BAE Jong-ok, born in 1964, started her acting career soon after high school. Following a first experience in JANG Hyun-soo’s student short film <Consolation> (1984), she passed an open audition held by public broadcast KBS and made her big debut on television with the series <House of the Rising Sun> (1985). In 1988, she appeared as the female lead of one of the most famous titles of that period, <Chil-Su And Man-Su>. Even though her first performances we...More

BAE Jong-ok, born in 1964, started her acting career soon after high school. Following a first experience in JANG Hyun-soo’s student short film <Consolation> (1984), she passed an open audition held by public broadcast KBS and made her big debut on television with the series <House of the Rising Sun> (1985). In 1988, she appeared as the female lead of one of the most famous titles of that period, <Chil-Su And Man-Su>. Even though her first performances were met with a lot criticism, she quickly stood out with her particular tone of voice and her precise diction, qualities that were very much in demand in the Korean television, allowing her to be offered a wider variety of roles than most of her peers. Her efforts to improve her acting skills were finally acknowledged in 1991 with a Grand Bell Award for Best Supporting Actress for the drama <Portrait Of The Days Of Youth> (1990). The following year, she reunited with JANG on his feature debut <Walking All The Way To Heaven> (1992) and won another award, Best Acting in a Film, at the Baeksang Art Awards. Even though she was making a name for herself in films, she stayed nonetheless mainly focused on the small screen; over the rest of the decade, she would take part in only one movie, <Deep Blue> (1997), while she kept appearing in a large number of series, such as <The Men of the Public Bathhouse> (1995-1996) and <Lies> (1998). And, as if she wasn’t busy enough with her career, she was also studying film at Chung-Ang University, from which she would eventually graduate in 1996 with a master’s degree. Having almost constantly been filming new series for more than 30 years, she has somewhat become the archetype of the chic Korean mother. Beside a dubbing job on the award-winning animation <My Beatiful Girl, Mari> (2001), she made her comeback to theater in 2002 as the lead of romantic drama <Jealousy Is My Middle Name>, before playing mothers in family dramas <Little Brother> (2004), <Herb> (2006) and <The Most Beautiful Goodbye> (2011). Among her most famous TV works are <Beating Heart> (2005), in which she co-starred with BAE Doo-na and KOH Asung, <My Husband’s Woman> (2007), <Worlds Within> (2008) in which she played opposite SONG Hye-kyo and HYUN Bin, <That Winter, the Wind Blows> (2013) and <Unknown Woman> (2017). She has most recently starred in <In Between Season> (2017) and lent her voice to documentary <Dances with the Wind> (2017), while appearing in thriller <The Chase> (2017).Less