RYU Seong-hee, born in 1968, started out as a ceramics artist. Interested in the impression of movement and the use of space as a form of storytelling, she created many artworks intended to be experienced in relation to the space where they would be exhibited. She eventually felt too limited by this artistic domain, though, and resolved to pursue a career in another one that’s all about storytelling and moving images, cinema. After graduating from the American Film Institu...More

RYU Seong-hee, born in 1968, started out as a ceramics artist. Interested in the impression of movement and the use of space as a form of storytelling, she created many artworks intended to be experienced in relation to the space where they would be exhibited. She eventually felt too limited by this artistic domain, though, and resolved to pursue a career in another one that’s all about storytelling and moving images, cinema. After graduating from the American Film Institute in production design, she honed her skills making several indie films with friends, with no intent to move back to Korea. One day, upon watching short movies from SONG Il-gon, another Korean who studied abroad, she realized that she too might find interesting opportunities in Korea. Soon after she came back, she got in touch with SON through an acquaintance, and before she knew it, she was given the role of production designer on the director’s debut feature <Flower Island> (2001). In order to gain experience working on more conventional fare for which she would have to follow concrete guidelines, she joined the production of <No Blood No Tears> (2001), a mainstream action-drama helmed by RYOO Seung-wan. The director was so impressed by her work that he recommended her to his pal BONG Joon-ho, who was at the time looking for a production designer who could recreate accurately the peculiar atmosphere of the 1980s for his new project, <Memories Of Murder> (2003). Having also heard of her from RYOO, PARK Chan-wook decided to put her in charge of what would become a cult classic celebrated worldwide for his striking visual style, <Old Boy> (2003). Given her achievements with these two thrillers, it was almost natural for her to work on KIM Jee-woon’s critically-acclaimed noir film <A Bittersweet Life> (2004) as well. She would work again with BONG Joong-ho and PARK Chan-wook for most of their following films. With the baroque set design in PARK’s <Thirst> (2008), she proved once again that she knows how to set the right mood for each project. After years of being nominated for art direction awards, she finally received her first accolades in 2011 for <The Front Line>, a drama film set on a battlefield during the Korean War. With nothing left to prove, she is now regularly called upon for the production of period pieces. After the early 1980s Busan in <The Attorney> (2013) that recalled dark memories of Korea’s fight against dictatorship, she tackled a monumental undertaking with the epic drama film <Ode to My Father> (2014) which spanned over 50 years of Korean history. She then focused on earlier periods with her two latest films. For CHOI Dong-hoon’s smash hit <Assassination> (2015), she had to recreate the cosmopolite neighborhoods of Shanghai in the 1930s, while in PARK Chan-wook’s <The Handmaiden> (2016) she designed the extravagant interiors of the mansion owned by an eccentric lord in Japanese-occupied Korea. This latter work was unanimously praised and led her to nab international awards such as Best Production Design at the Asian Film Awards and the Vulcan Award of the Technical Artist, one of the highest distinctions in the field. Less