Photo: Desmond Herzfelder / CC BY 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Lee Byung-hun is, to my mind, one of the most complete actors working anywhere. The range he showed across Joint Security Area, A Bittersweet Life, and I Saw the Devil would define most careers; for him it was just the first act. What sets him apart is micro-expression — he can shift a scene's entire temperature with his eyes alone. While many stars treated Hollywood as a destination, he treated it as a side project and kept doing his best work at home, from Masquerade to Mr. Sunshine. Decades in, he is still adding to his peak rather than coasting on it, and that hunger is what I admire most.
Overview
Lee Byung-hun (Korean: 이병헌; born July 12, 1970) is a South Korean actor. He has received acclaim for his work in a wide range of genres, most notably Joint Security Area (2000); A Bittersweet Life (2005); The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008); I Saw the Devil (2010); Masquerade (2012); and the television series All In (2003), Iris (2009), Mr. Sunshine (2018), and Our Blues (2022).
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Lee Byung-hun
- Name (Japanese)
- イ・ビョンホン
- Reading
- い・びょんほん
- Born
- July 12, 1970 (age 55)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Cancer / Dog
- Origin
- Seoul, South Korea
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- 2 cm
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- actor / film actor / television actor / singer / model
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Joongdong High School
- University
- Hanyang University
Awards & achievements
- Asian Film Award for Best Actor
- Grand Bell Awards
- Blue Dragon Film Award for Best Actor
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Official sitehttp://www.leebyunghun.kr/
- Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/byunghun0712/
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BB%E3%83%93%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9B%E3%83%B3
Actor — see all → · Film actor — see all → · More people from South Korea →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.