By John Berra
Translator: Issac
Proofreading: Easy two three
Source: BFI
Burning (2018)
Director: Li Cangdong
Cryptic, mysterious yet appealing, Burning marks the long-awaited return of Lee Cang-dong, perhaps South Korea's most famous film director.
The film may be based on a short story by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, but it is a typical Korean film in which Lee comments on economic anxiety, social alienation, and the violence lurking in a society that has been saturated with Western influence.
Lee's generation of Korean directors has been trying to master (and integrate) genre films from a local perspective, growing their careers while the pop culture economy booms.
Kim Ji-wooon's black comedy "Death Without Publicity" (1998), Kang Tei-gyu's exaggerated thriller "Life and Death Spy" (1999), and Park Chan-wook's military theme "Common Security Zone" (2000) are all early breakout works.
2003 was a bumper year, the year of Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Killing", Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy", Jang Joon-hwan's "Save the Earth", Kim Ki-duk's "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" and Kim Ji-woon's "Rose, Red Lotus".
Rose, Red Lotus
Although Korean films are often labeled "dark" or "extreme" because of their emphasis on the theme of revenge, in fact, Korean films have a rich tonality. The romantic comedy "My Savage Girlfriend" (2001), Lee Jae-han's tear-jerking "Eraser in My Mind" (2004), and Lee Hae-joon's absurd fable "Kim's Crusoe" (2009) all brilliantly illustrate a unique filmmaking culture in different ways.
King's Crusoe
The following will take you from the boom of the late 1990s to the leading position of both innovative blockbusters and film festivals to understand modern Korean cinema.
Mints (1999)
This is Li Cangdong's second film, like an epic, but also like an emotional tsunami. A high-speed train approached, and a man shouted "I want to go back in time" on the railway bridge!" Beginning with the man's suicide, the film boldly tells his life story.
This is how the film does, using flashbacks to show what makes Kim Yong-ho (Xue Jingqiu) come to this point. These clips of key moments in his life (1994, 1987, 1980, and 1979) also document the root causes of many of the problems that later inspired the torture of the national spirit in modern Korean cinema.
Yonghao's behavior is often indifferent, and Mr. Li never wants to explain why he is dissatisfied with others; as a married businessman in the 1990s, he made no secret of his hypocrisy, and as a policeman in the 1980s, he was brutal and hopeless.
Instead, the elaborate film explains the dehumanization of the protagonist in a turbulent historical context that ultimately allows for sympathy for such an incorrigible, exhausted individual.
Cat Girl (2001)
Director: Jeong Jae-eun
Jung Jae-eun's debut film is set in the port city of Incheon, telling the story of five good sisters trying to adapt to the adult world after graduating from high school.
Hye-joo (Lee Yoo-won) takes up a junior position at a seoul brokerage agency; Ji-young (Yu Ji-young) lives with her elderly grandparents while pursuing the path of art; half-Chinese twins Boiling Stream (Lee Eun-sil) and Moon Cha-joo (Lee Eun-joo) gleefully peddle handmade jewelry on the street; and the lively Tae-hee (Bae Doo-na) works for free in her family's sauna while trying to bring the five-person team together.
Inevitably, these friends will become alienated and poignant because they expect different lifestyles. This is evidenced by their visit to the dazzling clothing market. Mr. Chung connects them through clever mobile phone conversations while using text messages to make various instructions, a stroke that gives the sympathetic film a nostalgic feel in the age of social media.
I Want Revenge (2002)
Director: Park Chan-wook
Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun), a deaf factory worker, loves his sister (Lim Ji-eun) very much and takes a desperate step when she needs a kidney transplant. After making a deal with an organ trafficker destined to end in tragedy, he heheed the advice of his revolutionary girlfriend, Yeong-mi (Bae Doona), and kidnapped his boss's daughter (Han Baobao), but their plans soon collapsed.
Park Chan-wook is good at interpreting very typed metaphors, and is also good at interpreting the cruel fate twists in typical and unfortunate stories in daily life. By confidently shifting the focus to the girl's industrialist father, Park Dong-jin (Song Kang-ho), he reflects on how people at all levels of society see themselves as victims of economic trends.
This brutal and gripping crime film kicked off Park's famous "Revenge Trilogy," which continues today's iconic Old Boys and ends with Gracious Gold (2005). It also sets a template for Korean thrillers: an almost uncontrollable, stretched establishment that erupts into pure desire to kill.
Rose, Red Lotus (2003)
Director: Kim Ji-woon
Inspired by a classic folk tale, Rose, Red Lotus is a psycho-horror film with an atmospheric atmosphere that takes place almost entirely in a remote manor. Jin Zhiyun methodically uses hazy, sharp photography, rich and meticulous art, and disturbing soundtrack to make the audience fidget.
After being treated in a nursing home, teenage Rose (Lin Xiujing) is sent home, where she re-establishes contact with her sister Honglian (Wen Genying). Their father, Moo Hyun (Played by Kim Ka Soo), is strangely cold, while stepmother Eun Joo (Playing Yeon Kyung-ah) is downright cold.
It's clear that from the beginning, the family was haunted by an unspecified trauma, but the story takes a sharp turn and moves in an unexpected but coherent direction.
It's a deeply troubling exercise that heightens fear, and the performances of Lin So-kyung and Moon Geun-young perfectly convey the anxieties of teenagers in Kim Ji-woon's carefully curated Gothic scenes.
