Korean Job Discussion Forums

[v88]

Just wondering what people think are the best Korean films.

Some movies I have enjoyed:

마더 (Mother)
거북이 달린다 (Geo-bok-i Dal-lin-da) - Running Turtle
그림자 살인 (Geu-rim-ja sal-in) - Private Eye
추격자 (Choo-gyuk-ja) - The Chaser
이끼 (I-ggi) - Moss
황해 � The Yellow Sea
좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈 - The Good, the Bad, the Weird
타짜 (Ta-jja)
너는 내 운명 (Neo-neun Nae Woon-myeong) - You are My Sunshine
친절한 금자씨 (Chin-jeol-han Geum-ja-ssi) - Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
달콤한 인생 (Dal-kom-han In-saeng) - A Bittersweet Life
말죽거리 잔혹사 (Mal-jook-geo-ri Jan-hok-sa) - Once Upon a Time in High-school
실미도 - Silmido
올드보이 (Ol-deu-bo-i) � Old Boy
살인의 추억 - Memories of Murder
복수는 나의 것 - Sympathy for Mister Vengeance

My favourites are:
The entire Vengeance Trilogy from Park Chan Wook. The guy is a fantastic director. Thirst kind of sucked though�yes, it was a vampire movie, but it was the wrong kind of sucking.

Memories of Murder: Just a great drama about real murders that happened in the 80�s in Korea.

The Chaser: A really burly yet simplistic little film based on some real murders that happened in Seoul

Running Turtle: Kind of a cool film about a poor down trodden guy in the country side who tries to catch a hardened Seoul criminal.

You are My Sunshine: Another real story about the past in Korea where a prostitute finds love in a the arms of a poor farmer only to find she has HIV�.and it has nothing to do with foreigners.

A Bittersweet Life: Reasonable action / gangster film.

I also like the Yellow Sea until near the end of the film when it became too unrealistic. However it is a cool look at Koreans living in China (or at least the directors perception of them) and wonderfully violent and gritty!

[Beyondbelief]

Dong pa ri (sp?) is a great flick. Love the main character in it.

[zdrav]

I haven't seen a lot of Korean movies, but I did enjoy "The Good, The Bad, The Weird" back in the summer of 2008. A lot more entertaining than most Hollywood blockbusters.

[jammo]

***The Man from Nowhere
*** Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
*** Dirty Carnival
***Poetry
***the bow
***time
***Memories of Murder
***Hello, Ghost
***Joint Security Area
***A Tale of Two Sisters
***The Chaser
***Jigureul jikyeora! (save the green planet)
***Castaway on the Moon
***A Bittersweet Life
***3 Iron
***my sassy girl
***JSA
***Daytime Drinking
***A Bittersweet life


If I had to recommend just one - it would be Dirty carnival.

also - dont watch the 'itaewon murder' movie if you are an English teacher.

[jammo]

Jsa and a bittersweet life were very good so i listed them both twice it seems..

[sublunari]

JSA was ridiculous, and Oldboy was good but perhaps not rewatchable. If anyone mentions Taegugki, I will kindly refer them to a much better movie that it shamelessly copies called Saving Private Ryan.

Attack The Gas Station, The Host, and Musa are all you need--although the last movie is a little long. Each of these is not just a good Korean movie but a good movie period. Chingu was interesting but it glorifies the gangster life a little too much, and the main character says something like "you believe this because I'm a gangster" about every thirty seconds.

I would like to ask if there are any good documentaries on North Korea that you would not find at the top of a google video search.

[jammo]

if we are making requests I would love to find some movies from the 80s or 90s that show how Seoul was back then. Very interested in seeing this

[jammo]

[seoulsucker]

작전 (The Scam) and 아저씨 (This Man) are good recent flicks. Just watched 고지전 (The Front Line) last night and thought it was decent...about a hill right on the demarcation line that was constantly taken, lost and retaken by both sides during the final days and hours of the Korean War. Some weepy North/South han/jeong stuff of course, but still pretty good.

