966 – May 7, 2022

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Horse

Origin

Seoul, South Korea

Occupation

actor / film actor

Awards & achievements

• 1987 Order of Cultural Merit, 4th class

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang%20Soo-yeon
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B9%E3%83%A8%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q449147

Tags

• actor
• film actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.