South Korea

  • Ki-duk Kim – Bi-mong aka Dream (2008)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Quote:
    Dream (or Bi-mong, as is the Korean title) is already Ki-duk’s 15th film. It’s also the 15th Ki-duk film I watched so obviously you can consider me a fan. Ki-duk is a director who’s known to stay pretty close to what he does best, so even though the differences between Dream and his earlier films might not seem stellar, they do present a big deviation for Ki-duk standards. Yet in the end, Dream is still 100% Ki-duk and couldn’t have been made by any other.Read More »

  • Sang-woo Lee – Abeojineun Gaeda AKA Father is a Dog (2010)

    2001-2010DramaSang-woo LeeSouth Korea

    Quote:
    Three bothers live together with a father who treats them as a dog in the house. The first son desires for food and the son lost his face after he got burned by fire. He desires for sex. All he does is masturbation and painting in his cooped room. The second son is the normal one in the house where the Chinese stranger comes in and he starts living with them. The boy is father’;s lover and has sex with a father in the presence of three sons. One day, a crazy girl gets into the house, the house is full of sexual desire and lust.Read More »

  • Je-gyun Yun – Saekjeuk shigong aka Sex Is Zero (2002)

    2001-2010AsianComedyJe-gyun YunSouth Korea

    Eun Sik is 28 years old and has recently started school at the university. He is a member of the Cha Ryu group and practices with them daily, through painful endurance training. He meets the much younger and gorgeous Eun Hyo, for whom he holds a completely one-sided attraction. Eun Sik’s amazingly unlucky, and a host of embarrassing situations happen to him. Through all of this, him and his insanely horny group of friends help make one of the most memorable sex comedies, complete with both hilarious and somewhat dramatic moments.Read More »

  • Shin Su-won – Reinbou aka Rainbow (2010)

    2001-2010ComedyDramaShin Su-wonSouth Korea

    Plot / Synopsis
    The fantasy musical film “Passerby #3? by Korean director Shin Su-won won the Best Asian-Middle Eastern Film Award at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival.

    Ji-Wan is a middle-aged mother with a case of malaise and hardly any backbone to speak of. She abruptly quits her job to follow her dream of becoming a film director; she’s been working on a script for five years. Her husband thinks she’s wasting her time; her son Si-Young is ashamed of her and lets her know it at every possible moment; and the producer she’s supposed to be working with, Choi, keeps trying to make the film into a commercial blockbuster.Read More »

  • Sang-ok Shin – Cheonnyeon ho AKA A Thousand Year Old Fox (1969)

    1961-1970ActionFantasySang-ok ShinSouth Korea

    IMDB:
    Once upon a time, under the reign of the three kingdoms, there was a woman who tempts a Buddhist priest named Cho. She is a one-thousand-year-old fox who intends to reincarnate as a human being. Not knowing this, Cho lives with the fox. But in the end, they get separated harboring sadness of unfulfilled love in this world.
    – Written by KCCLA Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Hae anseon aka The Coast Guard (2002)

    2001-2010ActionDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Quote:
    Perhaps the reason why this movie is getting such a bad rap is mainly a fault of its well-meaning, but still incoherent style and narrative structure. I have not read any articles on this movie or interviews with the director to know what his overt intention was, but in the end I think the movie falls short of its mark due to Kim’s perennial fixation on obsession, whether it was his intention to delve into this subject matter or not. On most levels, obsession is a largely private affair, and any exegesis of obsession enmeshed within the loaded geopolitical situation that is now Korea would require a broader vision and canvas matched with a technical command of story telling than any that Kim has been able to provide here or elsewhere.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Suchwiin bulmyeong AKA Address Unknown (2001)

    2001-2010AsianDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism…
    Address Unknown (2001) is Kim Ki-Duk’s most political film so far which traces the scars left by the Korean war of the 1950s and its contemporary reverberations on a US Army base.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom AKA Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. (2003)

    2001-2010AsianDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Synopsis:
    From the award-winning Korean writer/director/editor Kim K-Duk comes this critifcally acclaimed and exquisitely beautiful story of a young Buddhist monk’s evolution from innocence to Love, Evil to Enlightenment and ultimately to Rebirth.

    Prayer, meditation, and appreciation of nature are the sacraments by which two monks live a simple life in Korean director Kim Ki-Duk’s SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING. A wise old monk (Oh Young-soo) is master to a young student, and remains so throughout the changing seasons of the younger monk’s life. In springtime the young monk is a 5-year-old boy, in summer he is a teenager, in fall he is a 30-year-old man, and in winter he is in mid-life. The master and his student live in a tranquil house that floats in the middle of a pond hidden in a vast woodland. Paddling their row boat to the edge of the pond, they roam the forest collecting herbs for medicine, observing animals, and learning deep lessons about life.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Soom AKA Breath (2007)

    2001-2010AsianDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Quote:
    After finding her husband’s infidelity, YEON absent-mindedly heads for the prison where condemned criminal JIN is confined. Although she doesn’t know him, repeated news of his suicide attempts on TV had subconsciously grown in her mind. Their first meeting is as awkward as it can get. YEON treats JIN like an old friend whereas JIN doesn’t open up so easily. To JIN’s surprise, YEON comes back for the interview again and again, with the decorated interview room like sping, summer and fall. YEON sings him seasonal tunes in dresses of that season. JIN gradually accepts YEON’s efforts and opens up to her. One day, her husband witnesses the intimacy between YEON and JIN and tries to separate them. They can’t see each other again while the limited time for JIN is ticking away. But the two are already attached to each other more than her husband assumed — more than life and death.

    Read More »

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