[Jonephant]

I agree with most of the OP's list and i'll add

Sunflower 해바라기

Like a virgin 천하장사 마돈나

I went through a phase of watching Kim Ki Duk movies. Most of which were hard to finish. The only Kim Ki Duk movies i would recommend is the above mentioned spring summer autumn winter and spring and also 3-Iron 빈집

[alistaircandlin]

nice thread - I'll check out some of the recommendations that I haven't already seen.

I've been a bit disappointed with Korean cinema, to be honest. I really want it to be good, but I've not really seen anything that completely knocked me out.

I agree with sublunari that Private Ryan is a better film than Taeguki, which I found mawkishly sentimental at times. I feel like Korean cinema as a whole models itself on American films, but actually Hollywood does it better. I do think Korean films often suffer from being overly sentimental.

For me, another reason Korean films sometimes fail is that I think they try to incorporate a bit of everything in one movie: so you'll have the comic roles or absurdist scenes, a bit of romance, a bit of action, a touch of scary, all mixed together - they don't quite know what genre they are. I thought that JSA and Welcome to Dongmakeol were a bit like this. I liked them, because they're Korean, but thought they were rather all over the place. Another thing worth mentioning is that the foreign actors in Korean films are often terrible - some of them would never have passed a screen test in The States, for sure.

Hello Ghost was a good laugh, and I thought The Host was an enjoyable movie. 3 Iron - so-so. Silmido, and Shiri - might have been good, but can't remember. Which doesn't say much for them.Oldboy, I think, is good - but I am disappointed with the ending. Without spoiling the plot, I just thought it was unnecessarily excessive, and would have been way better with a subtler end. The bad guy camped it up too much playing the villain as well.

I thought The Chaser was a pretty decent film: no problems with that one.

Last weekend I watched Yellow Sea, and thought it was great until about half way through. Then I literally lost the plot - didn't know why everybody was suddenly chasing after the protagonist. Really liked the setting, the acting, and the idea of a Joseon Jeok guy coming to Korea though. I saw Bedevilled yesterday, which is watchable.

If you're not British, you've probably not heard of this guy, but there's an English presenter called Jonathan Ross who did a three part documentary series for the BBC on Asian cinema, called Asian Invasion. If you are into film, I'd recommend it. Part one is on Japan, part two is Hong Kong, and part 3 is on Korea. Ross has been a long term fan of Asian culture in general, and especially Asian cinema, so he knows what he's on about. His review of Oldboy really made me think about it quite differently, but if nothing else, it's worth seeing just for his outrageous mispronunciation of, "Anyong Haseyo," at the beginning of the Korean episode. I basically checked out all of the films I liked the look of from this show.

Saw a movie not long ago about a guy who'd agreed with his girlfriend ten years previously to meet on this small island. They've not seen each other for all that time, he turns up, she doesn't. It wasn't bad at all. Can't remember the name of it though.

[alistaircandlin]

[fermentation]

I disagree with post that says Taeguki copied off Saving Private Ryan. Well maybe it did but pretty much every war movie after SPR copied it. Taeguki was no different except it had Korean sentiments. Not my favorite war movie but not bad.

The Chaser, and JSA are good except for a few flaws. Ajossi was entertaining but there were some pretty glaring plot holes that weren't explained.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned 친구. Maybe the English title is different. Classic Korean gangster movie. I generally hate Korean gangster movies but I liked this one.

[Joe Boxer]

Korean movies I liked:
The Chaser
Oldboy (of course)
Mr. Vengeance
Lady Vengeance
하녀 (don't know the English title, but a couple of REALLY hot scenes)
Samaria
Mother (머더)

Movies that were ok:
Taeguki
Shilmido
My boyfriend is type B
Phone (1st Korean movie I ever saw)

I didn't like:
Memories of Murder (found it long and boring)
Two Sisters
The Host (lol p.o.s.)

[magni]

I recently watched 써니/Sunny and it was pretty awesome, definately worth checking out.