Best Korean Films of All Time

Top 12 Korean films of all time

1. Aimless Bullet (1961, Yu Hyun-mok)

Yu Hyun-mok expertly incorporates neorealism with some film noir and crime elements while tackling vital socioeconomic elements of Korean society in the Korean war’s aftermath which led to poverty, crime and general disillusionment.

2. The Housemaid (1960, Kim Ki-young)

A remarkable film which long held the #1 Korean film in my all time Korean film list. A precursor to Parasite in its examination of the rich-poor divide sparkled with a few jaw-dropping moments.

3. Right now, Wrong then (2015, Hong Sang-soo)

Love and relationships are two common elements found in Hong Sang-soo’s films with food and alcohol being vital to his film’s flow. Characters often gather at a social gathering where lots of food and alcohol is to be found. Alcohol is a key ingredient in his films, particularly the drink of soju which serves as lubricant in allowing the character’s true feelings to be revealed in a natural manner. In his last few films, Hong Sang-soo has used repetition as a powerful device. He has either shown the same event from different perspectives or repeated the same segment with slight variations. All these elements are found in Right Now, Wrong Then which is divided into 2 films, shown from different perspectives and with slight variations. Each film has its own title with the first film called ‘Right Then, Wrong Now’ while the second film is ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’. The alternate titles and the unfolding of events allow audience to select which film they prefer, and in a way, the audience selection also shows the manner in which they prefer to live their own lives.

4. Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong)

Burning, Lee Chang-dong’s cinematic return after a gap of 8 years, smartly transforms a Haruki Murakami short story into a seductive thriller that lingers in the memory long after the credits.

5. Memories of Murder (2003, Bong Joon-ho)

Gripping thriller which keeps us guessing and tries to be as objective as possible without diving into contrived situations. The ending is unlike any other ever shown in a Hollywood serial killer flick which is what makes this an excellent movie.

6. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-ho)

Perfectly blends genre elements with socioeconomic examination of a society.

7. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, Park Chan-wook)

Takes time to develop its characters and outline the story before plunging into a series of cuts and stabs to end on a bloody note. This was the first Korean film I saw at a midnight film festival screening and it led to an exciting discovery of tracking down as many Korean films as I could.

8. Breathless (2008, Yang Ik-joon)

Yang Ik-joon’s stellar film shows how a cycle of violence can continue beyond generations and that kids who witness violence in their youth can grow up and re-enact those same episodes onto others.

9. The King and the Clown (2005, Lee Joon-ik)

This was a surprise box-office hit upon its 2005 release so much so that it was the biggest box office movie in Korean history until The Host came along. A simple story with no big budget based on a stage play beat out all the big named commercial films! The story is set in 16th Century Korea where two street performers undertake a risky game to make some money. They decide to lampoon the king and his mistress. Such a thing was never done before but it pays off, initially at least among the common folk. However, the king is not amused and wants to punish the street troupe. The lead person asks for one chance – if the king laughs, the troupe be spared. Well the king does laugh, a little at first and a lot over time as he makes the troupe perform only privately for royalty. Such a thing does not go down well with the ministers but the king does not care as he seems to be pre-occupied with a crush on one of the performers. Excellent performances all around!

10. A Dirty Carnival (2006, Ha Yu)

A Dirty Carnival breathes new life into the over-worked gangster sub-genre by focussing more on the characters and their relationships.

11. The Day He Arrives (2011, Hong Sang-soo)

The Day He Arrives is vintage Hong Sang-soo and features what one would expect from his films: filmmaker turned professor returning to his hometown, an ex-love, plenty of drinking with friends/strangers. Conversations and confessions flow as effortlessly as the alcohol and naturally people pour their hearts out. Even though there are familiar elements to his previous films, The Day He Arrives is still a wonderfully crafted feature that is shot in black and white, which lends a poetic beauty to the snowy streets.

12. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter..and Spring (2003, Kim Ki-duk)

After Park Chan-wook, it was the cinema of Kim Ki-duk that became my window into Korean cinema in the early 2000s. This was the first of his films that I saw and it proved to be a contemplative experience. Broken into 5 segments as per the title, this film is a visually meditative film that evokes multiple emotions including awe and sadness.

