This was a period when the South Korean television industry was undergoing a creative transition with the launch of color broadcasts and ENG cameras, and the new format of short dramas adapted from famous novels, MBC's Bestseller Theater (베스트셀러극장).
Like most newbie production directors (called by the title "PD" in Korea), Kim slowly climbed up the ranks by assisting veterans, getting the occasional producer credit on Chief Inspector (수사반장), the 1981 landmark police procedural starring Choi Bool-am.
In 1983, he told the story of legendary pansori pioneer Shin Chae-hyo in 1983's The Jester (광대가) by Lee Eun-seong, one of the many three-episode experiments that would eventually lead to the birth of miniseries in 1987; he again worked with Lee the same year in the short Gosanja Kim Jeong-ho (고산자 김정호, 1983), a biopic of the notorious late Joseon cartographer, and then moved on to Dasan Jeong Yak-yong (다산 정약용, 1983), written by another sageuk pioneer, Im Choong; he was even entrusted the June 25 special (commemorating the Korean War) which adapted Jo Jung-rae's The Gates of Men (인간의 문) for the small screen, a tale of a left-wing partisan's guilt 20 years after his war crimes.
But their partnership blossomed with Human Market (인간시장), adapted from Kim Hong-shin's bestseller and which became one of the classics of 1980s Korean TV (SBS would later remake it in 2004).
Eyes of Dawn began filming in advance in June 1990, with overseas shoots in the Philippines and Harbin (despite the fact that Korea and China hadn't yet established diplomatic relations), a budget of ₩7.2 billion (five- to ten-times the cost of an average drama at the time), over 270 actors and 21,000 extras.
Sandglass was controversial because it doubled as a commentary on painful moments of Korea's contemporary history, such as the 1980 Gwangju Massacre (interspersed with its reenactment was archival video footage).
[5] (As of 2018, the company is now a subsidiary of ESA Co., Ltd.)[6] He collaborated with Song Ji-na for the sixth time in 2002's Great Ambition (대망, Daemang), a period drama starring Jang Hyuk, Lee Yo-won, Han Jae-suk and Son Ye-jin.
A fantasy epic about a 21st-century plastic surgeon who time travels to the Goryeo era and falls for royal bodyguard Choi Young, the series initially cast Lee Joon-gi and Kim Hee-sun as the protagonists.
Several months after the drama ended, members of the Faith cast and crew filed a lawsuit in February 2013 against Kim over unpaid wages amounting to ₩640 million (US$572,800), under the charge that he had misappropriated ₩7 billion for personal use.
In China at the time filming a Chinese television drama, Kim was summoned back home on account of the lawsuit, then issued an overseas travel ban.
The cheap goshitel room (costing ₩15,000) had been recommended to him by a longtime confidant, his barber, as a refuge before a questioning session at the prosecutor's office scheduled that day.
[15] In an apparent charcoal-burning suicide by asphyxiation, police officials said Kim had duct taped the doorways and windows, and half-burned charcoal briquettes were found near his body.
Kim Seung-soo at the Seoul Institute of the Arts praised his eye for detail, saying, "He was a true master of his craft who insisted on perfection, and this passion had run into a brick wall.