Vigilante thrillers, period epics, indie heartbreakers — you name it, one of Korean entertainment’s finest actors has been in it. While the third season of Taxi Driver has him in the headlines, The Art of Negotiation has also made 2025 a standout year for him. And since Lee Je-hoon has never been one to stay in a single lane, there’s no shortage of roles to dive into — spanning some of the best films and television shows of his career. Here’s a look at the performances that earned him critical acclaim.
When biotechnology didn’t speak to his soul, Lee Je-hoon dropped out of Korea University and transferred to the School of Drama at the Korea National University of Arts. And while few other Korean actors can claim to have traded science labs for scripts, he’s always had a flair for the unconventional and brave. Including his career path, which went from over 18 student shorts and independent films (including the queer coming-of-age romance Just Friends?) to his big break as a volatile alpha male in indie drama Bleak Night.
The role earned him a sweep of Best New Actor awards and announced the arrival of a performer unafraid of emotional discomfort. It also reflected how Lee sees his craft. “I only want to exist as a character,” he told Korea JoongAng Daily. “I don’t want people to think of the actor Lee Je-hoon when they see my roles.” While he once feared that his own identity might bleed into his performances, Lee now places his trust firmly in the audience, believing that what ultimately lasts isn’t popularity, but the work itself.
In recent years, that philosophy has found its most visible expression in Taxi Driver. Across its three seasons, Lee plays Kim Do-gi, a former special forces officer turned vigilante who delivers justice on behalf of victims failed by the system. Lee anchors the series with a performance that is equal parts cathartic and controlled, with the series standing as one of Lee’s most defining television roles. At the same time, 2025 also saw Lee earn praise for The Art of Negotiation, a sharp counterpoint to his vigilante persona. Swapping fists for finesse, he plays a man who navigates power, persuasion, and corporate mind games.
Together, these projects underline what has become Lee Je-hoon’s greatest strength: an ability to move seamlessly between genres while remaining anchored in character. If you’ve yet to be acquainted with this actor’s mettle, we’ve put together the best, most career-defining roles of Lee Je hoon.
Roles of actor Lee Je hoon from the best Korean movies and TV shows
Ki-tae, Bleak Night (2010)
Every remarkable career has a beginning, and for Lee Je-hoon, it started with Bleak Night, director Yoon Sung-hyun’s haunting coming-of-age drama. Originally a Korean Academy of Film Arts graduation project, the film unfolds through absence. After the death of high school student Ki-tae, his father searches for answers, tracing the fractured relationships between Ki-tae and his two closest friends. What emerges, through shifting perspectives and uneasy flashbacks, is a portrait of adolescence steeped in miscommunication, insecurity, and emotional violence.
Lee’s Ki-tae is not an easy character to like. He is volatile, domineering, deeply insecure, and painfully lonely. He needles his friends, lashes out when he feels abandoned, and masks vulnerability with aggression. Yet Lee never plays him as a villain. Instead, he exposes the quiet desperation beneath Ki-tae’s cruelty. What makes the performance so striking is that Ki-tae, who takes his own life, shapes the emotional lives of those left behind. In doing this he forces them, and the audience, to confront uncomfortable truths about guilt and responsibility. In an interview with Korea Herald, Lee revealed that he enjoyed portraying characters that influence other characters in the films, even after their death. “ Gi-tae from “Bleak Night,” for example, will always be a part of his friends’ lives,” he added.
Critics were quick to notice. Lee swept multiple Best New Actor awards, including honours from the Blue Dragon Film Awards, the Korean Film Critics Association, and the Korean Culture and Entertainment Awards. For a debut performance, this was deemed extraordinary.
Park Hae-young, Signal (2016)
In this genre-defining crime thriller that changed the landscape of Korean television, Lee plays Park Hae-young, a sharp but deeply jaded criminal profiler whose life is shaped by a childhood trauma he never quite recovers from. As a boy, he witnesses his friend being kidnapped — a crime he reports to the police, only for it to be dismissed. Years later, the friend is found murdered, the case left cold and unresolved. That failure hardens Hae-young, leaving him distrustful of authority and emotionally frayed around the edges.
