Korean Cinema is totally kicking ass the last few years.

[Forkboy]

Thinking back over the last two years, my top 10 lists for movies of the year have been dominated by Korean movies. The stories, the acting and the direction rival the very best coming out of Hollywood. So, while Hollywood is making a movie based on the game Battleship, and making endless remakes, reboots and games based on old tv shows (thank God they made that live action Scooby Doo movie!), here's a taste of what's been coming out of Korea.

Oldboy - Many are already aware of this one (and of course Hollywood has plans to remake it), but for those that haven't, this is an intense movie with a great ending.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno

An average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, Oh Dae-Su soon finds out that his kidnapper has a greater plan for him and is set onto a path of pain and suffering in an attempt to uncover the motive of his mysterious tormentor.



I Saw The Devil - This is the best movie I've seen this year. Everything about this film is top notch. I'm talking Scorcese and Coen Brothers quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkwEFKdTckkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkwEFKdTckk

Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.



The Good, The Bad, The Weird - One of the most entertaining and exciting action movies I've ever seen. I had a smile on my face throughout this one. The actions scenes are plentiful, and perfectly choreographed. Makes Indiana Jones seem like a laid back film in comparison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzNnCK5cd8Q

A guksu western. Three Korean gunslingers are in Manchuria circa World War II: Do-wan, an upright bounty hunter, Chang-yi, a thin-skinned and ruthless killer, and Tae-goo, a train robber with nine lives. Tae-goo finds a map he's convinced leads to buried treasure; Chang-yi wants it as well for less clear reasons. Do-wan tracks the map knowing it will bring him to Chang-yi, Tae-goo, and reward money. Occupying Japanese forces and their Manchurian collaborators also want the map, as does the Ghost Market Gang who hangs out at a thieves' bazaar. These enemies cross paths frequently and dead bodies pile up. Will anyone find the map's destination and survive to tell the tale?



Thirst - I'm not a big fan of vampire movies. There's a handful of good ones, but by and large they bore me to tears. Not this one. One of the most original and interesting takes on the genre since Nightwatch and Daywatch (I'll save those for the Russian Cinema thread lol).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksHBkbERaJI

Sang-hyun, a priest working for a hospital, selflessly volunteers for a secret vaccine development project intended to eradicate a deadly virus. However, the virus eventually takes over the priest. He nearly dies, but makes a miraculous recovery by an accidental transfusion of vampire blood. He realizes his sole reason for living: the pleasures of the flesh.



The Yellow Sea - Starts slow, but when it kicks in it really kicks in. Apparently, no one uses guns over there, but axes and butcher knives are quite abundant, and this movie uses lots and lots of them. Great action and fight sequences. The trailer looks awfully dark (color wise, the story IS dark), but the movie itself looks much better on DVD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCwY79GQ1o&feature=related
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNTQzODg4ODQwNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjA0NTMyNQ@@._V1._SY317_CR4,0,214,317_.jpg
The story of a cab driver in Yanji City, a region between North Korea, China and Russia. His wife goes to Korea to earn money, but he doesn't hear from her since in 6 months. He plays mah-jong to make some extra cash, but this only makes his life worse; but then he meets a hitman who proposes to turn his life around by repaying his debt and reuniting with his wife, just for one hit.



The Chaser - This is done by the same director as The Yellow Sea a couple years earlier, and is fucking awesome. Right up there with I Saw The Devil, and the killer in this one is someone you won't forget anytime soon. The two main actors are the same two main actors that he would use again in The Yellow Sea. Sadly, this trailer is the only good one out there, and it doesn't even begin to do this movie justice. However, the entire movie is currently up on YouTube with English subtitles. Catch it while you can. Tremendous movie making. Grabs you from the start and never lets go.
Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkqczsLZd1I
Full movie (in multiple parts) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl0yFDBIY0U

Joong-ho is a dirty detective turned pimp in financial trouble as several of his girls have recently disappeared without clearing their debts. While trying to track them down, he finds a clue that the vanished girls were all called up by a same client whom one of his girls is meeting with right now.


A word or warning: all of these movies with the exception of The Good, The Bad, The Weird contain some scenes of intense violence. It's not done in a gratuitous way at all, like the Saw movies and Hostel for instance, but it is intense, realistic, and packs a punch. However, if you can handle that type of stuff, then I can't recommend these films enough. If you can't handle it, there's always Yogi Bear 3D. ;)

[slor]

1. I agree...

I saw a movie a few years back, cannot remember the title, about a large amphibious monster in a river, and it was great. Thanks for the list!

[SecularMotion]

3. The Host

Great film!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468492/

[Forkboy]

7. A sequel is in the works.

I actually wasn't that crazy about the first one, and I don't really know why. Monster movies are my favorite of all movies, and add my love of Korean movies and you'd think this would be a no-brainer for me. But outside of the bone puking scene (which was totally awesome) the movie didn't hit me. When the sequel comes out I plan on watching the first one again. I remember that I was not in a good mood the day I watched it, and maybe I just wasn't in the right mode to appreciate it, so I'm up for giving it a second chance. :)

[SecularMotion]

2. Korea is the best

I put off watching "I Saw The Devil" for a few months and I'm sorry I waited. It was great, not overly violent and gory as I had suspected.