Monsters of the Han River (2006)
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Still one of South Korea's highest-grossing films of all time, Monsters of the Han River is an extremely entertaining monster movie with both spicy socio-political commentary and blockbuster hits.
Bong Joon-ho cheerfully breaks the accepted genre conventions, and in this jaw-dropping film, he fully demonstrates this slimy, fish-like creature that threatens the area near the Han River and kidnaps Hyun-soo (Gao Gaoxing), the youngest daughter of the stupid commissary boss Kang Doo (Song Kang-ho). As the government was mired in bureaucracy and could not help, other family members banded together on rescue missions.
Through the family's efforts to rescue his daughter, Bong Joon-ho severely criticized local authorities for believing that citizens would obey their orders without reason, and also criticized the unwelcome U.S. side for trying to defeat the threat with a dangerous chemical agent (the "yellow potion"). The climax comes and people want to know who the real monster is.
"Daytime Drinking" (2008)
Director: Lu Yingyi
Just when Korean cinema is becoming impetuous, this low-fidelity independent comedy directed by the resourceful Roh Young-yeol (who also served as a photographer, musician and editor) offers a refreshing alternative.
After breaking up with his girlfriend, Hezhen (Song Sandong) is pulled by everyone to go on an outing in the countryside. But when everyone else was drunk and didn't show up, he embarked on his journey alone in the depths of winter. What follows is a hilarious road movie that meets a grumpy hotel owner, an adulterous couple, and a scruffy potato porter.
The film's casual rhythm captures a feeling of a lasting hangover, and even its boring part becomes part of its charm. Although the film is immersed in South Korean drinking rituals (people should never refuse to drink), the film's cold and humorous handling of the behavior of frustrated men transcends cultural barriers.
The Next Girl (2010)
Director: Kim Ki-young
Given the influence of Kim's classic film The Next Girl (1960) on the style of modern Korean cinema, Lim Chang-shu's remake may seem too direct, but his loose retelling proves to be a timely update.
The maid Eun Seol (Jeon Do-yeon) is exploited by her selfish husband Hu Eun (Lee Jeong-jae), and Lim Chang-shu moves from the original middle-class environment to a richer family, emphasizing servility in a morally depraved world.
In addition to some selective greetings, Lin Changshu is more inclined to satirize the modern elite than to pay tribute to Kim's films. In the original version, the protagonist has a clear tendency to revenge, which makes her a volunteer police officer of some social status, but a clear reversal is that the relatively passive Enyi is alternately used or dealt with.
Every frame of this horrific melodrama exudes seductive elegance, but it is the blatant display of this right that provokes the strongest reaction.
Dao Xi Ya (2014)
Director: Jolie Zheng
After a scandal, police officer Lee Young-nam (Bae Doo-na) is transferred from Seoul to a remote seaside town in Yeosu. When she helps abused 14-year-old Son Do-hee (Kim Sai-lun), Lee Young-nam attracts unwanted attention from vigilant citizens. Despite her noble intentions, Lee is a complex "savior" who is dealing with her gender identity and alcoholism.
The July debut quietly shows great power, and at its core is Pei's uncompromising performance. Pei's strict character represents state power, but she is also an outsider in this circle. She is commensurate with Kinsey Lun, who seems reclusive but transcends the clichés of adolescence through the confidence of precociousness at some point.
Their precarious situation is even more pronounced in the countryside, a place that at first glance seems calm, but through Zheng Jooli's straightforward exploration of local politics, people gradually find injustice everywhere.
Right Then Wrong (2015)
Director: Hong Changxiu
A common saying about Hong Changxiu's sequence of works is that when you have seen one of his films, you have already watched all of his films. In fact, for the sake of our list, feel free to pick any of his works. But "Right Now Is Wrong" includes the most irresistible part of his self-reflection on the dynamics of men and women.
In this film, the relationship between art film director Han Qian-so (Jeong Jae-yong) and model-turned-painter Yoon Hee-jeong (Kim Min-hee) is ambiguous. They met by chance in a temple in Suwon, just to eat pear-shaped things at a social gathering in the evening and spend a pleasant day together.
Another day, such a chance encounter is played out again, but the slight changes lead to a very different ending. As usual, Hong Changxiu's films feature a lot of food, alcohol and cigarettes.
Regardless of which story you want to think of as "real," both stories are examples of Hong Changxiu's elaborate spontaneous films.
Busan Trip (2016)
Director: Yan Shanghao
Yeon Sang-ho's apocalyptic action film, often summed up as a "zombie on the train," delivers on the promise of its high-concept premise while cramming in more content in two hours of gripping, chaotic time.
At Seoul Station, divorced fund manager Seok Woo (Kong You) boards an express train to Busan with her young daughter to visit her mother, but a zombie crisis erupts and a young woman on the train is bitten in the leg. From arrogant administrators to homeless people, there were passengers of all economic statuses in the car. As the situation escalates, class differences affect everyone's chances of survival while increasing the risk of infection.
In the film, shi Yu, a workaholic, reconsiders his responsibilities as a parent during this crisis. The film is so fast-paced that it completely ignores subtleties and only writes comments about society on its blood-stained sleeves. For those who like fast-paced zombie movies, Busan Trip couldn't be better.