Han Jae-rim

Han Jae-rim (born July 14, 1975) is a South Korean film director. He directed Rules of Dating (2005), The Show Must Go On (2007), The Face Reader (2013), The King (2017), and Emergency Declaration (2021). Career Born in 1975, Han Jae-rim graduated from Seoul Institute of the Arts in 1998. He began his filmmaking career in 2003 as an assistant director and script editor for Min Byung-chun's Natural City. Han was the runner-up for Best Screenplay at the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) Screenplay Contest in 2003 with To Do or Not to Do, which he had co-written with Go Yoon-hee. Retitled Rules of Dating, it became his directorial debut in 2005. Featuring sexually frank dialogue between teacher colleagues played by Park Hae-il and Kang Hye-jung, the film explored controversial gender politics, sexual harassment and moral relativism in a cynical and unsettling take on the romantic comedy. Rules of Dating drew critical praise and became a sleeper hit with 1.6 million admissions. Han won Best Screenplay at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, along with Best New Director at the Busan Film Critics Awards and the Grand Bell Awards. Han, Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung then signed on to each shoot a short film for the omnibus Doomsday Book in 2006. Han's segment "The Christmas Gift" was supposed to have been a science-fiction musical retelling of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, but it was never shot after financing fell through. The film was later released in 2012, but without Han's involvement (Kim and Yim co-directed the third short with a completely new script).