Yoon Je-kyoon윤제균

Yoon Je-kyoon (윤제균), also credited as J.K. Youn, is a South Korean film director, screenwriter and producer, born on May 14, 1969 in Busan. He graduated from Korea University's Department of Economics in 1996, worked at the advertising agency LG Ad, and entered film by winning the grand prize of a scenario contest hosted by Taechang Heungup.¹

He made his directorial debut in 2001 with My Boss, My Hero (두사부일체) and followed it with the comedy Sex Is Zero (색즉시공) in 2002. He became widely known for Tidal Wave (해운대, 2009), billed as South Korea's first disaster film, and for Ode to My Father (국제시장, 2014), which tells South Korean history from the 1950s to the present through one man's life. Both passed 10 million admissions: in DabPop's table of the highest-grossing Korean films, KOBIS records Ode to My Father at 14,265,007 admissions (No. 5) and Tidal Wave at 11,324,958 (No. 22).¹²

He is also a producer and an executive. He became CEO of the film company JK Film, in which CJ ENM acquired a 51 percent stake in 2016, and in July 2022 he became president and CEO of CJ ENM Studios, the production subsidiary CJ ENM launched that year.¹ DabPop's explainer on how K-dramas are made cites him on the contract that limits crew to 12 hours of work a day, with overtime pay and a full day off each week: he said it raised production costs by ₩300 million.³