Kwak Do-won

Kwak Do-won is one of those South Korean actors who genuinely makes every scene feel heavier and more dangerous just by showing up. I first took notice of him in The Yellow Sea, where he played the university professor the hero is sent to kill, with a stillness that stuck with me — the kind of performer who does more with a look than most actors do with a monologue. His turn in Na Hong-jin's The Wailing is masterclass stuff, deeply unsettling in the best way, and The Attorney proved he could hold his own in a leading ensemble without disappearing into the background. What I love about him is that he's never tried to be a leading-man heartthrob; he's a character actor's character actor, the person directors call when they need someone to feel genuinely threatening or morally complex. Korean cinema's golden era wouldn't have the same teeth without him.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Kwak Do-won

Name (Japanese)

クァク・ドウォン

Reading

くぁく・どうぉん

Born

May 17, 1973 (age 53)

Origin

Seoul, South Korea

Occupation

film actor / actor / stage actor / television actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Ox

• Official sitehttp://www.esaram.co.kr/2012/html/m_star005.html
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kwak_do_won1/
• Xhttps://x.com/kwakbyoungkuy
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwak%20Do-won
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A1%E3%82%AF%E3%83%BB%E3%83%89%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A9%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10855431

Tags

• film actor
• actor
• stage actor

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.