Here’s a quick link to an NY Times article on SK director Lee Chang-dong:
THE South Korean director Lee Chang-dong occupies a unique, somewhat contradictory position in his country’s film scene. As the first filmmaker to serve as South Korean minister of culture (from 2003 to 2004) and a longtime advocate of the quota system that obliges his nation’s theaters to show a minimum number of local films, he has played a central role in the resurgence of Korean cinema.