Song Kang-ho won the best actor award for his work in “A Taxi Driver” at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, said the film’s distributor Showbox.

Song Kang-ho stars in “A Taxi Driver.” (Showbox)

Showbox announced Thursday that Jang Hoon, the director of the movie, attended the closing ceremony of the festival Wednesday to accept the award on behalf of Song. The award marks Song’s second best actor prize at the festival. He won the best actor award in 2007 for his role in “The Show Must Go On.”

“A Taxi Driver,” a 137-minute film starring Ryu Jun-yeol and Yoo Hae-jin, was the first Korean film to be selected to close the festival as well as to be invited to its competition section.

The film centers on the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju. Song plays a Seoul taxi driver named Man-seop, who happens to take German reporter Jurgen Hinzpeter to Gwangju and witnesses the horrors of the military crackdown during the May 18 uprising.

“A Taxi Driver,” which opened in Korea on Wednesday, will hit theaters in North America on Aug. 11.

By Hong Dam-young (lotus@heraldcorp.com)