Like Squid Game and Parasite?Dig deeper into the wonderful past movies of Hallyu
If you're lucky enough to grow up before the millennium, you probably don't know much about Korea beyond the conflict on the back of your school history textbook. But all that changed after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when South Korea doubled down on its funding for exportable pop culture in an attempt to rebuild its national image on the world stage. This strategy, which was designed to attract big business and tourism, has been a huge success – and now we're all over the ears with K-pop**, K-dramas and kimchi.
One of the biggest proponents of the "Korean Wave" wave, though, has been filmmaking — the Hollywood-style action blockbuster "Shiri";The brutal revenge thriller "Old Boy";"Parasite" won an Academy Award, becoming the resounding triumph of national cinema to regain its life from the brink of obscurity. And for good reason: South Korea is a goldmine of original ideas and storytelling talent, and as the industry booms, they show no signs of stopping. Below is a list of the best Korean movies of all time.
Maid
Director: Kim Ki-young.
This crime movie is Bong Joon-ho's favorite and has a strong call to be the greatest Korean film of all time. Director Kim Ki-young's inspiration came from flipping through a newspaper and stumbling upon the story of a family that has fallen into chaos due to the arrival of a domestic helper. Lee Eun-sin plays a maid who is both warm and cold, and is the agent of chaos in his story: an intoxicating watch that deals with class, sexuality, and family dynamics in a way that is all too familiar to people. Parasite fans. Lim Sang-so (The Last Strike of *) remade the film in 2010, but still started with the original.
Crying
DirectorLuo Hongzhen, "The Cry".
It's a masterpiece of atmospheric horror, long, intense, and ambitious, but it never feels like a daunting task. It also borrows elements from the horror landscape – from zombies to demons to creepy kids – but never turns into a jumble patchwork. The story centers on a policeman's race to save a village from a virus that takes his daughter, and the storyline gradually unfolds and everything looks natural, allowing a sense of fear to envelop you like a fog.
Parasites
Director: Bong Joon-ho.
A milestone in world cinema, Parasite is the highest-grossing Korean film in several countries, the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and is widely regarded as one of the best films of the 21st century. All of this is good, but Bong Joon-ho's real achievement is to bring the film's sharp capitalist critique to a global audience. The message is not very subtle: a poor family living in the slums of Seoul is attached to a wealthy family and even lives in secret in their house until the social order inevitably corrects itself. But there is exciting, entertaining, and often unsettling entertainment that leaves Hollywood's forgetful elite with no choice but to stand up and cheer. Knowledgeable fans are already waiting with anticipation for Junho's every project. Now the whole world is waiting for them.
The story of two sisters
Director: Kim Ji-yun.
Based on a folk tale and released in the watershed years of Korean cinema (a few months before and after Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder" and Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy" and "A Tale of Two Sisters"), this atmospheric fable echoes The Shining in its complex setting (a Gothic mansion full of looming corridors and William Morris wallpapers) and creepy atmosphere. But Kim Ji-woon's professional direction and Lee Byung-woo's Hitchcock-esque soundtrack have elevated it even further;The end result is a masterpiece of psychological horror from one of Korea's finest filmmakers.
Memories of killing
Director: Bong Joon-ho.
Bong Joon-ho's film history has had a lot of contenders for Best Picture, but until the release of Parasite, the thriller was a recognized high-water film. Even now, there are many fans – including Quentin Tarantino – who believe this is still his greatest moment. Memories revolves around a series of real-life cases that shook a small town in the 80s, twisting the process into a powerful indictment of a society ill-equipped to deal with this type of violence and death. Just like his signature, Bong Joon-ho injects the right amount of black humor throughout, as a pair of ill-prepared village cops team up with a big-city investigator (Kim Sang-kyung) to bring ** to justice. But as the death toll mounts, the trail of clues becomes insanely blurred, and the gloomy clouds that hang over the film become darker and more intense. Every turn is imbued with the master's style, and the wider world will take years to recognize.
Mints
DirectorLi Cangdong.
Screenwriter Li Cangdong's directorial work begins with a disheveled man jumping in front of a train. The film looks back at his life and shows what led him to this point, tracing 20 years of South Korean political history in the process, from the Asian financial crisis in the late '90s to the conflict between citizens and police in 1980, known as Gwangju Dae**. It's a powerful melodrama with an elegiac tone and a heartbreaking finish.
Save the Green Planet
Director: Zhang Junhuan.
In this hilarious, cross-genre comedy-fantasy, a paranoid beekeeper (Shin Ha-gyun in "Mr. Sympathy's Revenge") kidnaps the CEO of a pharmaceutical company (Baek Yoon-sik in "The Last Blow" of *), who is convinced that he is an alien from Earth. Andromeda planet. Inspired in part by Rob Reiner's Misery (1990), this alternative cult classic also has visuals reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's science fiction works. It was announced back in 2020 that it would be remade in the United States. Could it be so crazy and dazzling?
