As soon as you start watching The Villainess, it immediately becomes very clear that this is a tough as nails action movie. You witness a fight which is best described as a mix between the first person view of Hardcore Henry and the famous hall fight in Old Boy. It’s tightly choreographed and extremely violent. Just like Park Chan-Wook’s classic this movie (originally called Ak-Nyeo) is also South Korean. It’s been directed by Byung-gil Jung. Continue reading
Tag Archives: korea
Pandora (2016) – Review
What’s the reason we love watching disaster movies so much? It’s an interesting question, because so many awful things happen to the characters in these movies and still we “enjoy” watching that. But when you take a closer look at the genre you realise that even though the disasters are an essential part, the thing we care most about is the human story, the focus on a small group of people, who despite the horror around them do everything in their might to survive or are willing to offer their lives so others can make it. Survival is part of our DNA and maybe that’s the reason we care so much for the characters. Continue reading
Time Renegades (2016) – Review
One of the movies I had in my top 100 favorite movies was Frequency. The concept, in which two people living in different time periods have a connection and use that to communicate is fascinating. It’s not the only movie which does this, just think of the South Korean film Il Mare (or the American remake The Lake House), but also the romantic Somewhere in Time. Time Renegades (also from South Korea) is the latest addition to the genre and I loved it. The fact that this has also been directed by Kwak Jae-yong, who was also responsible for My Sassy Girl which also was in my top 100. Continue reading
One Way Trip (2016) – Review
Four friends have come up with a fantastic plan. Sang-Woo (Suho) is about to go into the army, but before that happens, they want to take him to the port town of Pohan to have fun. They borrow a van and all sneak away from either their parents or the place they are staying. What should be a great weekend however, turns into a nightmare when the four of them are chased by the police. Why this is the case and what has happened is slowly revealed throughout the film. Continue reading
The Thieves (2012)
The Thieves could easily be compared to a movie like Ocean’s Eleven. With a star-studded cast of well-known Asian actors from Korea, Japan and Malaysia, including Yun-seok Kim (The Chaser, Nameless Gangster, The Yellow Sea), Simon Yam and Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl), the movie tells the story of several crews working together to pull off a big heist in a casino in Macau. The movie was a smash hit and was seen by almost 13 million people when it was playing in the cinema. Unfortunately it seems that in the west it hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Continue reading
Midnight FM (2010)
Dipping your toes into the waters of an unknown cinematic landscape of a specific country is something I always find interesting. Movies can be a great representation of the spirit of a country and through movies you sometimes get a feeling of important issues or its history. Although I was initially hesitant to check out Korean movies because I heard they could be quite violent I started watching them about 3 years ago and have since checked out many of them of which a lot were awesome. I love that they are usually very unpredictable which means they often will manage to surprise me. Having seen most of the well-known ones I have been searching for lists of great Korean movies to find new titles and Midnight FM was one of them. Continue reading
No Mercy (2010)
I love it when I come across a movie list of a specific genre and see movies I never heard of. A couple of weeks ago I read one about Korean movies and had seen all of them except this one. It’s a movie that I hadn’t heard of at all, so I was very interested to check it out and had high hopes when I started watching this crime movie. Continue reading
Nameless Gangster (2012)
When you think of gangster movies you’ll automatically start thinking about movies like The Godfather, Scarface and Goodfellas. They are all movies made quite a while ago. Although Hollywood still produces them they have become a rare breed. The genre is still very alive in South Korea and it has produced some interesting ones that are worth checking out (A Dirty Carnival and A Bittersweet Life come to mind). Nameless Gangster is the type of gangster movie I love where it’s not really about violence (although that is present), but about the relationships between characters. Continue reading
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003)
Who would have thought that a movie about a monk living on a floating temple could be this mesmorising? This is the first movie I’ve seen directed by Korean director Ki-duk Kim, but I’d be interested to see more of his work. Continue reading
Sympathy for Mr.Vengeance (2002)
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the last part of the Chan-wook Park’s revenge trilogy (Old Boy, Lady Vengeance) which I hadn’t seen yet.
The deaf and mute Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin) has to give up his art study to take care of his sister, who is very ill and needs a kidney transplant in order to survive. He gets a job at a factory and has to work extremely hard to be able to take care of his sister and save money for an operation. Everything seems to go fine, until his boss Dong-Jin Park (Kang-ho Song) fires him. As he wants to help his sister he tries to find a solution through illegal ways, but when these don’t seem to work he decides, together with his girlfriend, to kidnap Dong-Jin Park’s daughter and ask for ransom money. The plans don’t work out as they had in mind. Continue reading