Following the bloodied trail blazed by Won Bin, heartthrob Gong Yoo reinvents himself as a rugged action hero who is at once formidably skilled and wracked with grief. so all he do is just wait in south korea, be a part of the society and eventually find that not all south koreans are bad. Now, Seo must try to collect physical evidence, follow leads, and control police officers who are hell bent on producing a suspect by any means. Stream Veteran on Netflix | Stream Veteran on Amazon, Korean title: 좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈 (Jo-eun nom nappeun nom isanghan nom)| Year Released: 2008 | Starring: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung. 23. It became a tool that pushed the story forward and a device that made the film unique. The crime scene was handled badly. She cuts a terrifying figure as she says, “I think you girls need to be taught a lesson.” The scene with the thing under the refrigerator will spawn nightmares, too. Action has also proved to be a fertile ground for socio-political commentary, with dicey relations with North Korea underpinning Typhoon (2005), the surveillance state surveyed in Cold Eyes (2013), and class warfare at play in Veteran (2015). As South Korea’s capital waits in fear, the spies chase and fight each other in a nail-biting series of encounters. A Korean action thriller starring Jun Ji-hyun, Assassination is set in 1911 and follows Korean resistance fighters in their attempt to kill a Japanese official. While even some of the most seemingly straightforward South Korean action films can veer off on tangents that infuriate the uninitiated, The City of Violence is the definition of lean and mean. Every shot is a painting, and each instance of combat feels like a dance. hope to see the hollywood version. the man from nowhere is superb. South Korean cinema is best known for their on-screen, no-holds-barred, grotesque violence that would find space in the list of the most unsettling movies.The biggest name in Korean cinema continues to be Park Chan-wook, with his international success opening up Korean cinema for similar directors, who make genre films aimed at … Today, South Korean cinema is synonymous with well-groomed protagonists in perfectly tailored suits, but in 1999 Nowhere to Hide offered Detective Woo (Park Joong-hoon), a hulking bull in a china shop. The President’s Last Bang 4. The story is really just an excuse for Kim Ji-woon’s directorial flourishes amid all the shootouts and horseback chases. Think of this like a Korean version of Erin Brockovich or Michael Clayton. Although its technical achievements have since been surpassed, Shiri is still compulsive entertainment. © Copyright © 2020 Fort Worth Weekly, All Rights Reserved. The film sets out its political stall by having Park plan to detonate the bomb at a North/South soccer match intended to promote reunification, while a twist involving Ryu’s girlfriend Yi Myung-hyun (Yunjin Kim) signifies the region’s fractured identity. He plays former North Korean special forces operative Ji Dong-chul, who, after defecting over the murders of his wife and daughter, works as a chauffeur in Seoul. So, for all you action movie lovers out there, who are always looking for content that gives you an adrenaline rush, we’ve compiled a list of 10 kickass ‘Daebak’ (awesome in Korean) iconic movies. Thanks for sharing, nice hub! Highly Recommended. Weakness has consequences, though, and ignoring Kang’s instructions regarding another man in Huei-su’s life causes Kim to suddenly go from top dog to outcast. You toke the wrong picture for Rampant. For those who aren’t historians, just  think of The Good, the Bad, the Weird as a movie that has a lot of outlaws and violence. A mind-bending neo-noir thriller film that has to be on your binge-watch list. When Ko accidentally kills a homeless man in a hit-and-run, he covers it up. plays a greedy tax lawyer who discovers his conscience when he stumbles on evidence of torture and murder under South Korea’s military dictatorship. This is a film with ample action, seat-of-your-pants thrills, and great emotional depth. this one is great), no tear for the dead. The balance between heart, evil, and action was perfect. That actually happened. And no matter how many times you watch it, it always leaves you wanting for more. Hollywood remade this as The Uninvited with Elizabeth Banks, but stay away from that in favor of the original. The clarity of the combat sequences is a main reason why this was one of the biggest hits in South Korean history. Korean title: 베테랑 (Beterang) | Year Released: 2015 | Starring: Hwang Jung-min, Yoo Ah-in. Memories of a Murder started me on watching Korean films. bino on September 16, 2014: The Man from Nowhere is the best action movie I have seen. Kanemura and Heruko find themselves chasing the same diamond and entangled in a bigger and more complicated web of thievery and gangs. Aping the action spectacle of John McTiernan and Michael Bay, while serving up espionage laced with nationalistic sentiment, Shiri has intelligence agents Yu Jong-won and Lee Jang-gil (Song Kang-ho) tasked with preventing a rogue unit of the North Korean army led by Park (Choi Min-sik) from leveling Seoul with an experimental liquid explosive. Jo’s your classic bad boy fueled by daddy’s money. In this movie, you will question the violence from beginning to end. Eom Jong-hoo also has a great sense of dry humor, which acts as a release valve for tension and allows you to build empathy with his complex personality. The america title was Do orDie. You might start to notice: corrupt cops are a common trope in Korean movies. The movie could have easily exploited the “special powers” angle. Since 1994, Fort Worth Weekly has provided a vibrant alternative to North Texas’ often-timid mainstream media outlets by offering incisive, irreverent reportage that keeps readers well informed and the powers-that-be worried. A prime example of South Korea’s practice of mixing genres, regardless of potentially conflicting tones, My Wife Is a Gangster does not so much blend action, comedy, drama and romance as flit between them. Say what you want to about his politics, the climactic shootout between the hero and the terrorists is aces. Movies. List of the latest South Korean movies in 2019 and the best South Korean movies of 2018 & the 2010's. But, in all honesty if there’s any film industry that has managed to master the art of action thrillers, it’s South Korea. The movie presents a unique take on how the “reality” of a movie is done. There are so many ways the movie could have gone wrong. The rest of Jeong Byeong-gil’s near-incomprehensible film has action sequences that are a showcase for leading lady Kim Ok-vin.