Whispering corridors
DirectorPark Ki-hyung.
Korean films were heavily censored in the 70s due to the state's ** regime. When the regime falls, the game begins for filmmakers like Park Ki-hyung, who are forced to stick to their avant-garde ideas and can use a new wave of creativity to advance Korean cinema. The South Korean horror film, the first in a loose five-part Whispering Corridor series, is exactly the kind of film that would have been banned before: an intriguing indictment of the country's education system, which has taken serious and brutal revenge for abusive teachers. A supernatural force.
Common Security Area (years).
Director: Park Chan-wook.
Park Chan-wook's breakthrough doesn't have the same momentum and killings as his later films, but this film is just as stunning as it is heart-wrenching, as is a mix of suspense, police procedure, and political thriller. An incident occurred in the highly militarized demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, resulting in the death of a North Korean soldier and an army major (Lee Young-ae, who later became the star of Chan-wook's "Nemesis") was taken to investigate, and it turned out that everyone involved was lying, although the reason was not obvious. "Joint Security Zone," which exploited the ubiquitous tensions between North and South Korea to convey the toll of the conflict on the citizens of both countries, became the highest-grossing film in the country's history at one point.
Biography of the wicked
DirectorLi Yuantai.
A violent police officer and a crime boss (the latter played by Ma Dong-seok from "Eternals") team up to hunt down a fugitive serial killer in Seoul. As with the best Korean genre films, Lee Won-tae takes the same story and elevates the style to such a dizzying height that clichés twist into something unrecognizable. Filled with frantic car chases, brutal fights, and lots of awesome suits, Sylvester Stallone buys the rights to a potential American remake, which gives you an idea of its category.
Burning
DirectorLi Cangdong.
Lee Chang-dong is a master filmmaker whose filmmaking is based on complete control over emotions, and he brings out his awe-inspiring best in this slow thriller based on Haruki Murakami's short story**, which blends missing women, lovelorn women in a Haruki Murakami-esque way. Men, hungry cats, and jazz. In retrospect, the magic between Lee and the Japanese writer's work seems palpable – both men like to steer their stories in the direction of the unavoidable, ambiguous. But Lee added to Koreans' very specific concerns about class divisions and the North-South divide as a farm boy turns into a wannabe writer who falls in love with a mysterious *** with some sinister hobbies
New World
Director: Park Hoon-jeong.
I See the Devil screenwriter Park Hoon-jeong's violent gangster epic feels like a familiar blend of The Godfather and Infernal Affairs. But what it lacks in narrative originality is made up for by flawless execution. Lee Jung-jae of "Squid Game", Choi Min-sik of "Old Boy" and Hwang Jung-min of "The Cry" brought to life the intricate story of power struggles within the criminal syndicate. Meanwhile, its rich visual identity is provided by cinematographer Chung Chung-Hoon, who recently filmed "The Last Night in Soho" and Disney's "Obi-Wan Kenobi" series.
Silence
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk.
After the huge global success of Squid Game, Netflix has added a series of films directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk to its platform. This powerful courtroom drama starring Kong Yoo ("Train to Busan") is the highlight. The drama is based on a shocking true incident that took place at the Inhwa School for the Hearing Impaired in Gwangju, in which deaf and mute students were systematically treated by the staff. Despite the heavy subject matter, more than four million Koreans flocked to the cinema**. After the incident, the criminal investigation was also reopened, leading to changes in the law aimed at protecting minors.
Old boys
Director: Park Chan-wook.
Korean movies include "Before the Old Boy" and "After the Old Boy". The film drew international attention to the revolution that is taking place in the Korean film industry, and for good reason, the middle part of Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy is a completely unique experience. At the beginning of the movie, the main character (Choi Min-sik) is forcibly locked in a small room by an invisible kidnapper, but the reason is never explained. After his release 15 years later, his situation worsened. After being framed for his wife, he sets out to find out who stole the last decade of his life and takes revenge. Admittedly, the actual plot intrigue is intricate, but the intensity of the filmmaking detonates all doubts.
Right now, wrong then
DirectorHong Sang-so.
A prolific director who specializes in making funny, self-reflective films about film directors learning embarrassing life lessons, Hong Sang-so may sound like South Korea's Woody Allen on paper, but actually has a more formal playful style. This intriguing and radically structured story tells the story of a male film director who falls in love with a painter he meets while spending time at the Suwon Film Festival. We've seen their days together;And then we look at it again, and there are only minor differences. This cinematic difference-finding device not only captures your undivided attention, but also makes you think about the butterfly effect of life's smallest moments.