---
name: "Cho Jin-woong"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/cho-jin-woong"
fi1m_id: "cho-jin-woong"
imdb_id: "nm2437361"
tmdb_id: 138336
wikidata_id: "Q493864"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "3 March 1976"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 82
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-10-04T04:16:27.984338+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Cho Jin-woong

## Identity

Cho Jin-woong

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/cho-jin-woong
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** cho-jin-woong
- **IMDb ID:** nm2437361
- **TMDB ID:** 138336
- **Wikidata ID:** Q493864
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Jin-woong, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q493864, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2437361/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/138336

Actor. Born 3 March 1976 in Busan, South Korea.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 3 March 1976, Busan, South Korea
- **Active:** 2014–2016
- **Also known as:** Jo Jin-Ung, Jo Jin Woong, Jin-woong Jo, Jo Jin-woong, Jo Won-jun, 조원준
- **Average Fi1m score:** 82, as actor, over 2 titles
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Jin-woong, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q493864, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2437361/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/138336

## Streaming the US now

- **The Roku Channel:** [*A Hard Day*](https://film.one/film/a-hard-day.md) (79)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Cho Jin-woong

> Cho Jin-woong is at his best when he is being nice. A big man with a soft voice, he plays gangsters and crooked policemen as if they were doing you a favour, and the menace comes from how reasonable it all sounds.

The best thing in *A Hard Day* (2014) is a voice on a telephone. Lee Sun-kyun's detective has a body he cannot get rid of, and the man who knows about it rings him up, and Cho Jin-woong plays that man as pleasant, soft-spoken and quick to smile. He never raises his voice. He does not need to. We found him more frightening than any amount of shouting, because he sounds like someone who has already decided how this ends and is only being polite about it.

He came to that part late and by the long road. He trained in theatre and film at Kyungsung University and spent about nine years with the Dongnyeok troupe in Busan before a screen debut in *Once Upon a Time in High School* (2004). The mid-2000s were heavies and gangsters in genre films, parts that used his size and not much else. The turn came with *The Front Line* (2011) and *Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time* (2012), a noir where his dialect work was part of the performance rather than something to be ironed out. *A Hard Day* made him a lead, and *Signal* (2016) on television, as the detective Lee Jae-han, made him popular.

What he does, film after film, is bring a barrel chest and a Busan accent into a room and then use almost none of it. He fills the frame and stands still. It works for crooked policemen and for men who own things, and Yoon Jong-bin has gone back to him three times, most notably as Choi Hak-seong in *The Spy Gone North* (2018). It works less well when the script asks for scale. In *Man of Will* (2017) the playing turns theatrical, and in *Believer* (2018) Won-ho is a hard man with nothing underneath him, which is the archetype doing the work rather than the actor.

In *The Handmaiden* (2016) he is Uncle Kouzuki, the patriarch of the house, and we confess our own review had its eyes on Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri. That is partly Park Chan-wook's doing and partly the point of the part: Kouzuki is the furniture everyone else has to move around. Cho has said, "I am an actor who is not good at acting. It is difficult to show this to my seniors and colleagues." We take that as the modesty of a man who has learnt to do little and let the camera add the rest.

He announced his retirement from acting in December 2025. If that holds, the gap he leaves is a specific one. Korean crime cinema has plenty of men who can shout and few who can make a phone call sound like a verdict.

## Biography

Cho Jin-woong is a South Korean actor. He trained at the Department of Theater and Film at Kyungsung University in Busan and made his screen debut in 2004.

He is known for supporting roles in *A Dirty Carnival* (2006), *The Front Line* (2011), *Hwayi: A Monster Boy* (2013), *A Hard Day* (2014), *The Admiral: Roaring Currents* (2014), *Assassination* (2015) and *The Handmaiden* (2016). He later took leading roles in *The Outlaws* (2017), *The Spy Gone North* (2018) and the series *The Good Bad Mother* (2023). For his performance in *A Hard Day* he received the Best Actor award at the Baeksang Arts Awards.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *The Handmaiden* (2016), Fi1m 85, as Uncle Kouzuki — [page](https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden.md)
- *A Hard Day* (2014), Fi1m 79, as Park Chang-min — [page](https://film.one/film/a-hard-day.md)