Then comes the twist: an old walkie-talkie that allows Hae-young to communicate with detective Lee Jae-han (Cho Jin-woong) from 20 years in the past. Together, across time, they reopen cold cases inspired by real-life crimes in Gyeonggi Province, including the Park Chorong Bitnari kidnapping and murders linked to the Hwaseong serial killings. The result is a tense, emotionally charged thriller that feels unsettling precisely because it hits so close to home. The show took over the coveted Friday–Saturday slot after Reply 1988 — a cultural juggernaut that ended with a staggering 19.6 per cent viewership rating — and had big shoes to fill. But when the drama premiered at 5.4 per cent and steadily climbed to the 7–8 per cent range by its eighth episode, it was clear the gamble had paid off. Signal quickly became the most talked-about show of its season.
Lee Je-hoon’s portrayal of Park Hae-young, however, wasn’t universally embraced, and that’s precisely what made it interesting. Unlike the cool, detached profilers audiences were used to, Hae-young is emotional, hot-headed, and visibly haunted. Some viewers criticised the character for being too expressive, too volatile. But producer Kim Won-seok noted, this emotionality is the point.“He became a profiler due to a painful incident he experienced as a young boy. He’s an emotional and sensitive character. Such an emotional person trying to carry out the work of a profiler is bound to look dynamic. The actor playing this character needs to use a lot of muscles in his face and show diverse feelings,” he told Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview. Lee Je-hoon’s willingness to lean into the character’s rawness earned him acclaim from critics, including the PD’s Choice Award at the 2016 tvN10 Awards.
Park Yeol, Anarchist from Colony (2017)
Directed by Lee Joon-ik, this period film set during the Japanese colonial period sees Lee Je-hoon as Park Yeol: an anarchist, independence activist, and one of the most unruly figures to challenge Japanese imperialism from within Tokyo itself. He’s also the leader of Bulryeongsa, an anarchist group made up of Korean and Japanese members united by their resistance to oppression. Easygoing yet defiant, boyish yet fiercely ideological, Park is portrayed as a man who refuses to bow — whether to authority, fear, or the idea that freedom must be politely requested.
The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, a real-life catastrophe that was followed by the mass slaughter of over 6,000 Koreans by Japanese vigilantes. In the film, the massacre is deliberately obscured by authorities who redirect public fury towards Park and his organisation, accusing them of plotting crimes against the state, including an alleged assassination attempt on Prince Hirohito. What follows is a chilling courtroom drama in which Park and his partner, Kaneko Fumiko (Choi Hee-seo), openly mock the imperial system, refusing to plead for mercy or legitimacy.
Lee described his character to Korea Herald as “boyish, fiery, and sometimes humorous,” layers emerging gradually over the course of the film. To stay faithful to the real-life figure, Lee immersed himself completely. He pored over historical texts, took Japanese lessons to deliver long stretches of dialogue, and underwent an extreme physical transformation, surviving largely on protein shakes during filming to replicate Park’s gaunt appearance. “For this film, I can say that I gave everything that was inside me,” he said, later laughing about how overwhelming it felt to eat carbohydrates again once filming wrapped.
Also pivotal in film is Park’s relationship with Kaneko, not a conventional romance, but a partnership rooted in shared ideology. “It’s not everyday romantic love,” Lee explained. “They are comrades respecting each other’s individuality.” Their bond, forged through rebellion rather than tenderness, gives the film its emotional backbone. The performance earned Lee widespread acclaim and the Best Actor award at Korea’s Resistance Film Festival.
