Jang Jae-hyun

Biography:

South Korean film director and screenwriter Jang Jae-hyun was born in 1981. The popular movies The Priests (2015), Svaha: The Sixth Finger (2019), and Exhuma (2024) helped him become well-known. He received his degree from the Department of Film at Korea National University of Arts after graduating from the Department of Film at Sungkyunkwan University. Before making his breakthrough with the short 12th Assistant Deacon (2014), which won Best Film in The Extreme Nightmare section at the 13th Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival and Best Director Award (Korean Competition For Shorts) at the 15th Jeonju International Film Festival in 2014, Jang worked as an assistant director on the popular historical drama Masquerade (2012). Based on the critically acclaimed short, he produced his first feature film, The Priests (2015), a supernatural mystery thriller that sold over 5.4 million tickets. Jang remarked, “When I noticed a priest anxiously waiting for someone on the other side of a fast food restaurant window, I had a strange feeling.” At that point, the priests began.