South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, a controve-rsial figure both for his work and in his personal life, died in Latvia from coronavirus complications yesterday, a Latvian film official said.

Kim, who had won awards at the Venice, Cannes and Berlin film festivals, had been staying in the Latvian capital Riga, in a private capacity after travelling to neighbouring Estonia for work, according to Dita Rietuma, director of Latvia's state National Film Centre.

Kim, 59, died at a hospital in Riga, Rietuma told Reuters, citing the director's private secretary.

Latvian media Delfi first reported Kim's death, referring to Vitaly Mansky, a Russian documentary film director who reportedly was working with Kim.

Born in 1960, Kim made his name with a series of violent yet aesthetically challenging features, including The Isle (2000) and Bad Guy (2001) – the former of which was sanctioned by the British Board of Film Classification for animal cruelty.

Subsequently he became a fixture on the international festival circuit with films such as Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring (2003) and 3-Iron (2004), and he would go on to win the Golden Lion at Venice with his 2012 film Pieta, which the Guardian described as "bristl[ing] with Kim's trademark anger and agony".

However, Kim's directing career was derailed after he was accused in 2018 of rape and sexual assault by three women, along with his regular acting collaborator Cho Jae-hyun.

Charges against Kim were dropped for lack of evidence, but he was fined 5m Korean won (£3,480). Kim then sued one of his accusers and the makers of a documentary about the case for defamation, but lost.

Kim completed one more film after the scandal, the Russian-language film Dissolve, which was shot in Kazakhstan.