Lee made his feature directorial debut with The Blue in You (1992), which drew praise for its lush, sensual images and strong use of color.
Starring Kang Soo-yeon and Ahn Sung-ki as a businesswoman and photographer who fall in love despite their equally uncompromising personalities, it is considered among the first Korean feminist films of its era.
Lee said the film was slightly autobiographical about his college experience in the turbulent 1980s,[2] and it tackled issues of capitalism versus art in the advertising world, and sexism that a recently graduated female copywriter encounters in her workplace.
Though not a commercial hit during its theatrical run, Il Mare later attained the status of a minor classic among Korean cinema fans, and became the first domestic film to be remade in Hollywood (2006's The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock).
[8][9] In 2011, eleven years after Il Mare, he made his long-awaited directorial comeback with Hindsight, which starred Song Kang-ho and Shin Se-kyung as a retired crime boss attending culinary school and the young female assassin out to kill him.