Kim Seok-yoon

Kim Seok-yoon is a South Korean director whose credits include television sitcoms, melodramas, mysteries, and feature films. His early success came with MBC's Old Miss Diary, a comedy centered on the unmarried thirtysomething Mi-ja, her family, and friends. Kim directed the television series and its 2006 film version, in which Ye Ji-won played Mi-ja and Ji Hyun-woo played the younger man who becomes important in her life.

In cinema, Kim directed Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow (2011), a Joseon-era mystery starring Kim Myung-min as investigator Kim Min, with Oh Dal-su as his partner and Han Ji-min in the cast. He also directed the 2015 follow-up Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island. That same year he released The Accidental Detective, pairing Kwon Sang-woo and Sung Dong-il as a crime-solving enthusiast and a detective drawn into a murder case.

Kim returned to television with My Wife's Having an Affair This Week (2016), an adaptation of a Japanese series. Lee Sun-kyun plays a husband who discovers evidence suggesting his wife's infidelity and turns to an online community for advice; Song Ji-hyo co-stars as his wife.

His 2019 drama The Light in Your Eyes brought Han Ji-min and Kim Hye-ja together in a story about time, aging, and memory. Kim Hye-ja received the Grand Prize at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards for her performance as Kim Hye-ja, while Han Ji-min plays the character at a younger age.

In Law School (2021), Kim directed a campus legal mystery set after the killing of a professor at Hankuk University Law School. The series follows students and faculty, including Kim Myung-min's exacting professor Yang Jong-hoon, as they confront the case.

My Liberation Notes (2022), written by Park Hae-young, focuses on Yeom siblings Mi-jeong, Chang-hee, and Ki-jeong, who commute from the fictional village of Sanpo. Their encounters with the withdrawn Mr Gu form a central thread. Kim again directed Han Ji-min in Behind Your Touch (2023), a comic murder mystery in which veterinarian Bong Ye-bun gains psychometric abilities after a meteor shower and joins detective Moon Jang-yeol. The series also features Lee Min-ki and Suho.

The range of these credits shows Kim's recurring interest in ensemble relationships under unusual pressure: a Joseon investigation, a law-school prosecution, a commuter family's dissatisfaction, and a small-town serial killing. His collaborations with Han Ji-min include Detective K, The Light in Your Eyes, and Behind Your Touch as well.