A Coachman was awarded the Silver Bear at the 11th Berlin Film Festival, becoming the first film to showcase Korean Cinema to the Western world. In it, KIM Seung-ho plays HA Chun-sam, a horse driver who struggles with debt, barely making a living by pulling other people′s carts. He is also a single father who is responsible for raising his family, but he never complains. Ha is perpetually worrying about his children: Ok-nyuh, who ran away from her abusive husband; Ok-hee, his vain younger daughter; and Dae-up, the youngest son and perpetual problem child. Ha′s hopes hang on his eldest son Soo-up, who is a student. However, even Soo-up is considering giving up his exams in order to help out his father. KIM Seung-ho′s portrayal of a self-sacrificing patriarch in A Coachman is considered to be the pinnacle of his many roles as a father. It is also the film that left the most significant impression of Kim as an actor with the Korean public. Aside from the family drama, there are elements of a romance as well, as frequent co-star HWANG Jeong-soon plays an unpretentious love interest. The film is also monumental in the way it captures the social structure of the time. It was an era where horses and automobiles coexisted, marked by the emergence of a new class of capitalists and well-educated elite, who would oppress the laborers who toiled under them. (CHO Young-jung)