KIM Ki-duk is a South Korean film director and professor. Best-known outside of Korea for his 1967 giant-monster film, Yonggary, KIM Ki-duk directed 66 movies in total from his directorial debut in 1961 until his retirement from the film industry in 1977. Along with KIM Soo-yong and LEE Man-hee, KIM was one of the leading young directors of the Korean cinematic wave of the 1960s. The most distinctive and successful genre of this period was the melodrama.