## Complete filmography (71)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *No Way Out: The Roulette* (2024), series, as Baek Joong-sik
- *Dead Man* (2024), as Lee Man-jae
- *The Boys* (2023), as Oh Jae-hyung
- *Believer 2* (2023), as Won-ho
- *The Good Bad Mother* (2023), series, as Choi Hae-sik
- *The Devil's Deal* (2023), as Jeon Hae-woong
- *The Policeman's Lineage* (2022), as Park Kang-yoon
- *팩추얼 A.C* (2021), series, as 내레이션
- *Ryuk-sa: A Teaser* (2021), Director
- *데스로드* (2021), series, Actor
- *Me and Me* (2020), as Hyung-gu
- *Black Money* (2019), as Yang Min-hyeok
- *Man of Men* (2019), as Yeong-gi
- *Jesters: The Game Changers* (2019), as Deok-ho
- *Intimate Strangers* (2018), as Seok-ho
- *The Spy Gone North* (2018), as Choi Hak-seong
- *Believer* (2018), as Won-ho
- *시그널* (2017), series, as Lee Jae-han
- *Man of Will* (2017), as Kim Chang-soo
- *The Outlaws* (2017), as Head of the investigation team
- *Blue Busking* (2017), as Reporter Seo
- *The Sheriff In Town* (2017), as Jong-jin
- *Bluebeard* (2017), as Seung-hoon
- *Entourage* (2016), series, as Kim Eun-Gab
- *Run-Off* (2016), as commentator
- *The Hunt* (2016), as Park Dong-geun / Park Myung-geun
- *The Handmaiden* (2016), as Uncle Kouzuki — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden.md)
- *Signal* (2016), series, as Lee Jae-han
- *Assassination* (2015), as Big Gun / Chu Sang-ok
- *Salut d'Amour* (2015), as Jang-soo
- *Foulball* (2015), as Documentary narrator
- *Chronicle of a Blood Merchant* (2015), as Mr. Ahn
- *We Are Brothers* (2014), as Park Sang-yeon
- *The Admiral: Roaring Currents* (2014), as Wakizaka Yasuharu
- *Kundo: Age of the Rampant* (2014), as Lee Tae-Ki
- *A Hard Day* (2014), as Park Chang-min — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/a-hard-day.md)
- *Beyond the Clouds* (2014), series, as Park Kang-jae
- *Hwayi: A Monster Boy* (2013), as Ki-tae
- *My Paparotti* (2013), as Chang-soo
- *An Ethics Lesson* (2013), as Park Myung-rok
- *Man on the Edge* (2013), as Prosecutor
- *Perfect Number* (2012), as Detective Min-bum
- *A Millionaire on the Run* (2012), as Kim Seung-dae
- *Nameless Gangster* (2012), as Kim Pan-ho
- *Perfect Game* (2011), as Kim Yong-chul
- *Tree with Deep Roots* (2011), series, as Moo-hyul
- *The Front Line* (2011), as Yoo Jae-ho
- *Glove* (2011), as Charles
- *Flames of Desire* (2010), series, as Kang Joon-goo
- *A Barefoot Dream* (2010), as James
- *Bestseller* (2010), as Chan-sik
- *A Man Called God* (2010), series, as Jang-ho
- *The Slave Hunters* (2010), series, as Kwak Han-seom
- *City of Fathers* (2009), as Han Sang-goo
- *Fly, Penguin* (2009), as Han Chang-soo
- *Take Off* (2009), as Commentator
- *The Sons of Sol Pharmacy House* (2009), series, as Brutus Lee
- *A Frozen Flower* (2008), as Tae Ahn-gong
- *Lost and Found* (2008), as Min-woo's Friend
- *Spare* (2008), as Smuggler's voice
- *Don't Ask Me About the Past* (2008), series, as Bae Yoon-goo
- *The Guard Post* (2008), as Cook
- *My New Partner* (2008), as Jung Young-chul
- *His Last Gift* (2008), as Baek In-chul
- *Gangster High* (2006), as Jo Hong-kyu
- *A Dirty Carnival* (2006), as Young-pil
- *Les Formidables* (2006), as Detective Shin
- *Running Wild* (2006), as Guryongpa Gang Member
- *My Brother* (2004), as Doo-shik
- *Once Upon a Time in High School* (2004), as Yasaengma Gang Member
- *Believer 0*, series, as Won-ho

## Gallery

- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-af44419405fd.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Shane981128, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/ChoJin-woong_at_news_conference_of_movie_%EC%82%AC%EB%83%A5.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![영화 아가씨 제작보고회. 왼쪽부터 조진웅, 김태리, 김민희, 하정우, 박찬욱. (2016)](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-4afb231d91fa.jpg) 영화 아가씨 제작보고회. 왼쪽부터 조진웅, 김태리, 김민희, 하정우, 박찬욱. (2016) — tenasia10, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/20160502_handmaiden_announcement_for_production.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Actor Cho Jin-woong arrives at the red carpet event of the Pifan in Bucheon on July 17, 2014](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-325b465643b6.jpg) Actor Cho Jin-woong arrives at the red carpet event of the Pifan in Bucheon on July 17, 2014 — https://www.flickr.com/photos/koreanet, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Actor_Cho_Jin-woong_arrives_at_the_red_carpet_event_of_the_Pifan_in_Bucheon_on_July_17%2C_2014.jpg/1280px-Actor_Cho_Jin-woong_arrives_at_the_red_carpet_event_of_the_Pifan_in_Bucheon_on_July_17%2C_2014.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-80ea29cccfba.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-643bfa27400f.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-9dab8e8fe903.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-b8bbc014b606.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-3dd6dc9e21e1.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB
- ![Cho Jin-woong](https://film.one/media/person/106173/gallery-5d3e843a6238.jpg) Cho Jin-woong — Image via TMDB

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/cho-jin-woong