Korean Cinema's long journey to achieve global respect

Long Live Freedom

Choi In-gyu, 1946

The first major film of the post-World War II period tells the story of a Korean freedom fighter opposing Japanese colonial rule in the war's waning days. The director had previously been forced to make Japanese propaganda films, and this film was seen as his response to having been exploited during Japanese colonialism.

"The Housemaid - 1960" / "Seopyeonje"

"The Housemaid - 1960"

Kim Ki-young, 1960

Kim Ki-young was Korea's first renowned filmmaker, establishing his reputation with “The Housemaid- 1960,” which explores a destructive love affair between a married music teacher and a sexually predatory household servant. So convincing was Lee Eun-shim in her performance as the femme fatale that she angered the public and was unable to continue her film career.


"My Mother and Her Guest"

Shin Sang-ok, 1961

Shin Sang-ok was one of the dominant directors during the brief Golden Age of Korean cinema in the early 1960s. This film, considered to be his masterpiece, tells the emotional story of a young girl's attempts to have her widowed mother remarry. Kim Jong-il was apparently a fan because he had Shin and his actress wife kidnapped in 1978 and brought to North Korea in the hope that they could revive the country's leaden film industry. They escaped in 1986.


"Aimless Bullet"

Yu Hyun-mok, 1961

Cited in several local surveys as the best Korean film of all time, “Aimless Bullet” is a portrait of survival in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-1953). The film, which was influenced by Italian Neorealism, was shot on location in Seoul as the city struggled to rebuild after the war. It was later banned by the military dictatorship for its depressing depiction of postwar life.


"Killer Butterfly"

Kim Ki-young, 1978

The Korean film industry fell into decline in the 1970s after censorship by Korea's autocratic governments and a lack of funding. Kim abandoned the realist auteur status he established with "The Housemaid" and turned to making low-budget movies, like this fantasy-horror melodrama, in the belief that it would give him more freedom to pursue innovative and personal work less likely to attract the attention of authorities.


"Seopyeonje"

Im Kwon-taek, 1993

On its release, “Seopyeonje” was almost immediately recognized for signaling the rebirth of modern Korean cinema after decades of government censorship. It tells the story of an itinerant Korean folk-art family that performs pansori - the traditional Korean style of dramatic singing - over three decades starting in the early 1940s. Seen as Korea's first modern art-house classic, it enjoyed immense popularity at home.


"The Power of Kangwon Province"

Hong Sang-soo, 1998

Parallel troubled love affairs are played out against the background of a popular Korean vacation destination, with its beautiful beaches and mountains.

The U.S.-educated Hong Sang-soo has been described as a Korean Eric Rohmer with his exploration of the often messy relationships that occur between flawed men and women.


"Attack the Gas Station!"

Kim Sang-jin, 1999

This film is a satirical look at modern Korean society. A gang of young street punks occupy a gas station and proceed to take the customers hostage as they arrive for a fill-up. It is the anarchic interaction between the rebel outsiders and those they capture, who represent a wide social spectrum, that provides the subversive comic assault on Confucian values.


"Nowhere To Hide"

Lee Myeong-se, 1999

Kinetic style and innovative editing techniques drive the simple plot of this cop film involving of a pair of detectives searching for a killer in the rainy, nighttime streets of the port city of Incheon. The blend of technical virtuosity and an off-kilter narrative have led critics to call the film “an art-house actioner.”


"My Own Breathing"

Byun Young-joo, 1999

“My Own Breathing” is the final film in a documentary trilogy about the lives of former “comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during World War II. It's an emotional examination of how these now elderly women dealt with the subsequent trauma and survived.

"Shiri" / "Old Boy"

"Shiri"

Kang Je-gyu, 1999

This tale of a North Korean terrorist team in Seoul was Korea's first Hollywood-style blockbuster. Its huge box-office success was a commercial milestone because it convinced the Korean film industry that it could compete against U.S. imports and led to bigger budgets for local movies.


"JSA - Joint Security Area"

Park Chan-wook, 2000

An investigation is launched into a fatal shooting incident between border guards near the truce village of Panmunjom, along the DMZ that separates the two Koreas. JSA followed in the wake of Shiri and was just as commercially successful as it explored the effects of the North-South division.


"The Isle"

Kim Ki-duk, 2000

A controversial film that's not for the squeamish, "The Isle" portrays a violent sadomasochistic relationship in the idyllic setting of a fishing island. Condemned at home but acclaimed abroad, it established Kim Ki-duk's reputation as the enfant terrible of Korean cinema.


"Old Boy"

Park Chan-wook, 2003

A winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, “Old Boy” is a tale of vengeance as a man locked in a room for 15 years escapes to hunt down his kidnapper. Based on a Japanese manga, its innovative and graphic fight scenes create a brutal, but also dreamlike, atmosphere for this black comedy thriller.


"Memories of Murder"

Bong Joon-ho, 2003

This gripping and grimy humorous thriller uses an unsolved real-life case of serial killings in the 1980s in Gyeonggi, near Seoul, to examine the effects of the country's authoritarian rule at the time. The police investigation is a study in ineptitude as the government appears to be more interested in political suppression than trying to catch the killer.


"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring"

Kim Ki-duk, 2003

Having established a reputation for excessive violence and misogyny, Kim Ki-duk suddenly switched gears in this 2003 film, which follows a wayward Buddhist disciple as he passes through the different stages of his life from childhood to old age. Despite the film's idyllic setting of a monastery floating in a forest lake, the underlying theme is that life is full of suffering.

"The Good, the Bad, the Weird" / "Taegukgi": The Brotherhood of War

"Taegukgi": The Brotherhood of War

Kang Je-gyu, 2004

This is another blockbuster film by the director of "Shiri" and is a rather melodramatic story of two brothers in the South Korean army as they fight northward to the streets of Pyongyang in the first year of the Korean War. The impressive sequences of urban warfare were influenced by the battle scenes in “Saving Private Ryan" - one reason why it has been one of Korea's most successful movies abroad.


"3-Iron"

Kim Ki-duk, 2004

A drifter, who breaks into homes and takes up temporary residence while the owners are away, stumbles across a battered housewife with whom he begins a literally silent love affair.

The film, whose original Korean title was “Empty House,” amounts to a surrealist meditation on emotional isolation and the complexity of human relationships.


"The Host"

Bong Joon-ho, 2006

Bong Joon-ho uses the monster movie genre to make a wry political commentary. His targets include the U.S. military presence in Korea and bureaucratic bungling as a creature arises out of the Han River to terrorize Seoul.


"The Good, the Bad, the Weird"

Kim Ji-woon, 2008

A “kimchi-western” occurring in Japanese-occupied Manchuria in the 1930s, the film is based on Sergio Leone's “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”