Bittersweet Memories

Lee Byung-hun (Korean: 이병헌, born July 12, 1970) is a South Korean actor. Lee began his career on television in 1991 and made his film debut in 1995 with Who Drives Me Crazy and Runaway, and subsequently appeared in Kill the Love (1996), Elegy of the Earth (1997) and The Harmonium in My Memory (1999). He gained wider recognition for playing South Korean sergeant Lee Soo-hyeok in Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area (2000). He followed this with leading roles in Bungee Jumping of Their Own (2001), Addicted (2002), and Everybody Has Secrets (2004). On television, he starred in the series Beautiful Days (2001) and All In (2003). In 2005, Lee starred as an enforcer in Kim Jee-woon's crime drama A Bittersweet Life. He later appeared in Once in a Summer (2006) and played the antagonist Park Chang-yi, known as "the Bad", in Kim Jee-woon's western action film The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008). In 2009, he starred as Kim Hyun-jun in the television series Iris and made his Hollywood film debut as Storm Shadow in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The following year, he played an NIS agent seeking revenge in Kim Jee-woon's thriller I Saw the Devil. Lee portrayed the dual roles of King Gwanghae and the beggar Ha-sun in the historical drama Masquerade (2012). In 2013, he reprised his role as Storm Shadow in G.I. Joe: Retaliation and appeared in the action comedy Red 2. He continued his work in Hollywood with roles as the T-1000 in Terminator Genisys (2015) and Billy Rocks in The Magnificent Seven (2016). During this period, he also starred in the South Korean films Inside Men (2015) and Master (2016), and appeared in Memories of the Sword (2015), The Fortress (2017) and Keys to the Heart (2018). In 2018, Lee returned to television as Eugene Choi in the period drama Mr. Sunshine. He subsequently starred in the disaster film Ashfall (2019), portrayed Kim Gyu-pyeong in the political drama The Man Standing Next (2020), and appeared in Emergency Declaration (2021). In 2021, he began portraying Hwang In-ho, also known as the Front Man, in the survival drama series Squid Game, initially in a special appearance before joining the main cast for its second and third seasons. He also starred in the television series Our Blues (2022) and in the film Concrete Utopia (2023). In 2025, he portrayed Go player Cho Hun-hyun in The Match, voiced Gwi-Ma in the animated film KPop Demon Hunters, and starred in Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice.