Ryoo Seung-bum (Ryu Seung-beom), born on August 9, 1980, in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, is a South Korean actor. The younger brother of director Ryoo Seung-wan, he has made a name for himself with his particularly energetic and unpredictable acting style and a filmography that blends arthouse cinema, crime thrillers, comedy, and action films.
He made his film debut in 2000 in Die Bad, his brother’s first feature film, which was compiled from several short films shot on a shoestring budget. His very naturalistic performance immediately caught people’s attention and earned him the Best New Actor award at the Grand Bell Awards. He went on to star in, among others, Waikiki Brothers, No Blood, No Tears, No Comment and a brief but memorable appearance in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance by Park Chan-wook.
In 2004, he reunited with Ryoo Seung-wan for Arahan, in which he plays a clumsy police officer who discovers he has extraordinary martial arts abilities. But above all, it is Crying Fist in 2005, which marked a major turning point: opposite Choi Min-sik, he played a young delinquent who finds a way to turn his life around through boxing. His performance was widely acclaimed and cemented his reputation as one of the leading actors of his generation.
He confirms this with Bloody Tie (2006), for which he won the Best Actor award at the Baeksang Arts Awards, and then diversified his roles with Radio Dayz, No Mercy, The Servant and Foxy Festival. In 2010, he played the role of prosecutor Joo Yang in The Unjust, a new collaboration with his brother. His performance earned him Best Actor awards at the Buil Film Awards and the Fantasia Film Festival.
After The Suicide Forecast, Doomsday Book, Over My Dead Body and Perfect Number, he reunited with Ryoo Seung-wan in 2013 in The Berlin File. In it, he plays Dong Myung-soo, a particularly brutal North Korean assassin, in a performance that drew critical acclaim. The film drew more than seven million viewers, making it the biggest box-office hit of his career.
After The Berlin File, Ryoo Seung-bum took a break from the entertainment industry. He traveled through Europe and spent three years in Paris, where he worked as a model. His return to film came with Intimate Enemies in 2015, followed by The Net, Human, Space, Time, and Human and Mug: One Eyed Jack.
After focusing primarily on film for many years, he made a notable return to television in 2023 in Moving, in which he plays Frank. He then took on the role of Baek Cheol-hee in Family Matters in 2024. In 2025, he also appears in the movie Good News in the role of director Park Sang-hyeon.
In addition to his acting career, Ryoo Seung-bum works as a DJ under the name DJ Ryoo since 2007 and has become known for his experimental fashion sense. In his personal life, he married his Slovak partner—an artist who has worked in France—in 2020, and they have a daughter together.
Among the projects it has announced are The Dealer, scheduled for 2027, in which he is set to play Hwang Chi-su, as well as Moving Season 2, scheduled for 2028, in which he is set to reprise the role of Frank.
