Im Kwon-Taek (b. 1936 ) is known as the most respected veteran director of Korean cinema. He directed more than 100 films since 1962.
Im started his film career as a commercially oriented mainstream director but made a dramatic turn to serious films in the late 1970s. Thereafter he made films that deeply engaged the issues of modernity, and traditional and ideological conflict in Korea.
Professor David E. James of Critical Theory in the School of Cinema organized the first North American retrospective for Im in 1998 hosted at USC.
