FILM REVIEWS: A-M
Director: Park Chul-soo
Genre: Drama-Thriller
Two obsessive compulsive neighbours collide over their opposing food manias in this gripping psychological thriller
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Thriller-Action
Tense espionage thriller set in 1920s occupied Korea as a resistance movement attempts to destabilise Japanese rule
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Director: Cho Il-hyung
Genre: Thriller-Horror
Self-isolating from a killer infection, this zombie thriller is
a topical 2020 offering that provides easy entertainment
Director: Lim Sun-ae
Genre: Drama
Tackling the often-ignored topic of the sexual abuse of the elderly, this is a subtle yet powerful film
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Comedy-Drama
Director Bong's superb debut is a black comedy which blends slapstick with distressed dogs to produce a quirky social satire
Director: Jang Cheol-soo
Genre: Thriller
A mesmerising Seo Young-hee performance elevates this bloody revenge tale set on a claustrophobic, remote island
Director: Lee Yong-min
Genre: Horror-Thriller
Face-licking, cat-transforming weirdness, this B-movie-like horror is brimming with body count and nightmarish tones
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Genre: Drama-Thriller
Lee Chang-dong adds thriller elements to his slow-burn character studies, producing something truly breathtaking
Director: Lee Hae-jun
Genre: Comedy-Drama
A man becomes a castaway on a deserted island in this hilarious, touching and stunning off-beat masterpiece
Director: Hur Jin-ho
Genre: Romance-Drama
A jovial photographer receives a terminal diagnosis and tries to contain his agitation at this fate as a new romance blossoms
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Director: Kwon Oh-kwang
Genre: Black comedy
The bizarre but tender story of a man turning into a fish after a clinical trial mishap and his fight for acceptance and peace
Director: Ryoo Seung-wan
Genre: Drama
Unique and superbly performed, a split narrative boxing tale which provides true emotional punch
Director: Noh Young-seok
Genre: Comedy-Drama
Charming and hilarious, a lovelorn young man embarks on a disastrous seaside break filled with insobriety and loneliness
Director: Woo Min-ho
Genre: Crime-Drama
The brilliance of Song Kang-ho holds together a familiar tale
of the rise and fall of a 1970s drug lord
Director: Kim Tae-yong
Genre: Drama
An emotionally charged triptych, as families and couples clash featuring hot-headed brothers, and flighty mothers
Director: Lee Hyung-gon
Genre: Comedy-Musical
Korean folktale usually ripe for horror is given an oddball musical comedy makeover as a family of foxes hunt humans
Director: Lee Won-tae
Genre: Action-Thriller
This stylish serial killer hunt combines the best of the crime genre to deliver a gripping, if slightly formulaic, encounter
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Western-Action
A fistful of riotous fun, action-filled Western sees bandits and army forces pursue a treasure map and its loot in the 1930s
Director: Kim Mi-jo
Genre: Drama
A market trader becomes the victim of sexual abuse as her family and colleagues struggle to support her
Director: Lee Su-jin
Genre: Drama
Empathy-inducing retelling of an infamous real-life sex crime, powerfully illustrating victim mistreatment and blame culture
Director: Jang Yu-jeong
Genre: Comedy
A familiar set-up just about delivers enough laughs as a lying politician turns compulsory truth-teller as election day looms
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Horror-Action
Bong Joon-ho's monster movie is a rip-roaring horror-action-comedy mash-up with plenty of social commentary bite
Director: Im Sang-soo
Genre: Drama
This stylish retelling of Kim
Ki-young's classic focuses on
the structures of power and
the privilege of Korea’s wealthy
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Action–Sci-fi
Stylish and filled with kinetic action, a government special unit hunts a rebel group in the near-future
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Director Bong’s short film is a social satire using a trio of tales to highlight the moral hypocrisy of powerful men
Director: Lee Han
Genre: Drama
Emotionally charged courtroom drama comes alive with two outstanding lead performances
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Genre: Animated-Drama
Bleak, angry and utterly uncompromising, an animated view of toxic hierarchical high schools in South Korea
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Thriller
The final Vengeance Trilogy film amplifies the stylised violence as a wrongly convicted woman hunts the true perpetrator
Director: Shin Su-won
Genre: Drama
Savage corporate demands
and the desperation of Korea’s youth to succeed colour
this cautionary tale
Director: Han Hyung-mo
Genre: Romantic melodrama
This melodrama charts a wife’s taste of independence during
the backdrop of the increasing
Westernisation of Korea
Director: Woo Min-ho
Genre: Political drama
The 1979 assassination of President Park gets a dramatic retelling featuring a star turn by Lee Byung-hun
Director: Ha Gil-jong
Genre: Comedy-Drama
Youthful gaiety gives way to existential angst in this coming-of-age classic set during Korea’s military dictatorship
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Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Crime drama
Bong Joon-ho's first masterpiece is a rural crime mystery about the obsession of the detectives and their fear of failure
Director: Min Byung-Woo
Genre: Documentary
Genuine and hilarious tale of a filmmaker's recently retired father fulfilling a life-long dream as a street artist in Paris
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Crime-Thriller
A murder mystery complicated by the monomaniacal love of a tenacious mother in Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece thriller
