Posts Tagged ‘Korean cinema’
Monday, April 20th, 2026
HUMINT (as in “human intelligence”) is a 2026 South Korean thriller from writer/director Ryoo Seung-wan (THE CITY OF VIOLENCE, ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU). It stars Zo In-sung (THE GREAT BATTLE) as Manager Zo, an agent for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service who goes undercover to bust human traffickers.
In the opening he’s at a brothel to record the final testimony of his informant, Soo-rin, on the last day before they’re supposed to get her out and back to her family. When she escaped North Korea she was trafficked by the Russian mafia and now is heavily scarred, addicted and desperate. The trouble is that Zo’s handlers, talking to him in his earpiece, are only interested in the narcotics part of her story, and aren’t sure she’s given them enough. After Soo-rin causes a scene that draws the attention of her pimp, Zo learns that the budget to move her hasn’t even been approved yet. He bows his head and asks his team, “Is this seriously… the best we can do?”
Soo-rin gets a beating while he follows his orders to walk away and “not engage.” Except then he thinks better of it, and there’s an excellent fight scene. When more thugs arrive he pulls his gun, and his handlers tell him, “If you open fire there’s no turning back.” He thinks about it for a moment, then turns the gun around and uses it like a hammer. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Korean cinema, North Korea, Park Hae-joon, Park Jeong-min, Robert Maaser, Russian mafia, Ryoo Seung-wan, Shin Se-kyung, spies, undercover, Zo In-sung
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
SPACE SWEEPERS is a South Korean movie from 2021 that I first watched in February of 2022. I know that because when I went to save this document I discovered the partial review I wrote back then, but got too busy to finish. Recently I was thinking about the movie, watched it again, and I’m excited to share it with anyone who missed it. (It’s on Netflix.)
This is in that sub-genre I love that some call “space truckers” – a sci-fi fantasy about a working class crew doing a space job in their junky, jerry-rigged but beloved space-hooptie. It’s both their vehicle and their home, a cramped quarters but with a plant and other items of comfort, a small kitchen, a table for playing cards. They’re a ragtag crew of good-hearted rejects like you get in SPACE ADVENTURE COBRA, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Cowboy Bebop, SPACE TRUCKERS, SERENITY, etc., but this time the world they inhabit is a very pointed, acidic portrait of our current capitalistic hellscape. Four years ago it seemed very of-the-moment, and now it seems even more accurate than it did then. The truth hurts, but director Jo Sung-hee (A WEREWOLF BOY, PHANTOM DETECTIVE) still manage to make a fun popcorn movie about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jin Seon-kyu, Jo Sung-hee, Kim Tai-ri, Korean cinema, Richard Armitage, Song Joon-ki, space truckers, Yoo Hae-jin
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Friday, August 5th, 2022
CARTER is a new South Korean action spectacular just released on Netflix today. It’s a real runaway roller coaster, bowling ball rolling down a steep hill, adrenaline jolt type of movie, so in that spirit I’m gonna try to plow through a review and get it up real fast, like in the old days.
I’m not always on top of the South Korean cinema, but this one is from director Jung Byung-gil, whose THE VILLAINESS (2017) ranks high for me in the list of the best action movies in the last decade. CARTER is in some ways not as good, but it’s even more action-packed and technically awe-inspiring, so I absolutely recommend it.*
*To most people. Some restrictions apply, see later in review for details, ask your doctor if CARTER is right for you.
Joo Won (FATAL INTUITION) stars as Carter Lee, a guy who wakes up face down in a hotel room surrounded by gun-pointing CIA agents. He has a freshly stitched-up, cross-shaped wound on the back of his head, and there’s a trail of blood leading from under the covers across the floor. He doesn’t remember who he is or what the fuck is going on, but the agents show a video of him holding one Dr. Jung Byung-ho (Jung Jae-young, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) hostage and saying to come get him in that hotel room. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Camilla Belle, Jeong Sori, Joo Won, Jung Byung-gil, Jung Jae-young, Korean cinema, long takes, Mike Colter, Netflix, Simon Rhee
Posted in Action, Reviews | 33 Comments »
Monday, November 22nd, 2021
THE SWORDSMAN is a 2020 Korean film about a swordsman. Color me intrigued. (Seriously. I like swordsmen.) I wonder what’s up with this swordsman that makes him THE swordsman?
