Film Reviews

Barking Dogs Never Bite

Bong Joon-ho’s first feature film, released in 2000, is slighter and less complex than his subsequent movies, and it failed so thoroughly at the...

The Thieves

Choi Dong-hoon’s The Thieves (2012) is a heist film that won numerous awards as well as achieving well-deserved success at the South Korean box...

Assassination

It’s no surprise that Choi Dong-hoon’s Assassination (2015) was such a box office hit, still—seven years after its release—sitting at number seven in South...

Escape from Mogadishu

Ryoo Seung-wan is an accomplished director of action films inflected with comedy (Veteran) or horror (Svaha: The Sixth Finger), or telling the based-on-true-stories of...

The Housemaid

Kim Ki-young’s seething, intense The Housemaid (1960) is a domestic horror film with more psychological heft—and visual precision—than the 2010 remake by Im Sang-soo....

Recalled

The Hitchcock-inspired Recalled (2021) is the directorial debut of Seo Yoo-min, screenwriter for The Last Princess, and fuelled by slow-burning suspense—not least about whether...

Veteran

The flashy beginning to Veteran (2015), director Ryoo Seung-wan's biggest box-office hit to date, suggests a romp along the lines of Extreme Job. To...

Train to Busan

Fear of invasion is embedded in the South Korean psyche. Pre-medieval Goryeo had its own Great Wall to keep the Jurchen out, and eventually...

The Royal Tailor

Director Lee Won-suk’s second feature was released in 2014, a year after his black comedy How to Use Guys with Secret Tips. He confessed...