Beyond ‘Parasite’: South Korean movies you need to see
With the surprising success of the South Korean movie “Parasite” — Variety dubbed it “this year’s wildest, buzziest, most unexpected breakout” — the lively film scene in the Asian country is attracting renewed attention. Bong Joon-ho’s discomfiting thriller has raked in more than $14.5 million (and counting) in the U.S., making it the highestgrossing foreign-language movie of the year.
Now, many are wondering if there’s a lot more where that came from. The answer is a definitive yes as a new generation of South Korean directors is making movies with global appeal that retain a unique sense of place and point of view. Here are just a few South Korean releases from the past decade or so that are worth checking out now that “Parasite” has whet American cinematic appetites. Order in some Korean barbecue and a bottle of soju and make a night of it. With the exception of one, all are available either through Netflix, Amazon Prime or other streaming services as well as on DVD or Blu-ray.
1. The other films of
Bong Joon-ho — Though “Parasite” is Joon-ho’s best film, his other works help fill in the portrait of a director at the top of his game. From the 2013 sciencefiction “Snowpiercer”
(about the remnants of humanity all surviving on a train, with the poor at the back and the rich at the front, starring Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton and Song Kang-ho) to the 2006 eccentric monster movie “The Host” (in which some of the humans are the real monsters), Joon-ho’s films offer a singular, uncompromising vision and act as a commentary on Korean society while remaining entertaining.
2. Train to Busan (2016) — There have been so many zombie films in recent years that it’s tempting to wave them all away with an exasperated “over it!” But director Yeon Sang-ho’s breathless “Train to Busan” — in which high-speed-rail commuters are trapped on board with a hungry horde — is so wildly entertaining that it reinvigorates the genre. As with the work of Joon-ho, Sang-ho dives into the Korean class divide — our two heroes are a corporate drone and a working-class grunt, both of whom have to channel their inner hero to survive. But even if you ignore the social issues, “Busan” is a rollicking good time. It was such a smash in South Korea and such a cult hit around the world that it’s spawning a sequel (in pre-production) and an English-language remake.
3. Burning (2018) — Lee Chang-dong’s slow-burn (pun intended) love-triangle drama and arthouse hit is an absorbing, meditative mystery in which an aimless, working-class young man (played by Yoo Ah-in) finds himself in the middle of a relationship between a young woman ( Jun Jongseo) and her rich, “Gangnam Style” boyfriend (Steven Yeun from “The Walking Dead”).
4. The Gangster, the
Cop, The Devil (2019) — Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), one of the stars of “Busan,” is absolutely magnetic in Lee Won-tae’s thriller as a vicious mobster who teams with an ambitious young police officer to track down a serial killer.
5. The Great Battle
(2018) — If you’re suffering “Game of Thrones” withdrawal because you miss the fight scenes, Kim Kwang-shik’s bonkers “The Great Battle” — based (perhaps very loosely) on a true story of the 88-day clash between an invading Chinese army of the Tang dynasty and a group of valiant but vastly outnumbered Korean soldiers — should slake that thirst. The opening eight-minute battle scene is bananas, and that’s just the start.
6. The Handmaiden
(2016) — Until Joon-ho’s rise, Chan-wook Park was South Korea’s star director, having helmed the original “Oldboy” (2003), the violent revenge flick that
Spike Lee remade, and the English-language “Stoker” (2013) starring Nicole Kidman. But this romantic drama set during Japan’s occupation of Korea may be his most poetic work.
7. Tunnel (2016) — There’ve been lots of movies about people stuck in deadly places (remember Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin in “Buried”?) and one of the better ones is this thriller from Kim Seong-hun about a car dealer (Ha Jung-woo from “The Handmaiden”) stuck in his automobile after a badly constructed highway tunnel collapses on him. The subtle social commentary — why did this highway collapse, anyway? — burns quietly in the background while claustrophobia and survival are the main stars.
8. Default (2018) — Yoo Ah-in from “Burning” plays a very different character — a coolly confident financier — in Choi Kook-hee’s methodical financial thriller about systemic corruption that bears similarities in tone to the American film “Margin Call.”
9. Swing Kids (2018) — Director Kang HyoungChul’s period piece is both so ambitious and scattershot — tap-dance musical, racial-conflict drama, political melodrama and goofy comedy with tunes from Louis Prima, The Beatles and David Bowie — that it’s hard to stay mad at it even if its reach often exceeds its grasp. Set in
Korea during the Korean War at an American-run POW camp, it’s that war — as well as ’50s-era black, white and Asian race relations — as seen through Korean eyes. That’s not a view often available on American screens and, for that alone, the occasionally thrilling “Swing Kids” is worth a look.
10. The Witness (2018) — Unfortunately, Cho Kyujang’s thriller got the short end of the distribution stick. Released halfheartedly in theaters last year, it has yet to surface on streaming services in the U.S. That’s too bad because the story of a run-of-themill, salary-man Joe Office Worker who witnesses a murder and then is pursued relentlessly by the killer is the stuff of nightmares. Suspenseful and creepy, Kyu-jang takes a very Hitchcock premise and makes it his own. If it ever shows up on your TV while you’re on a late-night streaming binge, don’t pass it by.