A gay South Korean film director is set to symbolically marry his long-term partner on September 7, saying he aims to pry open the closet in this conservative Asian country where homosexuality is still taboo and gays have been subjected to hate crimes.

Kim Jho Gwang-soo announced on Wednesday plans to marry his partner of nine years, becoming the first South Korean show business personality to do so and only the second to ever come out. "We wanted to convey the message that all sexual minorities should be given rights equally in a beautiful way," the 49-year-old Kim told a news conference in the South Korean capital of Seoul as he sat next to his partner, Kim Seung-hwan.

The two then kissed in an unprecedented display of affection for a same-sex couple in Korea, where Confucian and Christian values remain strong.