Have you seen these?

"A Movie Is A Movie" or "Rough Cut"

Gang-pae, #2 in his organization, is swamped with routine violence, and his dream of becoming an actor never went away. Star actor Soo-ta lives behind a veil, away from public eyes. Over time his behavior becomes increasingly agitated, provoked by paparazzi wanting a piece of him wherever he goes. This behavior puts him in a series of spiraling and uncontrollable situations. Now he begins shooting a new movie playing a gangster. Because of his bad temper, he beats up a fellow actor and forces the production to a halt. Feeling responsible, Soo-ta requests Gang-pae, whom he met by chance, to play alongside him in the movie in order to save the production. Gang-pae agrees with the condition that the violence portrayed in the movie has to be real and not fake acting violence. Soo-ta accepts the condition and they get ready for the real match.

http://www.asiandb.com/browse/movie_detail.pfm?code=6694
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345734/

"A Scarlet Letter"

The Scarlet Letter is a 2004 South Korean film about a police detective who investigates a murder case while struggling to hang onto his relationships with his wife and mistress. The film debuted as the closing film of the Pusan International Film Festival in 2004. It is the second film by La Femis-graduate and academic Byun Hyuk (Daniel Byun), and starred Han Suk-kyu, Lee Eun-ju, Sung Hyun-ah and Uhm Ji-won.

Despite Lee Eun-ju's prior experience with depicting sex and nudity in Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000), she came under the scrutiny of Korean press and netizens, for the (highly emotional) sex scenes and the notorious "trunk scene" in The Scarlet Letter. It is speculated her demanding role and its public scrutiny, had compounded and overlapped with an existing variety of family, financial, career, and insomnia issues. Her severe depression ended in suicide in February 2005, and the tragic conclusion has since become the central focus in popular perception and interpretation of the film, this particular one being her last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter_%282004_film%29

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427411/

[Forkboy]

5. I haven't seen either of those, but I will now.

:)

Thanks for the heads up!

[dkf]

4. The whole thing is on YouTube or are those clips?

[Forkboy]

6. It's the whole movie.

13 parts, each clip is about 8-10 minutes. Kind of an annoying way to watch it, but it's better than nothing if one can't find the DVD (or download it from somewhere).

[Ohio Joe]

8. Thirst was awesome

As was Nightwatch and Daywatch. Wasn't there supposed to be a third in that series?

[Forkboy]

10. Supposedly, but the director started doing American movies.

Haven't heard any news on the third one in a couple of years.

[Qanisqineq]

9. Where do you find these with English subtitles?

I live in South Korea and want to see so many of their movies. However, my Korean isn't good enough to follow a movie. I can't stop and ask someone to repeat what they said, or reword it a little in words I understand.

I did watch Gwa-mool (The Host) on Korean TV and followed along okay with that one but still missed a lot.

[Forkboy]

11. You can order many DVDs, or you can find some of them online and stream them.

Streaming works fine if you have a fast internet connection. I order the movies I really like if I can't find them in a store, but I almost always watch them before buying. I'm not buying a movie blind, I don't have the budget. Oldboy I bought blind, but only after a bunch of people I trust guaranteed it was worth it (they were right).

What I usually do is find it streaming somewhere and download it to my PC. There's a Firefox addon called VideoTap that's easy to use. After you install the addon it will say "VideoTap" in the lower right corner of your Firefox browser, and it detects all video when you open a web page (it might work on other browsers like Chrome or IE, I don't know). Double click on "VideoTap" in the lower right corner and it opens a list of all the media on that page. Just choose the movie and click on "Download". Streaming can be hit or miss, and buffer times can be slow, so I tend to rip them to my PC first and then watch them. I use a different program than VideoTap, but it's more complicated (I only use it because that's what I'm used to using, and it downloads slightly faster than VideoTap does).

I use a program called VLC Player to watch any movies I download (Windows Media Player and the Divx Video Player tend to suck), and that has the option of adding subtitle files (which are fairly easy to find online, just search for the movie name and add "subtitle file" or something...I've found subs for some very obscure movies). Download the subtitle file, and in VLC Player there's a menu at the top. Go to Video>Subtitle Track>Open File and select the subtitle file you downloaded. Viola, english subs! Most movies have them already though, and I've only had to do this a handful of times (all for German movies, as it turns out).

Here's a couple sites that have a lot of movies. The newer movies tend to be cam copies, which I avoid (I'd rather see a movie in good quality). The legality is suspect though, so use at your own risk. I tend to end up buying most of the movies I like a lot (I have all of the ones I listed except The Yellow Sea and The Chaser on DVD, and I'll buy those when I find them, for sure). But I watch a ton of cheesy horror movies that simply aren't worth owning, so it's watch them like this or not watch them all. :)

http://www.zmovie.tv/

http://www.alluc.org/movies.html?mode=sel&letter=A

[ZombieHorde]

12. Bookmarked this thread. You're a DU treasure. nt