Choi Hee-Seo
- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Moon Choi (aka Hee-Seo Choi) is a Korean actress who is currently based in Seoul, South Korea.
She spent her childhood in South Korea, Japan and the United States where she learned versatile culture, art and language. At the age of 18, she returned to Seoul and attended Yonsei University where she studied Journalism and English Literature during the day, and trained as an actor at Yonsei Theater Art Club at night. At the age of 21, Choi went on to take acting classes at UC Berkeley as an exchange student for a year. On her return to Seoul, she auditioned for her first commercial film "Lifting King Kong"(2009, South Korea), a dramatic story of female weightlifters, and landed on her first professional acting career. After her major supporting role from the film "Lifting King Kong", she acted in several independent films and short films which were screened in prestigious film festivals worldwide. Her short "Janus", a 15-minute film which premiered in Cannes Film Festival 2014, has won Jury's Grand Prize at Poitiers Film Festival in France, 2015.
In 2016, Choi met a life-changing opportunity on her way to a rehearsal: a prominent writer and director Shin Yeon-shick, who, after observing her memorizing her lines on subway, gave her his name card and invited her to meet the venerated director of "King and the Clown", Lee Jun-ik. The coincidental encounter led her to land a role of "Kumi" in director Lee's new film "Dong-Ju: the Portrait of the Poet," which earned several prizes in South Korea as "Best Film of the Year" in 2016. Her performance in the film was acclaimed by film critics and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Wildflower Film Awards in 2016. In 2017, Choi achieved widespread recognition and acclaim for her breakthrough role in "Anarchist from Colony", also directed by Lee Jun-ik, where she portrayed the Japanese anarchist and a feminist Kaneko Fumiko, who fought for freedom and equal rights of Korean people from Japanese imperialism. After the nationwide release, Choi rose to fame for her breakout performance as Fumiko and for the number of prizes she received for the role: she won 9 awards including Best New Actress from Blue Dragon Awards, Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, Buil Film Awards, etc., and received both Best New Actress and Best Actress at Grand Bell Awards. Choi was the first actress to have received Best New Actress and Best Actress awards at the same time in the 54-year-history of Grand Bell Awards.
Choi performs in fluent Korean, English and Japanese. She also speaks conversational Italian.
She spent her childhood in South Korea, Japan and the United States where she learned versatile culture, art and language. At the age of 18, she returned to Seoul and attended Yonsei University where she studied Journalism and English Literature during the day, and trained as an actor at Yonsei Theater Art Club at night. At the age of 21, Choi went on to take acting classes at UC Berkeley as an exchange student for a year. On her return to Seoul, she auditioned for her first commercial film "Lifting King Kong"(2009, South Korea), a dramatic story of female weightlifters, and landed on her first professional acting career. After her major supporting role from the film "Lifting King Kong", she acted in several independent films and short films which were screened in prestigious film festivals worldwide. Her short "Janus", a 15-minute film which premiered in Cannes Film Festival 2014, has won Jury's Grand Prize at Poitiers Film Festival in France, 2015.
In 2016, Choi met a life-changing opportunity on her way to a rehearsal: a prominent writer and director Shin Yeon-shick, who, after observing her memorizing her lines on subway, gave her his name card and invited her to meet the venerated director of "King and the Clown", Lee Jun-ik. The coincidental encounter led her to land a role of "Kumi" in director Lee's new film "Dong-Ju: the Portrait of the Poet," which earned several prizes in South Korea as "Best Film of the Year" in 2016. Her performance in the film was acclaimed by film critics and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Wildflower Film Awards in 2016. In 2017, Choi achieved widespread recognition and acclaim for her breakthrough role in "Anarchist from Colony", also directed by Lee Jun-ik, where she portrayed the Japanese anarchist and a feminist Kaneko Fumiko, who fought for freedom and equal rights of Korean people from Japanese imperialism. After the nationwide release, Choi rose to fame for her breakout performance as Fumiko and for the number of prizes she received for the role: she won 9 awards including Best New Actress from Blue Dragon Awards, Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, Buil Film Awards, etc., and received both Best New Actress and Best Actress at Grand Bell Awards. Choi was the first actress to have received Best New Actress and Best Actress awards at the same time in the 54-year-history of Grand Bell Awards.
Choi performs in fluent Korean, English and Japanese. She also speaks conversational Italian.