Director: Kim Tae-yoon
Genre: Comedy
A silly, but occasionally fun, slapstick caper that blends Dr. Dolittle with a crime-solving buddy movie
Director: Kim Ui-seok
Genre: Mystery-Drama
Grim but powerful, a schoolgirl disappears in a suspected suicide and misgivings tilt towards her classmates’ role
Director: Hur Jin-ho
Genre: Romance-Drama
A tender film, a man and woman meet in the hospital and discover their critically injured partners are having an affair
Director: Yu Hyun-mok
Genre: Drama
The desperation of post-war Korea seen through the eyes of two brothers trapped in a powder keg of bleakness
Director: Kim Sang-jin
Genre: Crime-Comedy
Hammy and daft but so much fun it does not matter, a quartet of bored goons decide they will rob a gas station
Director: Kim Yong Hoon
Genre: Crime-Drama
Desperate schemers see their lives intertwined by a large bag of cash in a promising directorial debut
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Crime-Drama
A stylish revenge thriller about honour and tragedy featuring a pulsating lead performance from Lee Byung-hun
Director: Son Seung-hyun
Genre: Action-Crime
Conveyor-belt action-crime caper
is a passable, if not particularly original, way to spend 80 minutes for fans of the genre
Director: Lee Chung-hyun
Genre: Thriller
Horror-imbued thriller is anchored by blistered lead performances, as fates vacillate when a phone connects the past and future
Director: Na Hong-jin
Genre: Thriller
Dark, nihilistic and often exasperating, a pimp races to find a missing call-girl taken in by a monstrous serial killer
Director: Kim Kwang-bin
Genre: Supernatural horror
A jump scare-inducing closet and a cohort of creepy children embolden this emotional supernatural horror
Director: Lee Jeong-beom
Genre: Drama-Crime
A gangster flick turned family drama as a small-time city crook heads to the country to avenge the death of his boss
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Genre: Drama
Hong Sang-soo’s debut feature
is a pithy story of fidelity and fulfilment told across four vexed and disillusioned characters
Director: Lee Man-hee
Genre: Thriller-Horror
An eerie view of greed, guilt and lust as a doctor takes drastic measures to silence his pregnant mistress
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Directors: The Jung Brothers
Genre: Horror
This gorgeous and intelligent horror creepily weaves a trio of tales around notions of love, loss and death at a 1940s hospital
Director: Jang Hang-jun
Genre: Mystery-Thriller
A thriller that provides a twisting tale of desperation and loss as mysterious events plague an anxious student
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Comedy-Drama
A much-maligned, failing banker finds meaning in the wrestling ring in this smartly shot comedy with plenty of heart
Director: Im Kwon-taek
Genre: Crime-Drama
A feast of fist-fights as a homeless scrapper rises to the top of a gang as local Korean-Japanese tensions rise
Director: July Jung
Genre: Drama
This low-budget, big issue tackling directorial debut takes on child abuse and homophobia with superb lead performances
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Drama
Smart, sexy, stylish and surprising, a period masterpiece on a con-job gone awry
Director: Yim Pil-sung
Genre: Fantasy-Horror
This visually stunning horror flips its fairy tale origins to produce a more surprising traverse into the wood
Director: Lee Joon-ik
Genre: Drama
Harrowing and immeasurably powerful, an horrific attack brings a disjointed family together
Director: Kim Ki-young
Genre: Horror-Thriller
Kim Ki-young's masterpiece on morality and lust remains a filmmaking tour de force of festering threat
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Action-Thriller
Revenge is served repeatedly in this unflinching tale of an intelligence agent’s relentless pursuit of a sadistic serial killer
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Romantic comedy
Offbeat mental hospital rom-com gives Director Park an ideal palette to paint another stylish and bizarre cult classic
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Experimental filmmaking from Bong as CCTV footage depicts the spiralling crime spree of a man over several years
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Thriller
A touching buddy movie hidden in a military thriller as an incident on the North-South border threatens to spark a war
Director: Koo Ji-hyun
Genre: Drama
A bleak and often difficult watch that does succeed in showing the very real angst of toxic family relationships
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Action
A throwback to 80s action films offers car chase revved entertainment despite a smorgasbord of bad acting
Director: Kim Cho-hee
Genre: Drama
Tender and funny, a film producer meanders through the aftermath of her director’s death in this affable debut
Director: Lee Jeong-beom
Genre: Action-Thriller
A tense and raw action thriller which stacks the revenge narrative with heart and emotional punch
Director: Lee Jang-ho
Genre: Drama
A visually stunning meditation on grief and its ability to follow us anywhere, as a widower travels to his dead wife’s home
Directors: Kim Tae-yong & Min Kyu-dong
Genre: Supernatural horror
Whispering Corridors sequel surpasses its original with a more stylish and refined return to this high school ghost story
Director: Kim Hong-Sun
Genre: Horror
Promising possession and exorcism set-up fizzles out into more tepid low-scare affair
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Crime-Romance
Park Chan-wook’s debut feature film is a soft jazz scored romantic drama with flickers of his flare but none of the thrills
Director: Yoon Dan-bi
Genre: Drama
A subtle drama brimming with realistic interactions as a grandfather’s house becomes
the new family home