FILM REVIEWS: N-Z
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Genre: Drama
The tale of a North Korean fisherman who floats into the South and is at the mercy of a new form of state control
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Genre: Romance-Drama
The story of an impossible romance, a powerful piece of breath-taking filmmaking which carves a permanent etch
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Bong Joon-ho’s dark satire exposes Korea’s class divide and serves up a peerless cinematic masterpiece
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Genre: Action-Horror
Train to Busan follow-up is a thrilling zombie-fest of sprawling action, but its emotional intensity does not rise from the dead
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Genre: Drama
Kim Ki-duk's strange and brutal mediation on the absences of a motherly figure set in the desperate backstreets of Seoul
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Genre: Drama
A melancholic meditation on aging and death, a grandmother with Alzheimer's struggles against her fading memory
Director: Im Chan-sang
Genre: Comedy-Drama
Funny, surprising and poignant, Song Kang-ho excels as the naive barber in a politically unstable Korea
Director: Kwon Cheol-hwi
Genre: Horror
A gore-filled take on the vengeful ghost trope, a wife returns from the grave to terrorise the maid who took her family
Director: Kim Yong-gyun
Genre: Horror
Atmospheric and stylish horror uses the cursed item trope
to deliver a tale of morality
and revenge
Director: Kong Su-chang
Genre: Horror-War
Dread-filled and exquisitely shot, the horrors of war provide the backdrop as a platoon march in a supernatural threat
Director: Son Jae-gon
Genre: Comedy
Low-brow slapstick comedy provides some guilt pleasure, but lacks overall coherence to stick its landing
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Genre: Horror-Animated
Animated horror provides high-action drama but in a sea of ravaging zombies the uninfected are the true monsters
Director: Park Kwang-su
Genre: Drama
A bleak but powerful biopic of the 22-year old who ended his life through self-immolation protesting for workers’ rights
Director: Song Il-gon
Genre: Mystery-Horror
A mysterious film on the power of the subconscious that leaves the minds of the characters and audience equally disorientated
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Director: Yoon Jong-bin
Genre: Spy drama
Slick spy thriller offers tension-filled view of North-South nuclear tensions during
the 1990s
Director: Ko Young-nam
Genre: Horror-Thriller
K-Horror classic twists the malicious housemaid format and brilliantly portrays a wife's decent into paranoid madness
Director: Jeong Jae-eun
Genre: Drama
A coming-of-age film where a group of young women see their friendship fracture amid festering economic anxiety
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Horror-Drama
An atmospheric, psychological horror which offers a subtle and dread-building reimagining of an often-told Korean folktale
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Drama-Horror
Park Chan-wook's twisted vampire love story is a multi-faceted view of religion, lust
and consequence
Director: Shin Sang-ok
Genre: Supernatural horror
Korean folktale imagined in a melodramatic horror where supernatural forces drive a savage revenge mission
Director: Yoon Sung-hyun
Genre: Crime-Drama
Heist movie turned Cosmopolitan Western shootout forges high tension as a set of likeable cons scramble for survival
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Genre: Action-Horror
Rapid-hunt zombies terrorise desperate train passengers in an action-horror mash-up filled with social commentary
Directors: Oh Sung-yoon & Lee Chun-baek
Genre: Animated-Family
Stray dogs join forces and embark on a cross-country adventure in a scenic animated tale of freedom
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Director: Na Hong-jin
Genre: Supernatural horror
Na Hong-jin’s supernatural horror charts superstition and evil in rural Korea as it builds to a chilling climax
Director: Bae Jong
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Hilarious yet meaningful, soldiers from the North and South stumble into a secluded village during the Korean war
Director: Bae Yong-kyun
Genre: Drama
A meditation on Zen principles, Bae Yong-kyun frames the beauty of the wilderness in the search for human meaning
Director: Kim Ki-young
Genre: Drama
Brimming with stunningly shot surrealism, a madcap tale which descends into fear-filled views of death, disease and resurrection
