Song Kang-ho

Joint Security Area is the "Apocalypse Now" of the Korean War -- a shimmering, hyper-real epic that charts the spiritual fallout of international politics. (Subway Cinema)

In a small Korean province in 1986, three detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.

North Korea's 8th Special Forces hijacks a shipment of CTX, a potent new liquid explosive, and threatens South Korea as part of a plot to re-unify the two countries.Ryu and Lee, special agents of O.P., South Korea's secret intelligence service, attempt to track down the terrorists and find the CTX. Meanwhile Hee, the 8th's ultra-bad female sniper, resurfaces to wreak havoc and haunt Ryu. (imdb)

In Seoul, the deaf and dumb worker Ryu is very attached to his sister, who needs a transplantation of kidney. He tries to donate his own kidney to his sister, but his blood B type is not compatible with her. When Ryu is fired from Ilshin Electronics, he meets illegal dealers of organs and the criminals propose Ryu's kidney plus ten millions Won per a kidney suitable for his sister. Ryu accepts the trade, but he does not have money to pay for the surgery... (imdb)

Lady Vengeance is the third film from Park Chanwook's revenge trilogy following "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy". Lee Geum-Ja, at the age of 19, goes to prison for the murder and abduction of a child on behalf of her accomplice Mr. Baek, only to find out that she is betrayed. While in prison, she carefully prepares for her revenge by winning the hearts of her fellow inmates with her kindness, thus earning herself the nickname 'kind Ms. Geum-Ja.' (imdb)

Utilizing state-of-the-art special effects, The Host is both a creature-feature thrill ride and a poignant human drama. (Magnolia Pictures)

This innovative and darkly humorous Korean outing features neither pigs nor wells. The film was written by four writers, each of whom was in charge of developing one character apiece. After each basic plot was created, the film's director allowed the actors to improvise. The four characters are an unsuccessful novelist who hates himself, his icy girlfriend, her salesman husband, and a pretty ticket taker at the local cinema who secretly loves the writer. (All Movie)

A family decides to buy a lodge in a remote hiking area. Their first customer commits suicide and the distraught family buries his body to avoid the bad publicity. But their luck gets worse, the bodies start piling up, and the family becomes frantic to rectify the situation. (imdb)

Dae-Ho is an unproductive bank clerk who is late to work every morning and the object of his manager's frustrations. He was a fan of TV wrestling as a child, but can't get out of a headlock. He finds a local wrestling trainer and through a series of events eventually starts to train... (imdb)

Sin-ae moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. As she tries to come to herself and set out on new foundations, another tragic event overturns her life. (imdb)

Mak-dong, a naive young man, dreams of living and running a small restaurant together with his family. On the way back home after being discharged from the army, he saves Mi-ae, the mistress of a gang boss. She helps him get a job, and he becomes embroiled in the underworld.

A bounty hunter (the Good), a gangster (the Bad) and a thief (the Weird) match wits and many, many bullets in a quest for a mysterious treasure map in 1930s Manchuria. Over-the-top shootouts and chase scenes highlight this Korean homage to the Spaghetti Western. The cast includes the three biggest movie stars in Korea.

Beloved and devoted priest from a small town volunteers for a medical experiment which fails and turns him into a vampire.

A South Korean expedition is trekking across the Antarctic when they discover a journal left by a British team that was lost 80 years earlier. As they press onward, they begin to notice strange similarities between the ill-fated British journey and their own. In the unforgiving environment where small mistakes can doom an entire party, the team steadily descends deeper into fatal delusions.

A North Korean spy and a former South Korean agent form a tense partnership. (imdb)

In The Show Must Go On, Song Kang-ho, plays a middle-aged, middle-management gangster named In-gu. The set-up finds In-gu caught between the escalating demands of his wife and daughter, and his increasingly hazardous racketeering activities, including a stupendous brawl between construction workers and mobsters, and a semi-comical botched assassination attempt in a convenience store.