Sang-gu, Move to Heaven (2021)
In this tender, deeply human drama, Lee plays Cho Sang-gu, a hot-headed ex-boxer freshly released from prison who suddenly finds himself the legal guardian of his older brother’s son, Geu-ru (Tang Jun-sang), a young man on the autism spectrum who works as a trauma cleaner. At first, Sang-gu treats the arrangement like a transactional nuisance. His brother’s will states that he will inherit the family home only if he looks after Geu-ru — a condition he begrudgingly accepts, convinced it will be simple. It turns out to be anything but. Between navigating Geu-ru’s routines and confronting the emotional weight of cleaning homes where people have died alone, Sang-gu is forced to face grief, responsibility, anger, and other strong unresolved emotions.
The role was transformative for Lee, both professionally and personally. “After my decision to star in Move to Heaven, I became more interested in people and society,” he told Korea JoongAng Daily. “The heart of the series is ultimately about people’s attention and interest.” Reflecting on the drama’s themes of loneliness and connection, he added that it made him question whether he had ever properly reached out to those closest to him and hoped the series would encourage viewers to do just that, especially during difficult times.
Physically, the role demanded just as much commitment. Lee trained intensely, working out at least six days a week to give Sang-gu the aura of a hardened fighter. He also proposed a key change to the character, suggesting that Sang-gu be written as an ex-professional boxer rather than someone loosely tied to the sport. “Boxing, to me, feels like a very honest and sacred form of sport,” he explained. “There’s only two sets of fists, fighting each other in a bath of blood and sweat. And I wanted to portray Sang-gu’s innocence through this sport, and thankfully enough, producers let me try that out.” This choice added an unexpected tenderness beneath Sang-gu’s tough exterior. This earned him the Best Actor and Best Actor in Leading Role titles at the 2021 Asia Contents Awards and Asian Academy Creative Awards respectively.
Park Yeong-han, Chief Detective 1958 (2024)
This MBC drama serves as a prequel to Chief Inspector, the long-running crime series that aired from 1971 to 1989 and regularly pulled in viewership ratings north of 70 per cent. Expectations were, naturally, sky-high. Set in the late 1950s and 60s, the series rewinds the clock to follow a younger Park Yeong-han, long before he became the legendary chief inspector audiences knew. Lee plays him as a man fuelled by anger and a fierce sense of justice, struggling against a system that routinely tramples on human dignity. This is policing before profiling and CCTV — when crimes were solved through gut instinct, grit, and sheer persistence.
Transferred to Seoul after earning recognition for catching cattle thieves in a rural town, Park finds himself navigating a new world of corruption and politics. He teams up with the hot-tempered Kim Sang-soon (Lee Dong-hwi) and two earnest newcomers, Cho Kyung-hwan (Choi Woo-sung) and Seo Ho-jung (Yoon Hyun-soo). Together, they form an unlikely but effective unit, tackling crimes while slowly becoming detectives for the people, not the powerful.
For Lee, the role came with equal parts excitement and pressure. Park Yeong-han was originally portrayed by veteran actor Choi Bool-am, a towering figure in Korean television. “I wanted to show work that would make both Choi and viewers proud,” he said in an interview with The Korea Times. “So I poured everything I had into it.” Rather than attempting a straight imitation, Lee chose a more thoughtful approach. He studied Choi’s past performances beyond Chief Inspector, drawing inspiration from his varied expressions, tone, and warmth across different genres. “I wanted to show that a person can have a wide range of expressions and faces in his younger years,” Lee explained, resisting the urge to limit himself through mimicry alone.
Choi himself offered simple but pivotal advice during table readings: keep the passion, keep the anger. Lee leaned into that guidance, especially in the early episodes, allowing Park’s righteous fury to lead the way before tempering it with growth and maturity. The result is a performance that feels raw, principled, and quietly stirring. The audience response echoed that effort. Chief Detective 1958 premiered to ratings above 10 per cent and maintained its momentum through its finale, closing at 10.6 per cent. And Lee earned the Top Excellence Award for Actor in a Miniseries at the MBC Drama Awards.
Which of these do you think were his most pivotal performances?
(Hero and Featured Images: Courtesy of Taxi Driver/Netflix)
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.