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As yesterday’s nomination announcements confirmed, we’re knee-deep in Academy Awards season, the time when Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters are stuffed into the special-effects category for bleak chances of winning statues and smaller, art-house flicks receive their deserved moments beneath the spotlight. The positive: Some of the brightest and most entertaining American films are given their just due attention. On the flipside, though, there’s a lingering question: Why is the Academy’s foreign film selection always so limited? Because, let’s be real here: There are a slew of cinematic achievements made all over the world.
Case in point: the harrowing war epic The Front Line (playing in select theaters now), South Korea’s submission into the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and an award-winning action film set during the 1953 ceasefire between the North and the South with plot twists and genre blending that deserves a major critical nod. Though director Hun Jang’s work didn’t ultimately get the nod, it’s still a noteworthy picture.
Yet The Front Line isn’t Korea’s only 2011 film of note. With helpful tips from New York Asian Film Festival's overseer Goran Topalovic, we’ve compiled the most thought provoking, gruesome, and uneasy-for-the-mind films churned out by the Land of the Morning Calm last year: 10 2011 Korean Movies You Need To See.
Written by Jaeki Cho (@JaekiCho)
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Invasion Of Alien Bikini
10. Invasion Of Alien Bikini
Director: Oh Young-doo
Invasion Of Alien Bikini follows a loner/health nut who fights crime with a only fake mustache for a disguise—not exactly what that excellent title suggests, right? This weird sci-fi comedy certainly falls under the same category as films by Noburo Iguchi, though it’s not quite as perverted, gory, or sexual; it is, however, an award winner, thanks to the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, where it became the first non-Japanese film ever take home a prize.
During one of his justice-seeking missions, the protagonist stumbles upon a group of evildoers terrorizing a helpless girl. The hero saves her, and brings her back to his humble shelter, but that’s when things get really interesting, as the girl is, come to find out, an alien seductress who tortures and pillages to acquire the abstinent hero’s sperm. We hate it when that happens.
Arirang
9. Arirang
Director: Kim Ki-duk
By now, Kim Ki-duk is not only the poster child of Korea’s art-house cinema—he’s also the don. For his sixteenth film, instead of uncovering rigid family values or wretched societal views on women, Ki-duk turns the camera on himself, and the first-person approach comes across astutely. Kim shoots monologues in tight close-ups, as if he sincerely wants to explain to his audience portions of himself he’s not yet able to express otherwise.
One of the film’s highlights is when Kim offers his own soundtrack by consistently singing or wailing the Korean folk song “Arirang” in multiple pitches. Ki-duk, whose previous films actually divided Korean critics, makes no mystery about his national pride here.
Sunny
8. Sunny
Director: Kang Hyeong-cheol
Na-mi, the main protagonist in Sunny, has a loving husband and a beautiful daughter. Her life seems flawless until she encounters an old, close friend on her deathbed. This ignites Na-mi to reconnect with friends from her most memorable years, a process which reveals a past that's not as dreamy as she remembers.
Centered on seven high school girlfriends, seen in an extended flashback, the film is a delightful slice of ‘80s nostalgia. Capturing some of the era’s most notable music, style, and culture, Sunny has earned tremendous success at the country’s box office—it’s a uniquely Korean type of blockbuster. Interestingly for a box office success, though, the film has a particularly dark undertone. It could be labeled as overly sentimental, sure, but, in the end, Sunny works.
The Crucible
7. The Crucible (a.k.a Silenced)
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Centered on a dirty secret that’s been uncovered after years of silence, The Crucible (titled Dogani in Korean, after the 2005 novel/source material) primarily takes place inside a school for children with hearing disabilities that’s plagued by physically, mentally, and sexually abusive faculty members.
Gong Yoo plays a newly appointed art teacher who bribes his way into the teaching gig; soon into his tenure, he witnesses a student getting brutally beaten, and when he takes the deaf child to the hospital, a very disturbing truth is revealed. The movie’s final act is anchored by intense courtroom drama, with the protagonist fighting for justice in a corrupt legal facility that's influenced by the almighty dollar. The Crucible’s ruthless honesty is displayed without much filter. In Korea, the film served not only as a reminder of an ugly truth, but a wake-up call for lawmakers to act properly.