An aging gangster rises from the ashes in this dark comedy. A longtime crime syndicate member, Tae Ju (Han Suk Kyu) worries that his days are numbered. Hoping his gang will branch out, he brushes up on foreign languages and continues to commit perfectly ruthless crimes to ensure job stability. But things turn around for Tae Ju after he saves his boss (Ahn Seok Hwan) from a hit man. Song Gang Ho, Park Sang Myeon and Choi Min Sik also star. (mubi.com)

Doo-heon, once a legendary gangster, wants to live a quiet and normal life running his own restaurant. Se-bin, hired to keep an eye on him, approaches him at a cooking class. Doo-heon, hiding his past, and Se-bin, hiding her identity, grow close to each other. One day, the mob boss, who was dearly fond of Doo-heon, passes away, naming the already retired Doo-heon as successor. The cartel fractures with internal conflict. (Berlinale Website)

A well-meaning but politically naive barber gets pulled into the inner circle of the South Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee, with rather baleful consequences for his hapless family. This sharp political satire covers roughly twenty years in South Korean political history, from the viewpoint of the barber's son. (imdb)

The time is 1905, when some 30 years of Japanese economic and political pressure culminated in Korea signing over its sovereignty to become a protectorate of Japan. Resentment against the Japanese was high and in this era was born Korea's first baseball team. The YMCA baseball team became a source of pride for the Korean people humiliated by its forced subservience to Japan.

A man is found burned to death inside of a car. Detective Sang-Gil (Song Kang-Ho) investigate the scene. Rookie female detective Eun-Young (Lee Na-Young) is selected as his partner for the case. Later at the morgue, Eun-Young discovers a dog bite on the burned corpse. As Detective Sang-Gil and Eun-Young investigate further they discover a trail of drugs, child prostitution, and a lethal wolf-dog all involved in the case. Can they solve the case before more people are killed? (AsianWiki)

A compilation of episodes from the lives of the 'bad teens' and the homeless of Seoul. (imdb)

In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. (imdb)

Set during the seizure of the throne by Sejo of Joseon in the year 1455, the movie follows the life of Nae-Kyung. Nae-Kyung, the son of a ruined noble family, goes all around Joseon and studies physiognomy. He is able to assess the personality, mental state and habits of a person by looking at someone's face. Because of his abilities, he gets involved in a power struggle between Prince Sooyang and Kim Jong-Seo.

In the early 1980s, South Korea is torn by student protests over the lack of democracy in the country. At this time, there is a successful attorney in Busan specializing in tax law who became an attorney only for the money. One day, his views regarding civil liberties are changed by a student activist who is brutally tortured and put on trial for his activism, who the attorney decides to defend. (Wikipedia)

A boy is depressed that he didn't get first place in a contest. An old teacher isn't very good at comforting anyone. The two of them continue practicing singing in the mountains at early winter. Then something surprising happens to the boy who has been showing his talents to his teacher... (Han Cinema)

Set in 18th century Korea, long-ruling King Yeongjo's struggle with his son, Sado, sees the king take extreme measures in order to deal with his heir. (imdb)

Set in the late 1920s, The Age of Shadows follows the cat-and-mouse game that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, and Japanese agents trying to stop them. A talented Korean-born Japanese police officer, who was previously in the independence movement himself, is thrown into a dilemma between the demands of his reality and the instinct to support a greater cause. (imdb)

In 1980, a foreign journalist hires a down-on-his-luck taxi driver to take him to Gwangju, South Korea. They soon arrive to find a city under siege by student protesters and the military. (Moviefone)

Set in Busan, South Korea during the 1970s, Lee Doo-sam builds an empire as a drug smuggler in the Busan underworld, while public prosecutor Kim In-goo attempts to take down Lee Doo-sam. (imdb)

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident. (imdb)

Boxes that are left out for people to anonymously drop off their unwanted babies.

A sociopath microbiologist launches a terror atack inside a flight from Korea to Hawaii.