While he may not be well-known to North American audiences, Choi Min-sik is one of the most successful Korean actors working today. Having started his career as a theatrical actor, Min-sik moved into film acting in the 1989 movie Kuro Arirang and the 1992 film Our Twisted Hero from the same director Park Jong-won. In 1999 he appeared as a North Korean agent in the film Shiri, which was Korea’s most successful movie at the time. Min-sik began to gain international attention in 2003 when he starred in Park Chan-wook’s dark and twisted revenge tale Oldboy (in which he actually eats a live squid!), and worked again with Park Chan-wook in the 2005 film Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Having demonstrated both his acting talent and his willingness to play disturbing roles, Min-sik returned to the horror genre in the 2010 revenge film I Saw the Devil – a bloody affair indeed. Since Oldboy, Choi Min-sik has been burned onto my brain, and to leave such an impression takes an awful lot of talent. I hope to see more strange and unusual movies starring him in the near future. Choi Min-sik turns 50 today.