Korean Cinema

Almost all the films that I have come across from South Korea have been from 2000 onwards making my cinematic education with South Korean cinema only a recent one. Here is a list of South Korean directors whose films I have seen in the last few years:

Park Chan-wook:

Lady Vengeance (2005)
Three...extremes (2005, final short Cut)
Old Boy (2003)
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Joint Security Area (2000)

Bong Joon-ho:

The Host (2006)
Memories of Murder (2003)

Kim Ki-duk:

Time (2006)
The Bow (2005)
3-Iron (2004)
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter..and Spring (2003)
Bad Guy (2001)
The Isle (2000)


Single titles from other directors:

Woman on the Beach (2006, Hong Sang-soo)
Secret Sunshine (2007, Lee Chang-dong)
Soo (2007, Sai Yoichi)
The King and the Clown (2005, Lee Jun-ik)
Save the Green Planet! (2003, Jang Joon-Hwan)
My Sassy Girl (2001, Kwak Jae-young)
Il Mare (2000, Lee Hyun-seung)
Natural City (2003, Min Byung-chun)
Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004, Kang Je-gyu)
Repatriation (2003, Kim Dong-won)

While it is much easier in my city to find older Japanese or Chinese films, tracking down South Korean films prior to the 1990’s is next to impossible. I put this difficulty down to only a local deficiency within North America and didn’t think much of it. But in Issue #34 of Film International Soo Jeong Ahn points out that this inability to know older Korean cinema extends to other parts of the world.


Korean films made before the 1990s are largely unknown in the West. South Korean cinema has only very recently and very rapidly emerged onto the international cinematic stage....Within the global art-house circuit, older Korean films have been less acknowledged than their Japanese and Chinese counterparts. For instance, in Britain the prevailing image of Korean cinema is largely constituted of particular films made by contemporary Korean film-makers. Comparing Japan and Korea in a Guardian article, for example, the director of the Edinburgh International film festival, Hannah McGill, associated Japanese cinema with the ‘golden era of Kurosawa and Ozu in the 1950s’ while placing the golden age of Korean cinema in the ‘present’ (early 2000s) rather than the ‘past’. In Korea, however, the golden age is considered to be the period of the 1950s and 1960s.

Soo Jeong Ahn’s article (Re-imagining the Past: Programming South Korean retrospectives at the Pusan International Film Festival) begins with a Q&A involving Bong Joon-ho which followed a French screening of his The Host. Even Bong Joon-ho points out classic Korean cinema did exist yet remains largely unknown.


Q: In the past 10 years, Korean cinema has spread rapidly in France, where it is much loved by local audiences. Considering the fact that Korean cinematic history boasts no great master such as Kurosawa Akira in Japan, isn’t this global spotlight amazing?

A: Have you ever wondered why classic Korean films have long been unknown in Europe? The absence of information about old Korean films may be attributable to Korea’s history. I don’t think the quality of Korean cinema at that period was inferior to other countries in East Asia. While Kurosawa was making films in Japan, there were quite a few film auteurs in Korea whose work was of an equally high standard.


The purpose of the article by Soo Jeong Ahn is to discuss the political decisions behind the Pusan film festival in picking retrospectives of older Korean film-makers Kim Ki-Young and Shin Sang-Ok. Although, I am more interested in the fact that the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) is showing older Korean films than concerned with the motives why PIFF chose to select a particular director’s works. If PIFF continues to screen older Korean films, then there is a chance that in the future Korean retrospectives might even tour the World and even get released on DVD.

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A spotlight, finally...

I wanted to throw a net out to see how many older Korean films I could capture. I was also looking for works from directors I was not familiar with. I came across the following films:

Black Republic (1990, Park Kwang-su)
City of Rising Sun (1999, Kim Sung-su)
Dirty Carnival (2006, Ha Yu)
The Restless (2006, Cho Dong-oh/Jo Dong-oh)
Black House (2007, Shin Terra)

While I managed to get films from different directors, most of the films were still new. Although getting a single title from 1990 seems to be a little achievement. But overall, I think getting older Korean films will be a work in progress.

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The films...

Three of the films (Black Republic, City of Rising Sun & Dirty Carnival) involved a gangster element while The Restless was a martial art/sword fighting flick whereas Black House was a horror film.

If I had turned the volume off Black Republic, I would have initially pegged the film as Chinese as the setting of an old mining town reminded me of the Chinese film Blind Shaft. But after the gangster element makes an entrance in the film, I would have guessed that Black Republic was inspired from old 1960’s Japanese films. In the end, Black Republic stands on its own but given my lack of familiarity with older Korean films, I fell back on cinematic examples from Korea’s neighbours to pin the film’s look and feel.