Poonsgan
6. Poongsan
Director: Juhn Jai-hong
In Ponsgan, former Korean pop star Yun Gye-sang plays Poongsan, a mute and a near-superpower-wielding transporter who’s able to bring things from Pyongyang to terrains across the DMZ within a span of three hours. The smuggler’s escapade antes up when the Korean secret service demands that he use his ability to bring a North Korean defector’s girlfriend (Kim Gyu-ri) into the South. And, naturally, the girl falls for Poongsan, prompting her very jealous North Korean defector boyfriend to butt heads with the titular protagonist. Despite its reasonably low budget, Poonsgan is a humorous action-romance full of wit and technical charm.
Night Fishing
5. Night Fishing
Directors: Park Chang-kyong and Park Chan-wook
This 33-minute film, which was shot on eight iPhones with a crew of 80 people and a $100,000-plus budget, may not necessarily represent the Apple device’s capability as the future of independent filmmaking, but it was undoubtedly an effective promotional tool.
Shortly into the film’s running time, though, it becomes clear that any marketing ploys are altogether irrelevant. Park Chan-wook and his younger brother Park Chan-kyong’s collaborative effort on this short may not present a detailed narrative, but its abstract plotline and artistic representation of emotion keep the viewers guessing. Heavily incorporating traditional Korean shamanic symbols, the film’s overall tone is as despondent as it is visually enthralling.
The Journals Of Musan
4. The Journals Of Musan
Director: Park Jung-bum
Director Park Jung-bum offers one of last year’s most tear-inducing movies in The Journals Of Musan. Following a North Korean defector struggling to adjust to life within a capitalistic south, Jung-bum’s film attempts to uncover the type of banishment escapees from the North encounters as foreigners.
The bowed-hair protagonist Seung-chul (played by Jung-bum himself) witnesses moral contradictions as he sets off in a distant land as a manual laborer for a crooked promoter. The new life away from the communistic North offers basic needs, yet it doesn’t prevent Seung-chul from facing discrimination. The fact that the director bases the protagonist on his friend, a real-life North Korean defector, certainly adds to the realism. The Journals Of Musan an art-house film with its emotional pitch turned up to a high decibel.
Bleak Night
3. Bleak Night
Director: Yoon Sung-hyun
Teenage dramas often feel corny and disenchanting, but director Yoon Sung-hyun’s Bleak Night offers a very different narrative. The film centers around three characters: Gi-tae, a manipulative bully who ruthlessly picks on others’ weaknesses for his own advantage, and his two supposed best friends, the insightful Becky and the super confident Dong-yoon. After a combating against their fluctuating loyalties, the friends must endure an unexpected tragedy. Bleak Night handles the dark subject of suicide with grace and shocking force.
The King Of Pigs
2. The King Of Pigs
Director: Yeun Sang-ho
Regarded by certain critics as the best Korean film of 2011, this animated flick’s beastly and grotesque representation of human disparagement and class inequality is in a class all by itself. The film starts off with Hwang and Jung (a wife killer and wife beater, respectively), two childhood pals who befriend a vagabond named Chul.
The King Of Pigs provides a stark, uncompromising look inside a grade school where students are divided in a caste system: They're either “pigs” (the lower class) or “dogs” (the upper class). While Korea’s widely known as the world's outsourcing animation capital (it's not a hot bed for original animation), Yeun Sang-ho's terrific film hints at a definite future for the country's illustrated cinema market.
The Day He Arrives
1. The Day He Arrives
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Like many of director Hong Sang-soo’s previous films, The Day He Arrives examines a filmmaker who indulges in liquor, sex, and self-reflection. The emphasis on seemingly routine, everyday details plays a heavy role in the film’s underlying makeup. The Day He Arrives champions the notions of repetition, reappearance, and recurrence so effortlessly that impossible not to fall under the film's hypnotic spell. An art-house flick that favors visual panache over complicated story may sound like a familiar concept, but, here, Sang-soo’s methodology excels compared to most.