He directed the films Rough Cut (2008), Secret Reunion (2010), The Front Line (2011), and A Taxi Driver (2017).
Rough Cut was much more commercially oriented than Kim's own movies, and the star power of its two leading actors So Ji-sub and Kang Ji-hwan propelled the indie to more than one million admissions, resulting in a profit 10 times its low budget.
[3] A story about two intelligence agents, one from South Korea and the other from the North (played by Song Kang-ho and Kang Dong-won, respectively), who approach each other in acts of espionage only to develop an unlikely friendship, the film sold 5.5 million tickets, making it the second highest grossing Korean film of that year.
Through the guise of a mystery narrative, the film revolved around the story of South and North Korean soldiers carrying out meaningless sacrifices trying to capture a nameless hill.
[6][7][8][2] It was selected as South Korea's submission to the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film,[9] but did not make the final shortlist.