Lee Jang-ho was born in Seoul in 1945 and graduated from the School of Architecture and Art at Hongik University. A Fine, Windy Day (1980), Children of Darkness (1981), Widow Dance (1983), and Declaration of Fools (1983), which earned Lee the title of "socially-conscious director," are prime examples of Korean realism. The Man with Three Coffins (1987) won the Caligari Film Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Lee received the Seoul Culture Award in 2002 and the Jade Crown Order of Cultural Merit in Korea in 2003, and he currently serves as the chairman of the Shin Sang-ok Memorial Foundation and the Seoul Film Commission.