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Lee Sang-il (李相日, Ri San'iru, Korean: 이상일, born January 6, 1974, in Niigata, Japan) is a Korean-Japanese film director and screenwriter. His first film, Chong, was a short film about the lives of third generation Koreans living in Japan.
Director: Villain. Sang-il Lee was born on 6 January 1974 in Niigata, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Villain (2010), Rage (2016) and Hura gâru (2006).
- Director, Writer, Actor
- January 6, 1974
- Sang-il Lee
Lee Sang-il is a Korean-Japanese film director and screenwriter. His first film, “Chong,” was a short film about the lives of third generation Koreans living in Japan.
- Chong
- Wandering
- Rage
- Scrap Heaven
- Border Line
- Unforgiven
- Villain
- 69
- Hula Girls
With a running time of less than an hour, Lee’s debut remains an effective and occasionally humorous portrait of third-generation Korean teenagers growing up in Japan. In addition to the typical challenges facing adolescents, these young men and women encounter racial discrimination at every turn – something that gets worse when the boys push for t...
Lee’s latest film is also his most controversial; it features an unconventional romance that is condemned by society. Tori Matsuzaka plays a young man who brings a nine-year-old girl into his home, where she stays, voluntarily and in safety, for a number of months before the authorities catch up with them. Fifteen years later, the girl (now played ...
The film is a pessimistic portrait of modern life that explores the secrets we keep about ourselves, and the destruction that inevitably ensues when we submit to our fears and paranoia.
The influence of David Fincher’s anarchic fantasy Fight Club is unmistakable in Lee’s Scrap Heaven– a stylish counterculture black comedy with an aggressively punk-rock sensibility. After surviving a bizarre hostage situation aboard a late-night city bus, three disenchanted strangers – a police officer (Ryo Kase), a toilet cleaner (Joe Odagiri) and...
Lee’s first full-length feature is a bleak, yet strangely compelling portrait of contemporary Japan and the daily struggles of ordinary people. He explores a number of themes that surface time and again in his later work. The film follows an assortment of seemingly unconnected characters, all of whom are facing crises in their lives. Whether they a...
Lee’s most lavish and ambitious production is this surprisingly faithful remake of Clint Eastwood’s elegiac Oscar winner – albeit transported from the Old West to the dawn of Japan’s Meiji Period (1868-1912). From its wintry landscapes to its fastidiously recreated frontier town, Unforgivenis a poignant meditation on the nature of violence, and hum...
Lee turns his attention once again to the lives of Japan’s disaffected youth for this emotionally complex tale of young lovers on the run. Satoshi Tsumabuki plays a troubled man who becomes the prime suspect in a murder case. Reaching out to a lonely woman he meets online (Eri Fukatsu), the pair become fugitives, sparking concern and disbelief amon...
Adapted from a semi-autobiographical novel by Ryu Murakami, 69is a riotously entertaining coming-of-age story. Featuring an all-star cast headlined by Satoshi Tsumabuki and Masanobu Ando, it follows a gang of mischievous teenagers growing up in the remote Japanese city of Sasebo, who become inspired by the counterculture revolution sweeping the glo...
The film tells the true story of a struggling 1960s mining town, whose pit is facing closure as the country’s fuel of choice switches from coal to oil. Upon discovering a hot spring within the mine, town officials hatch a screwball plan to build a Hawaiian-themed spa resort. Yasuko Matsuyuki is wonderful as the down-at-heel dance instructor brought...
Lee Sang-il is a Korean-Japanese film director and screenwriter. His first film, “Chong,” was a short film about the lives of third generation Koreans living in Japan. “Hula Girls” was declared best Japanese film of 2006 by Kinema Junpo, and Lee won the Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes at the 2007 Japanese Academy Awards for the ...
Sep 13, 2013 · Unforgiven: Directed by Sang-il Lee. With Ken Watanabe, Shioli Kutsuna, Jun Kunimura, Yûya Yagira. Japanese-Korean filmmaker Sang-il Lee (Villain) has decided to reinterpret Eastwood's Oscar®-winning Unforgiven as a Japanese period film.
Feb 27, 2014 · We talk to director Lee Sang-il (Hula Girls, Villain) about his latest film Unforgiven (Yurusarezaru Mono)... I was fortunate enough to meet thanks to Warner Bros. with the director Lee Sang-il in the plush (albeit maze-like and overwhelmingly brown) surroundings of the Café Royal in London.