Director: Na Hong-jin
Genre: Thriller-Action
An ultra-violent thriller, a desperate Korean taxi driver living in China returns home on a murder mission
Director: Lee Myung-se
Genre: Action-Crime
An over-stylised action crime outing that still provides thrills as an obsessive detective chases an elusive killer
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Action-Thriller
A masterpiece of stylised action and a visceral stomach-churn
of ultra-violence that leaves
you utterly breathless
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Bong's masterpiece gets a monochrome makeover which accentuates the film’s bleak shades of class divide
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Genre: Drama
A reverse chronology plunge into the defining life events of a desperately broken man
Director: Kim Gwang-tae
Genre: Horror-Thriller
A dark fairytale reimagining where deceit fuels revenge when a father and son happen upon a village after the Korean War
Director: Lee Yong-ju
Genre: Horror-Mystery
This claustrophobic horror turns down the gory and amplifies the chills as mystery grows around a missing teenager
Director: Im Sang-soo
Genre: Drama-Comedy
The demise of a lecherous, authoritarian president in Director Im’s stylish and controversial political satire
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Genre: Black comedy
Dark comedy servers up hilarity and horror with a killer cast
and crew of future Korean cinema stars
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Genre: Drama
An intriguing examination of the fate of a potential couple’s romantic liaison over the course of a few soju-soaked hours
Director: Jang Joon-hwan
Genre: Comedy-Sci-fi
Often disturbing, regularly hilarious and always beautifully crafted, a young man tries to stop an alien invasion
Director: Im Kwon-taek
Genre: Drama-Musical
A melancholy tale about traditional musical storytelling Pansori and a family tortured by their father’s obsession
Director: Kang Je-gyu
Genre: Action-Thriller
Korea’s first ever big budget blockbuster is a star-studded North vs South high-octane action thriller
Director: Yoon Jong-chan
Genre: Horror-Mystery
The popular Korean domain of the apartment block provides the atmosphere of horror in this slow-burn mystery
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Genre: Drama
Tranquil beauty combines with a lingering sense of doom in a portrait of human nature and the consequences of actions
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Thriller
Park Chan-wook’s first English-language feature is a gorgeous and mesmerising gothic tale with coming-of-age confusion
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Thriller
The first of the Vengeance Trilogy sees anti-heroes and villains chasing desperate paydays or bloody revenge
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Genre: Drama-Romance
A metafiction on cinema and filmmaking, his sixth film has Hong at his self-deprecating
and anxiety-filled best
Director: Jang Hoon
Genre: Drama
A cabbie becomes the reluctant hero of the 1980s Gwangju Uprising in a heartfelt and impassioned real-life story
Director: Lee Yoon-ki
Genre: Drama
An absorbing portrayal of a forbearing post office worker and the reasons for her self-imposed societal isolation
Director: Lee Joon-ik
Genre: Period-Drama
Lusciously shot and superbly,
an unwilling heir to the throne clashes with his ruthlessly demanding King father
Director: Ji-hoon Kim
Genre: Disaster
A high-end apartment complex is engulfed in flames on Christmas Eve and its residents scramble for survival
Director: Park Chan-wook
Genre: Drama-Comedy
Black comedy, vengeful characters and wild rushes of violence, Trio is imperfect but has signature Director Park style
Director: Jeong Byeong-Gil
Genre: Action-Thriller
Highly-stylised, this vivacious action thriller boasts some inexplicably brilliant set pieces and outlandish stunt work
Director: Lee Jeong-hyang
Genre: Drama
Poignant and affecting, a city brat grandson stays with his mute country grandmother and learns the value of humility
Director: Park Ki-hyung
Genre: Supernatural horror
The film which launched modern K-Horror, this is a creepy and atmospheric ghost story at a Korean high school
Director: Park Hoon-jun
Genre: Mystery-Action
A tense mystery turned
blood-splattered action thriller as a young girl rediscovers her powerful former self
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Genre: Drama
A brief, characteristically low-key and conversationalist look at a woman visiting friends while her husband is away