The Restless features some amazing fight sequences and special effects. Unfortunately, the promising first 20-30 minute set-up involving good vs evil souls is sacrificed for the stunning visuals and eventually the story suffers. Black House is one of those horror films with many false endings. At the hour mark, the twist is revealed and the film could have ended yet it continues on towards a fitting resolution, which is provided about 25 minutes later. But the film does not end then and carries on for another 10 minutes. After which, when everything is finally resolved again, the film ends with the message that pure evil never really dies and appears to take on a new form.

The pick of the films was the gripping Dirty Carnival. While the film starts off as a gangster flick, things get interesting when the gangster, Byeong-du, runs into his old school friend Min-ho. The two share memories in a cafe and head to a old reunion with other friends where Byeong-du meets his old school flame Hyeon-ju. The entire setup among the friends has shades of the reunion from Hong Sang-soo’s Women is the Future of Man and has a very easy flow to it. Min-ho wants to be a film-maker and is struggling to get a realistic script written about gangsters. Byeong-du offers to help Min-ho etch out realistic gangster characters for his film by offering advice and introducing Min-ho to other gangsters. Trusting in their friendship, Byeong-du confides about his real life killings to Min-ho only for Min-ho to include the exact real life murder scenarios in his film as opposed to creating a work of fiction. When Min-ho’s gangster film becomes a hit, Byeong-du is under pressure from his gang members and boss to kill Min-ho lest all the crimes of Byeong-du are revealed to the rival gangs. Byeong-du finds himself in a tough bind and struggles to maintain both his friendship with Min-ho and relationship with Hyeon-ju.

Dirty Carnival breathes new life into the over-worked gangster genre by focussing more on the characters and their relationships. Even though there are some edgy and rough fight sequences involving bats and knives, they are put on the back burner when the film within a film element takes center stage. During key moments in the film the background score is similar to the music one finds on a merry-go round carousel signifying the cyclic nature of business in the gangster world -- round and round the crime business goes and when one gangster gets off the high horse, another is waiting to take his place. There is no time to rest because if one stops, then they will surely get knocked off and crushed.

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Ratings out of 10

Dirty Carnival: 9
Black Republic: 8
Black House: 6.5
The Restless: 6
City of Rising Sun: 4

Best Films of 2006

It was a thoroughly satisfying personal film viewing year. I had more chances to watch festival films than previous years, while at the same time conducting personal film festivals (World Cup Film festival in the summer) or having theme festivals gifted to me (January 2006’s a tribute to Jean Cocteau and a Soccer Film festival for my birthday). In the last 10 years, I made the least trips to a multiplex this year and stayed away from quite a few hyped up Hollywood titles.

I can’t claim to pick an objective top ten as that is just impossible. So I compiled a short-list of all the movies that I loved watching this past year, from which I picked ten out. Overall, it was a truly rich year for movies and the diversity of the films is reflected in the choices. Just a note on the film selections: I only selected movies that I saw in 2006 because they were either released in the theatre this year (commercially or at a film festival) or released on DVD in 2006. Some movies in this list were released in film festivals last year but never made it out to Canada or to my city. Likewise, my favourite film of 2005 was a movie that was Brazil’s official entry to the Oscars in 2006 -- Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures was the finest film I had seen in 2005 thanks to the London Film Festival. However, that film won’t be out in most North American theatres until early 2007. Also, I separated the docs from the features. Each film title is followed by country name and director name in the bracket. So without further delay, here is the list:

Top Ten films of 2006 (in order of preference) :

1) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romania, Cristi Puiu)
2) Dosar (India, Rituparno Ghosh)
3) El Violín (Mexico, Francisco Vargas Quevedo)
4) Tzameti (France/Georgia, Géla Babluani)
5) The Bet Collector (Philippines, Jeffrey Jeturian)
6) Khosla Ka Ghosla (India, Dibakar Banerjee)
7) The Descent (UK, Neil Marshall)
8) The Lives of Others (Germany, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck)
9) Election 2 (Hong Kong, Johnny To)
10) Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (South Korea, Park Chan-wook)

Remaining short-listed films (in no particular order):
Being Cyrus (India, Homi Adajania), Paradise Now (Palestine, Hany Abu-Assad), Still Life (China, Jia Zhangke), The King and the Clown (South Korea, Lee Jun-Ik), La Moustache (France, Emmanuel Carrère), A Scanner Darkly (USA, Richard Linklater), A Prairie Home Companion (USA, Robert Altman), Requiem (Germany, Hans-Christian Schmid), The Host (Korea, Bong Joon-ho)

Note on Jan 2: I forgot that Three Times (Taiwan, Hsiao-hsien Hou) should also be added to this year's short-list. I incorrectly thought that I had seen this film last year.

