Na Hong-jin

Na Hong-jin is one of those directors who makes you question your own sanity in the best possible way — his films don't just unsettle you, they burrow under your skin and stay there for days. The Chaser announced him as a major force in Korean cinema back in 2008, a raw, relentless thriller that felt like it was sprinting straight at you from frame one. The Yellow Sea doubled down on that intensity, and then The Wailing arrived in 2016 and genuinely broke my brain — equal parts folk horror, grief, and cosmic dread, with no tidy resolution because life doesn't offer one. That Sitges Best Director win in 2011 feels almost understated for a filmmaker this singular. He's meticulous, slow between projects, and clearly not interested in compromising his vision for anyone. Every film feels like a personal reckoning.

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Name (English)

Na Hong-jin

Name (Japanese)

ナ・ホンジン

Reading

な・ほんじん

Born

July 20, 1974 (age 52)

Origin

Seoul, South Korea

Occupation

film director / screenwriter / film producer / director

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Tiger

University

Hanyang University

Awards & achievements

• 2011 Sitges Film Festival Best Director award

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%20Hong-jin
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BB%E3%83%9B%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B8%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q490406

Tags

• film director
• screenwriter
• film producer

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.