Actually there’s a bunch of swordsmen in THE SWORDSMAN with one that I assume is the titular swordsman but another one you could make an interesting if not totally convincing argument for. The main one is Tae-yul (Lee Min-hyuk), “the best swordsman in Joseon,” who in the prologue (while being played by Lee Min-hyuk) refuses to stand down from protecting the king (Jang Hyun-sung, SHIRI) when the other top officials have decided to topple him in a rebellion. The secondary swordsman is Min Seung-ho (Jung Man-sik, THE YELLOW SEA), an older military official who, to get to the king, challenges Tae-yul to a duel in which Tae-yul’s sword shatters, sending shards into his hand and eyes. At that point the king stops the fight and agrees to step down.
Unspecified years later, Tae-yul (now Jang Hyuk, VOLCANO HIGH) is a recluse living in the mountains with his teenage daughter Tae-ok (Kim Hyun-soo, THE FIVE). He periodically has problems with his vision, and a monk tells them to go get a special herb from a trader he knows named Hwa Seon (Lee Na-Kyung, BATTLE FOR INCHEON: OPERATION CHROMITE) or he’s gonna go blind. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelina Danilova, Choi Jae-hoon, Choi Jin-ho, Jang Hyuk, Jang Hyun-sung, Joe Taslim, Jung Man-sik, Kim Hyun-soo, Korean cinema, Lee Na-Kyung
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, January 19th, 2021
TRAIN TO BUSAN PRESENTS PENINSULA is, of course, director Yeon Sang-ho’s sequel to his excellent zombie hit TRAIN TO BUSAN (itself a live action sequel to his less-widely-known animated movie SEOUL STATION). Although PENINSULA is officially a TRAIN TO BUSAN presentation according to the American title, these are sequels in sort of the George Romero tradition: same world, different sets of characters. Different things that happen to people in South Korea trying to survive a fast-zombie outbreak. So, although I recommend all of them, you could watch them in any order.
This one starts maybe a little bit after the other two movies. Jung-Seok (Gang Dong-won, ILLANG: THE WOLF BRIGADE) uses his station as a captain in the Marines to get his sister and her family a spot on an evacuation ship. But of course a guy on the boat starts twitching weird and next thing you know there’s running and screaming and biting. This is just a pre-credits sequence but, like TRAIN TO BUSAN, it captures a deep sense of loss as Jung-Seok and his brother-in-law Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon, THE WAILING) see their loved ones turn into monsters. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: fast zombies, Gang Dong-won, Kim Do-yoon, Korean cinema, Yeon Sang-ho, zombies
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, September 16th, 2020
I watched THE WITCH: SUBVERSION after I heard a few good things and read that it’s from the guy who wrote the incredibly upsetting but badass I SAW THE DEVIL. For this one Park Hoon-jung is also the director, as he’s done with several other films I haven’t seen, including the gangster movie NEW WORLD (2013).
I wish I could tell you this was a crass DTV sequel to THE VVITCH. I did initially assume it would be horror, then I heard it was action, but it turns out to be something harder to categorize. Some melodrama, some sci-fi, some carnage. It seems closest to a Y.A. type movie – teen melodrama X-MEN – except, like so many of the other South Korean movies I’ve seen, it gets horrifically violent at times. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Choi Woo-shik, Jo Min-su, Kim Da-mi, Korean cinema, Park Hoon-jung
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 4 Comments »
Thursday, April 2nd, 2020
By now most horror fans have experienced or heard about the greatness of TRAIN TO BUSAN, the 2016 South Korean fast-zombie-plague movie. If you’re in the latter category, I know it’s easy to believe the hype but still feel no urgency to see it, because yeah, I get it. Zombies on a train. So I’ll just say again that while it’s impressive that it made me think “Okay, it turns out I do want another fucking zombie movie,” the real achievement is making me so attached to the characters and attuned to the tragedy of their horror movie circumstances that I produced actual tears near the end. Have I ever cried from a horror movie before? Not that I remember.
