Kim Yong-geon Opens His Han River Home — and It's Basically a Ha Jung-woo Gallery

Veteran Korean actor Kim Yong-geon has one of the more unusual home interiors you will find anywhere in Seoul. His Han River view apartment — a spacious, gallery-like space in the heart of the city — is lined with paintings, family photographs, and personal mementos that tell the story of a life deeply intertwined with Korean film history. On the March 30, 2026 episode of tvN STORY's What Are You Leaving Behind? (남겨서 뭐하게), he opened those doors to the cameras, and the result was a surprisingly intimate portrait of a man most people know as the father of actor Ha Jung-woo.

Kim Yong-geon is, of course, a respected actor in his own right — a veteran of Korean dramas and films with a career spanning decades. But the home he revealed on Monday's broadcast doubles as something else: an unofficial gallery of his son's artistic work, accumulated over years and displayed throughout the apartment with the kind of care that suggests genuine admiration.

A Home That Looks More Like a Gallery

The apartment's interior immediately struck the show's cameras with its gallery-like quality. Artworks lined the walls of corridors and living spaces, and the overall aesthetic — clean, deliberate, with each piece given room to breathe — reflected both taste and a clear sense of personal meaning attached to the objects on display.

Ha Jung-woo, beyond being one of Korea's most sought-after leading men in film, is also a serious painter. He has shown his work publicly and maintains a creative practice alongside his acting career. The paintings on display in his father's apartment are not decorative purchases — they are works by someone in the family, placed there because they matter personally, not because they complete a design scheme.

Kim Yong-geon pointed out one painting in particular that Ha Jung-woo had created in Los Angeles roughly ten years ago. The elder actor had loved it so much that he made it his KakaoTalk profile picture — a choice that carries its own quiet significance. "This one I liked so much I set it as my KakaoTalk profile," he said on camera, with the kind of simple pride that is more affecting than any elaborate tribute would be.

Family Photographs and a Son's Childhood on the Wall

Alongside the paintings, the apartment holds an extensive family archive. The living room features family photographs of Ha Jung-woo, his brother Kim Young-hoon — also an actor — and Kim Young-hoon's wife, actress Hwang Bo-ra, whose wedding photos are displayed prominently. The home has the feel of a space where family history is taken seriously, preserved and displayed rather than packed away.

The study offered its own emotional detail. Among the items arranged there were photographs of Ha Jung-woo as a three-year-old child — early images of a boy who would grow up to become one of South Korea's most acclaimed film actors. Seeing those pictures alongside the adult artist's paintings in the same apartment creates an unusual sense of continuity: a parent watching a child become a creative person, and quietly keeping the evidence of that journey around him.

Ha Jung-woo, for those unfamiliar, is known internationally for his roles in Korean films including The Handmaiden, The Wailing, and A Bittersweet Life. He is consistently regarded as one of the most versatile and bankable actors in Korean cinema, and his parallel identity as a visual artist adds a dimension to his public image that his father's apartment makes newly visible.

A Reunion at the Heart of the Episode

Kim Yong-geon's appearance was part of a broader reunion episode built around the 1995 KBS2 drama series Geumchondaek's People (금촌댁네 사람들). He appeared alongside comedian Jung Sun-hee and entertainer Im Chang-jung — both of whom had been part of the same production more than three decades ago. The episode was structured around the concept of revisiting what participants have held onto from their lives and careers: objects, memories, moments that have refused to fade.

For Kim Yong-geon, the answer appeared to be family — specifically the creative output of a son he has watched grow from a three-year-old in old photographs to one of Korea's most celebrated filmmakers and painters. The home he showed on camera is not a trophy room. It is something quieter and more personal: a private record of what he values most.

What the Home Reveals About Kim Yong-geon Himself

There is something worth noting about what Kim Yong-geon chose to emphasize during the home tour. He did not linger on the luxurious view of the Han River, or on the scale and design of the space. He talked about the paintings on the walls. He pointed out where the family photographs were placed. He mentioned his KakaoTalk profile picture.

For a man who has spent decades in Korean entertainment, appearing in productions across television and film, the home he opened to cameras was notably free of professional self-promotion. The space reflects a person whose identity — at least as expressed in where and how he lives — is more parent than performer.

That is not what most people who know him from Korean drama would expect. Which may be exactly why the What Are You Leaving Behind? segment worked as well as it did. The Han River view, the gallery walls, the KakaoTalk profile that is actually a painting by his son — it adds up to a portrait of Kim Yong-geon that none of his screen performances quite provides.

What Are You Leaving Behind? is a tvN STORY program that invites Korean entertainers to reflect on the objects, memories, and relationships that have shaped their lives. Kim Yong-geon's contribution to the March 30 episode — his gallery-filled apartment, his son's paintings, his KakaoTalk profile picture — fit the show's spirit perfectly. It was an episode about holding on, and he has clearly held on to the things that matter most.

Sometimes the most revealing thing a person can show you is simply where they live and what they choose to put on the walls.