South Korea

From modernkoreancinema.com
The burden of expectation can sometimes be a heavy weight to bear and after a little too much of it, many films simply crumble. In 2009, an indie Korean film clocking in at three and a half hours began to make the rounds of the festival circuit and attracted some very positive attention. After a full year screening at various events it was finally accorded a domestic release in late December 2010 but, like the vast majority of independent features, it failed to find an audience in Korea. A number of people (myself included) patiently awaited its DVD release but it never came… until now. After premiering at the Busan Film Festival in October 2009, Café Noir was finally released on DVD in June 2012. While I can’t say exactly why the wait for the disc was so long, I can, to some extent, understand it.Read More »

In a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.Read More »

It begins with a cough in the darkness. It ends with barricades, guns and threats of war. In between, there is worse – but that’s ‘flu for you. It’s the risk we all face.

An epidemic movie made in South Korea is a very different proposition from the sort of thing we’re used to in the West, whether it’s Perfect Sense or [film]28 Days Later[film]. Hot and humid for much of the year, surrounded by places where humans, pigs and chickens live side by side, its gleaming cities are likely first targets for any major outbreak of disease, and we’re still at least five years away from a universal ‘flu vaccine. Facing this very real threat, it’s unsurprising that the country’s filmmakers have no time for the nonsense that Hollywood likes to deliver on this subject. There’s melodrama and oodles of sentiment, but the science is (mostly) strong, the protocols realistic, the brutality of its scenario unapologetic.Read More »

The process of excavating an ominous grave unleashes dreadful consequences buried underneath.Read More »

“Die Bad” is an inventive feature made up of four distinct episodes, each with their own style. With their criss-crossing characters and themes, they add up to a fairly comprehensive account of the causes and effects of male aggression, both tribal and individual.Read More »

Synopsis:
Girl-1 bound by a traditional family and household. One day she meets Girl-2 with the same appearance. From this moment on, these two people change roles and help each other. But the further it goes on.Read More »

Synopsis:
The film starts as a man in his early 40s and a woman in her late 30s, each of who has a family, set off to a small port called Wolgot. The reason for taking the trip together, despite the fact that they are strangers, is that they share a sense of affinity as well as a curiosity to know where this affinity might take them. The story takes place in a motel with its bare, characterless interior and absence of objects that are laden with memories and associations.Read More »

Synopsis
So-young a 65-year-old woman is one of so called ‘Bacchus lady’ who’s selling her body to old men at the old park in the center of Seoul. She is suffering the heartbreaking of her half black American son sent for adoption when she was young. When So-young goes to see a doctor due to venereal disease, she meets a Kopino boy (Half Korean-Half Filipino) at the hospital who is alone, and lost his mother. So-young brings him to her place. And she tries to find young boy’s mother while keeps her prostitution job at the same time. One day she hears about her customer SONG’s stroke and visits him.Read More »

imdb:
A former professional baseball player, Byeong-wu, made a successful career transition into a high-flying insurance advisor, thanks to his keen business sense and quick wits. But one day, one of his clients committed suicide and passed away and once hero Byeong-wu is now subject to internal investigation. Now he starts to run through his client list and finds a suspicious group of people introduced to him by the same person – and starts visiting them one by one.Read More »