When I went to write the review I was surprised to learn that writer/director Yeon Sang-ho’s previous movies were all animated. He’d been doing animated shorts since the ‘90s, before the features KING OF PIGS (2011), THE FAKE (2013). Even more interesting, TRAIN TO BUSAN is sort of a sequel or tie-in to an animated feature called SEOUL STATION that Yeon did immediately before it. I didn’t realize it had come out in the U.S. until I noticed it streaming on Shudder. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: fast zombies, homeless, Korean cinema, Lee Joon, Ryu Seung-ryong, Shim Eun-kyung, Yeon Sang-ho, zombies
Posted in Cartoons and Shit, Horror, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Friday, March 13th, 2020
(contains heavy spoilers for 15 year old movie)
LADY VENGEANCE is the RETURN OF THE JEDI of director Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy in that it’s the third one (after SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and OLDBOY), it’s loaded with delightful elements, and it’s my favorite even though most people probly say the second one is the best. It begins with a woman named Lee Geum-ja (Lee Yung-ae, JOINT SECURITY AREA) being released early from prison. She’s a national media sensation because of the mismatched combination of the horrible crime she was convicted of (murdering a five-year-old boy) and her youthful appearance of “unabashed naivety.” She got wall-to-wall news coverage, there was a trend of wearing polka-dot dresses like hers, tabloids compared her to Olivia Hussey.
(I wonder what Olivia Hussey is known for in South Korea? ROMEO AND JULIET? BLACK CHRISTMAS? Or maybe a random one like TURKEY SHOOT is huge there?)
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chan-wook Park, Choi Min-sik, Go Su-hee, Kim Byong-ok, Korean cinema, Lee Yung-ae, Olivia Hussey, revenge, See Yeong-ju
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Monday, March 9th, 2020
(heavy spoilers)
Recently my editor at Rebeller asked me to do a column on Park Chan-wook’s so called “Vengeance Trilogy.” I had seen and reviewed OLDBOY long ago, but somehow never got to SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and LADY VENGEANCE. I’m glad I watched them, and I thought they would be worth delving into further. That was a good column, but I’m officially reviewing them for posterity now.
In case you, like me, managed to hear 18 years worth of praise for MR. VENGEANCE without actually finding out what it was about, here goes. It’s the story of Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun, THE VILLAINESS), a deaf and mute young man who dropped out of art school to work at a factory because his sister (Im Ji-eun) needs a kidney transplant. He’s not a match, but he’s saving up his money in case they find a suitable donor. He’s able to narrate the story through letters he sends to a DJ to read on the air, and he’ll sit with his sister as she listens to the broadcasts. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bae Doona, Chan-wook Park, Korean cinema, Shin Ha-kyun, Song Kang-ho
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, December 4th, 2019
This is a rare one for me: I saw PARASITE having no clue what it was about at all. Completely fresh. I saw the trailer 1 (one) time and didn’t understand what was going on. But I liked the three movies I’ve seen by director Bong Joon-ho (SNOWPIERCER) enough to just take the hype at its word and go see it. And since two of those movies (THE HOST and OKJA) are strange creature movies I honestly didn’t even know if the title was a metaphor or if there was also going to be an actual parasitic monster at some point.
Anyway it’s not a huge surprise twist movie or anything, but I enjoyed the lack of expectations. So I guess only read this if you’ve seen it or don’t care about that. (contains spoilers, mostly vague.)
It’s the story of the Kim family – father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho, THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD), mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik, TRAIN TO BUSAN) and daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam, THE SILENCED) – who seem to take economic struggle in stride. They live together in a cluttered basement infested by stink bugs, with a window facing an alley where they often see a drunk guy peeing. In the opening scene they discover that their neighbor added a password to her wi-fi, but they can connect to a nearby cafe if they crawl into the top corner of the apartment on the raised platform with the toilet. Which is important because they need WhatsApp to communicate with the young manager of Pizza Generation (Jung Yi-seo) who pays them to fold boxes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bong Joon-ho, Choi Woo-shik, Korean cinema, Song Kang-ho
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 63 Comments »
