Career
Kang Hye-jung began working as a model in her first year of high school, and throughout the late 1990s she appeared in small roles in TV dramas and sitcoms such as Jump and Nonstop 3. Her first film role was in Moon Seung-wook's arthouse/sci-fi film Nabi, for which she won a Best Actress award at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. Following this she appeared in a short film by Song Il-gon titled Flash as well as an internet film Naebang-nebang.
Kang's first major hit film was opposite Choi Min-shik in the modern-day classic Oldboy by Park Chan-wook. Her portrayal of the character Mido won her considerable attention both domestically and abroad, and she also picked up acting honors from the Grand Bell Awards and Pusan Film Critics Association. The following year she also appeared in Cut, Park Chan-wook's 30-minute contribution to the omnibus horror film Three... Extremes.
It was in 2005, however, that Kang established herself as a star outside of her appearance in Oldboy. The sharp-edged relationship drama Rules of Dating, in which she starred opposite Park Hae-il, proved to be an unexpected hit, and then two months later she took a small but central role in box office megahit Welcome to Dongmakgol. In a 2005 survey of influential movie producers, she was ranked among the top ten most bankable stars.
In 2006 she starred in Love Phobia opposite then-boyfriend Jo Seung-woo, as well as the Thai film Invisible Waves by rising directorial star Pen-ek Ratanaruang.
After playing a mentally retarded daughter to veteran actress Bae Jong-ok in the 2007 melodrama Herb, in 2009 Kang starred in two unconventional romantic comedies with roles she imbued with her trademark quirkiness. She said she chose Why Did You Come to My House? hoping to "expand the realms" of her lovelorn stalker character; the director said she had written the script with Kang in mind from the beginning. In Kiss Me, Kill Me, she played a woman who, after several failed suicide attempts, hires a professional assassin (Shin Hyun-joon) to kill her, but he falls in love with her instead.
Known for taking risky roles, Kang little by little started going off the predictable path that the public expected her to take. In Girlfriends, she played an ordinary twenty-something girl who goes through growing pains and lovelife troubles when she discovers that her boyfriend is also involved with two other women. Kang has said that this career shift reflects the limited number of interesting scripts that she receives, as well as her calmer, softer state of mind after settling down.
In 2010 Kang made her stage debut in Proof, playing the role of Catherine, who worries about whether she has inherited all of her mathematician father’s genius and lunacy.
After making the little-seen 2007 KBS drama Flowers for My Life with Cha Tae-hyun, Kang returned to television in 2011 in MBC's Miss Ripley, a tale of one woman (Lee Da-hae) who spins a web of love, ambition and lies. Originally touted as a drama with four lead roles, Kang later expressed dismay and disappointment with her drastically reduced screen time.
Kang made her English-language debut in the culture-clash romantic comedy Wedding Palace. Director Christine Yoo reportedly cast Kang after her distinctly Korean beauty in Oldboy and Welcome to Dongmakgol grabbed Yoo's attention. Shot over a one year period between October 2008 through November 2009, the US-Korea co-production premiered at the 2011 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and received the Independent Feature Filmmakers Award at the 2011 Cine Gear Expo.
She next starred in rom-com cable TV series The Wedding Scheme, about a kimchi factory president so determined to marry off her four daughters that she embarks on a grand marriage project by getting her girls to cohabitate with prospective groom candidates. Of her role as second daughter Yoon Geun-hee, a strong and smart career woman, Kang said, "I’ve played a lot of nice or innocent characters before, so I think of this as a chance to take on a new challenge."
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