Tae-yong graduated from Yonsei University in 1994 with a major in politics and diplomacy, and first became involved in Korean cinema through a friend, who was an assistant director of an independent production.

He met and became friends with fellow director Min Kyu-dong while at KAFA, where he and his classmates would work on short films as a part of the crew and doing lighting.

[6] Kim then joined the restoration project and re-directed Crossroads of Youth (1934) by "performing" Korea’s oldest known silent film with live narration (by the byeonsa) and musical accompaniment.

Kim married Chinese actress Tang Wei on July 12, 2014, in the front yard of the home of film legend Ingmar Bergman on the remote Swedish island of Fårö.

[14][15][16] The couple first met in 2009 when he directed her in the film Late Autumn, and began dating in October 2013 after Tang shot a commercial in Korea.