Yang Dong-geun
South Korean actor and hip-hop artist
Yang Dong-geun (Korean: 양동근; born June 1, 1979), also known as YDG, is a South Korean actor and rapper. He started his career as a child actor, drawing attention for his roles in the television shows Seoul Ttukbaegi (1990) and Hyung (1991). He began releasing music as a rapper in 2001, establishing himself as a star of Korean hip-hop. Yang continued acting, gaining popularity for his roles in the television shows New Nonstop (2002) and Ruler of Your Own World (2002). He is best known outside of South Korea for playing Park Yong-sik in the second season of Squid Game (2024).
Career
His comeback project after being discharged from the military was the film Grand Prix with Kim Tae-hee. He was cast as male lead Lee Woo-suk after Lee Joon-gi had to pull out when the Military Manpower Administration declined his application to postpone enlistment for military service.
On October 18 to November 23, 2008, he acted in the musical Mine with singer Kangta. The musical follows the true life story of Lieutenant Lee Jong-myung, who lost his legs in a land mine explosion near the demilitarized zone in June 2000, when he saved fellow soldier, Sul Dong-seob, from a minefield.
In 2016, he and his daughter Yang Joy joined as a member of KBS variety show The Return of Superman.
The public source identifies “Yang Dong-geun” as south Korean actor and hip-hop artist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Yang, Dong-geun and South.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q489604. VIAF identifies the subject as 44587125. The Library of Congress control number is no2011119932. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1990, 1991 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yang Dong-geun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.