James Nam Gung-Fan 南宮勳
In Korea, James Nam Gung-Fan was called their own Elvis. In Hong Kong he appeared in Shaw Brothers action films of the early 1970s, and he returned to Korea already as a director. He met the singer Hyunmi, whom he had known back from performing for American troops, again on television several decades later.
Nam Seok-hun was born in 1939 into a family with ties to the theatre. His parents worked in a troupe, and he began performing as a singer. In 1959, as the Korean agency Yonhap reports, Nam stood in for a female singer at a concert for American servicemen in Chuncheon. After that he began receiving invitations to perform at US Eighth Army venues. Under the name Namgung Hun he sang rock 'n' roll, and the Korean press nicknamed him the Elvis of Korea. In the early 1960s he began acting in films. One of his early roles, listed in the Korean Film Archive catalogue, dates from 1964, when Nam was still recording songs and performing. Among his early recordings, the Korean press names the song for the film The Governess (가정교사) and "A Hut in the Twilight".
In the late 1960s he went to work in Hong Kong and signed a contract with Shaw Brothers. His Korean stage name was rendered variously in English credits. Hong Kong film audiences know him as James Nam. In 1970 he appeared for Chang Cheh in The Heroic Ones, and that picture was followed by Six Assassins (1971), King Boxer (1972) and The Fourteen Amazons (1972). Hong Kong audiences barely knew him as a singer. The studio cast him in films about swordsmen and kung fu fighters, where his martial arts skills came in handy.
Nam had already begun working on scripts and directing films while still in Hong Kong. He took part in writing the script for Flower in the Rain (1972), and in the credits of The Fierce One (1974) he is listed as actor, screenwriter and director. His return to Korean cinema dates to the same period. As producer Ahn Jong-mu recalled, his colleague Han Gap-Jin tracked Nam down in a Hong Kong hotel and suggested he come back to direct a crime picture and appear in it. The film Notorious (악명) (1974) became his directorial debut in Korea. Judging by the press of the time, the directors' association objected to Nam directing the film because he was not on its committee. He kept directing all the same. Several more of his Korean films came out in the second half of the decade, and in 1983 he directed another. Other directorial works of his also played in Asian distribution — Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu and Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu 2. In Hong Kong Nam had acted in martial arts films; now he was directing pictures of the same genre himself.
Nam spoke again about the days when singing was his main occupation in 2018 on KBS. On the programme he was reunited with the singer Hyunmi, whom he had known back in the days of the concerts for American servicemen. They had not seen each other for many years. The press had once wondered whether there had been a romance between them. On air Nam said that at the time he had been dating another girl, a Miss Korea contestant, and had regarded Hyunmi as the friend of an older colleague. By then he had served in the church for many years. Judging by newspaper accounts of the same programme, Nam said that after the death of his first wife he had become a pastor and later married a missionary. He was survived by a son and a daughter from his first marriage. His daughter, Nam Hee-ju, also became an actress. Nam died in Hawaii on 7 May 2024 at the age of eighty-five.
