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

My Sassy Girl (2001)

The romantic comedy. It’s a genre where a lot of people (especially men) will have mixed feelings about. The target audience are usually women and the stories are very predictable, although there are always exceptions to this rule who manage to do extra things to make them stand out (for example Forgetting Sarah Marshall or When Harry Met Sally). Is My Sassy Girl anything special? Continue reading

Speed Scandle (2008)

Hyeon-su Nam (Cha Tae-Hyun) is a succesful radio DJ, with a lot of listeners who regularly tune in to hear his show. Besides playing music he regularly has conversations with callers about their relationships. One of them is telling him that she has some issues with her father who has become a grandfather as well and he advises her to meet up with him and make him a meal.
When he finally gets home a young woman, Jeong-nam Hwang (Bo-yeong Park) is waiting in front of his door together with her son Ki-dong Hwang (Wang Seok-Hyeon). He thinks that they have the wrong address, but Jeong-nam tells him that she is his daughter and that he’s a grandfather too. It’s a dark cloud in Hyeon-su Nam’s perfect life which he really can’t get rid of soon Continue reading

Memories of Murder (2003)

Some years ago Quentin Tarantino shared his list of his 20 favorite movies since 1992, the year he started directing. There were three Korean movies on his list: The Host, Joint Security Area and Memories of Murder. Memories of Murder is about a police investigation into a number of serial killings that took place between 1986 and 1991 and is based on real events. Continue reading