Kang Soo-youn, first Korean actor to win Venice International Film Festival award, dies at 55

Her final film, Jung_E, will debut on Netflix later this year.

Film icon Kang Soo-youn, the first South Korean actor to win a Venice International Film Festival award, has died at the age of 55.

Kang suffered a cardiac arrest at her home in Seoul on Thursday. She was taken to a nearby hospital and the actress' family said she died two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage at a hospital in southern Seoul, The Korea Herald reports.

Born in 1966, Kang began acting at the age of 4, and she appeared in a series of popular films in the 1980s and 1990s that launched her to international fame. Her turn in 1987's The Surrogate Womb won her the Best Actress prize at the Venice film festival.

In 1989, she worked with Womb director Im Kwon-taek again in Come, Come, Come Upward, which earned her the Moscow International Film Festival's Best Actress honor.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by YONHAP/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (12549566b) South Korean actress Kang Soo-youn poses for a photo at the opening ceremony of the 3rd Gangneung International Film Festival (GIFF) at Gangneung Art Center in Gangneung, 240 kilometers east of Seoul, South Korea, 22 October 2021. GIFF will run through 31 October, showing 116 films from 42 countries. 3rd Gangneung International Film Festival, Korea - 22 Oct 2021
South Korean actress Kang Soo-youn has died at 55. YONHAP/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Her other film credits include 3 Stars, Hanji, The Road to Race Track, Blue in You, and Girl's Night Out. After the indie short Jury in 2012, Kang took almost a decade off from acting, although she served as co-executive director of the Busan International Film Festival from 2015 to 2017, according to The Korea Times.

Kang's final film, Jung_E, a dystopian South Korean sci-fi flick directed by Train to Busan helmer Yeon Sang-ho, will debut on Netflix later this year.

Her funeral will be held Wednesday, and the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul is hosting her memorial altar.

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