Top Docs of the year (in order of choice):

1) Iraq in Fragments (USA/Iraq, James Longley)
2) Bombay Calling (Canada, Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal)
3) Riding Solo to the Top of the World (India, Gaurav Jani)
4) Mystic Ball (Canada, Greg Hamilton)
5) Mo & Me (Kenya, Roger Mills)
6) The Trials of Darryl Hunt (USA, Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg)

1st Movie World Cup – Second Round Results!

In keeping with the format laid out by the Soccer World Cup, 16 teams competed in a knock-out format in the second round of the Movie World Cup.

Rules for scoring in second-round and onwards until the Final:

1) Movies compete in 5 categories (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography and Sound) earning either 0 or 1 point for each criteria.
-- If movie A has a better story than its opponent (movie B), then movie A gets 1 point and movie B gets 0.
-- However, if both movie A and movie B have good stories, then they each get 1 point each.
-- Also, if both have terrible stories, then the two movies get 0.

This scoring enables reasonable soccer scores like 3-2, 2-0 or even 0-0 (both movies failed on all 5 criteria).

2) If the score is tied after all the 5 categories, then a penalty shoot-out will be used with a single criteria – subjectivity. That means, I can freely give preference to a movie that I like without caring for its objective values. Is that fair? Well it is more fair than penalties are in the real soccer world cup!!

Here are the match-ups and results:

1A vs 2B – Germany vs England

German movie: Werner Herzog’s Signs of Life
English movie: Director Gary Wicks Endgame

This contest was not even close. It was a bit unfair because the English movie was thrown into the fire but the odd thing is that Signs of Life was Herzog’s first movie. Herzog’s 1968 film has some similarities with his last movie Grizzly Man . Both movies are about insanity, although the two films take a different approach to reach that conclusion. Grizzly Man is a documentary where Herzog narrates the camera footage that he discovered of Timothy Treadwell. Signs of Life is a scripted movie but it is told in a documentary format where a narrator tells of the slow transformation of Stroszek, a solider who gradually goes insane after he finds himself bored on an island. The beautifully shot black and white movie is told in documentary style and could easily be something constructed by assembling found camera footage of the incidents on the Greek island. The camera angles at times also give us the idea that the audience is looking from the outside and is never let in as to what is happening, something which is common when one is watching a documentary based on archival footage. Overall, Signs of Life is visually excellent with some very poetic shots. Easily a contender for best movie!

Final score: Germany 5 – 0 England
Goal scorers, Germany: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
The German movie was strong in every department and ran the English movie off the pitch!

1B vs 2A – Sweden vs Poland

Swedish movie: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona
Poland: Andrzej Wajda’s Kanal

This was a really close contest. Persona is a critically loved movie and I can see why. But then again, I don’t think it is as good as it made out to be. Kanal on the other hand has a very dull start but once the story movies to the underground labyrinth of tunnels, the movie really kicks into gear. My biggest problem with Persona was that I believe all the clever abstract elements were wasted on a dull story; the movie ensures that the viewer knows at all times that they are watching a film -- the start gives the viewer a glimpse of the evolution of cinema, the middle has the screen split in half as if the projector chewed up the film, and near the end, the camera shifts back to the camera crew showing the movie being shot. Now, these are great elements but the story of the two women trying to outwit each other just didn’t appeal to me.

Final Score: Sweden 2 – 3 Poland
Goals, Sweden: Acting, Direction
Goals, Poland: Cinematography, Story, Sound

1C vs 2D – Argentina vs Portugal

Argentina – Director Héctor Olivera’s A Shadow you soon will be
Portugal - Director Manoel de Oliveira's I'm Going Home

This was a very close contest but in the end, ‘subjectivity’ penalty kicks had to decide the contest. Personally, I loved the Argentine movie. I felt this was a poor man’s version of the sentiments that the 2005 Brazilian movie Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures echoed. Both the Argentine and Brazilian movies had similar ideas of men setting out into the unknown, escaping and seeking. In the Argentine movie, the main character returns home only to find himself thrust into a chaotic circus surrounded by colorful eccentric characters who are seeking to live their life to the fullest, even if that means living in the past, dreaming about the future or merely driving away the present. The Portuguese movie, I’m Going Home is in French and is a technically polished movie with high caliber acting. However, I didn’t agree with the director’s vision of packing the movie with plenty of staged dramatic scenes to convey the main character’s love of theatre over other aspects of his life.

