He is known for attacking a Japanese police station in Japanese-occupied Korea and subsequently dying in Seoul's Seodaemun Prison where he was serving his sentence.

In his youth, Kim Hyŏnggwŏn studied in Sunhwa school near his home in present-day Mangyongdae, Pyongyang.

[5] In August 1930, he led a small detachment of guerrillas across the Amnok (Yalu) river to Japanese-occupied Korea from Manchuria.

He died on 12 January 1936, during his sentence in Seoul's Seodaemun Prison,[9][10][11] where anti-Japanese dissidents were detained from 1910 to 1945 in cruel conditions.

[12] Kim Il Sung remarks in his autobiography With the Century, that it was a corrupt yet close Manchurian local official, Chae Jin-yong, who betrayed his uncle and became an informer against him.

[16] There is also a Kim Hyong Gwon Teachers' College named after him, and Hamnam University of Education Nr.