Final Score: Argentina 3 – 3 Portugal, Argentina win on Penalties
Goals, Argentina: Story, Direction, Sound. Penalty: Subjectivity
Goals, Portugal: Direction, Acting, Cinematography

1D vs 2C – Iran vs Holland

Iran – Director Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes On
Holland - Director Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight

Two completely different movies, two completely different styles! The Iranian style was slow but the Dutch were pacy and only slowed down near the end when they knew the victory was in the bag. And Life Goes On turned out to be appropriate pick because it does talk about the Soccer World Cup – the films showed that despite having an earthquake level out cities, some people still wanted to watch the soccer World Cup because it came only every 4 years. However, as the movie’s actor told one person, an earthquake was more critical because it could only occur once every 40 years!

Final Score: Iran 4 – 5 Holland
Goals, Iran: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography
Goals, Holland: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound,

1E vs 2F – USA vs Japan

USA - Director David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers
Japan – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan

Wedding Crashers were able to power their way out of their group in the first round but they stood no chance against the award-winning stylish Japanese movie.

Final Score: USA 1 – 4 Japan
Goals, USA: Acting
Goals, Japan: Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound

1F vs 2E – Brazil vs Italy

Brazil - Director Vicente Amorim's The Middle of the World
Italy - Director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow

What a colourful contest! The Italian movie, unlike the Italian soccer team, showed plenty of energy. However all of Benigni’s energy was not enough to channel enough goals to overcome the technically polished Brazilian movie. It felt as though Benigni was trying to carve out another feel good movie along the lines of Life is Beautiful but this time the hollow story didn’t stand strong.

Final Score: Brazil 5 – 2 Italy
Goals, Brazil: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, Italy: Acting, Sound

1G vs 2H – Korea vs Tunisia

South Korea - Director Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance
Tunisia -- Director Raja Amari's Satin Rouge

Both movies were very good and quite different from each other. In the end, tt was a very close contest and the final decision was a tough one.

Final Score: Korea 5 – 4 Tunisia
Goals, Korea: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, Tunisia: Acting, Story, Direction, Sound

1H vs 2G – Spain vs France

Spain -- Director Achero Mañas's El Bola
France – Director Pierre Jolive’s In all Innocence

This is the only tie that is similar in both movie and Soccer World Cup. The soccer game will be a tight encounter but the movie contest was not as close.

Final Score: Spain 5 – 2 France
Goals, Spain: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, France: Acting, Cinematography

Pianos, Karmic Cycles and a Joint Security Area

The Beat that My Heart Skipped (Directed by Jacques Audiard): Rating 9/10

The only reason I went to see this movie was because of Romain Duris and I was not disappointed. Duris is quite good as the reluctant gangster. He plays Thomas, a real estate enforcer who is brought into the business by his dad. Thomas and his gang hunt for open real estate property, take it over and then sell it for redevelopment. Sometimes they have to be tough and kick people out, but it is all part of their shady business. One day, Thomas runs into his old Piano teacher. His teacher always felt Thomas had potential and was Thomas’s mother’s teacher. He wonders if Thomas is keeping up with his training and after Thomas replies in the affirmative, his teachers asks him to come for an audition. That gets Thomas motivated and he finds a new zest in life. The music moves him and he believes that is his one chance to escape his current way of life. So does Thomas succeed? Well the movie is very realistic in its approach and manages to show an ending which is alternate to the two obvious options – one where Thomas succeeds in music and the other where he fails and returns to his old way of life. It is an engaging movie for sure.

Running on Karma (directed by Johnny To): Rating 7/10

The second half of the movie is not your typical Johnny To stuff but it works, somewhat. A beefed up male stripper is arrested by the cops. But as it turns out, this former martial arts monk has special powers – he can see people’s futures based on their karma, meaning he knows what will happen to someone based on that person’s former actions. The fake body suit on Andy Lau looks funny as first but after a while, you get used to it. The karmic angle to the second half of the flick is interesting enough but I wish the movie had gotten there earlier. Ofcourse, the required fights and chases are necessary in the first half. The transition between the two halves gives the feeling that Running on Karma is really two movies spliced together.

Joint Security Area (directed by Chan-wook Park): Rating 7.5/10

Long before there was the Revenge trilogy (OldBoy and the two Vengeance movies), Chan-wook Park actually worked on normal movies. Plain, simple stories with no chopping and cutting! This movie centers on a border check post between North and South Korea. A massacre has taken place and a neutral party consisting of Swiss and Swedish personnels is sent to investigate. It so happens that one of the Swiss investigators is a woman of Korean heritage who has never been to Korea before. As she works to peel the truth and tries to understand the accused and defender, she learns a little about her father as well. JSA is an interesting movie which highlights the absurdity of man made borders.