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The 11 Korean Films You Should Be Watching in 2018

To help you navigate through the crowded listings, here are our picks for the 11 Korean films that you should keep an eye out for in 2018

Drug King (literal title)

Director: (Inside Men, 2015)

Distributor: Showbox

Cast: , , ,

Genre: Crime

Synopsis: A drug smuggler (Song Kang-ho) builds his empire in Busan's criminal underworld in the 1970s.

 

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Director:  (The Age of Shadows, 2016)

Cast: , , (The King, 2017)

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action

Synopsis:

Set in the future, South and North Korea agree to set up a unified government. They have prepared for the unification for the past 7 years. Meanwhile, demonstrators, supporting and opposing the unification, become more fierce. A group against the unification commit terrorist acts. A special police force is formed in response.

 

 Grave Site a.k.a. Great Site (literal title)

Director: Park Hee-kon

Distributor: Megabox Plus M

Cast: (Inside Men, 2015), Ji Sung, Kim Sung-kyun,

Synopsis:

A period film about those who struggle to become king and fight over a grave site.

 

Rampant (literal title)

Director: (Confidential Assignment, 2017)

Distributor: Next Entertainment World

Cast: (The Swindlers, 2017), ,

Genre: Action

Synopsis:

A period zombie film in which Lee Cheong (Hyun Bin) struggles to save the Joseon from an evil that appears only at night.

 

Ansi Fortress (literal title)

Director: Kim Kwang-sik

Distributor: Next Entertainment World

Cast: (The King, 2017), Nam Joo-hyuk, , Bae Sung-woo

Synopsis:

A historical film about the siege of Ansi Fortress and the epic eighty-eight day battle that Yang Man-chun (Jo In-sung) and his Goguryeo troops fought against 500,000 invading Tang dynasty men.

 

Witness (literal title)

Director: Jo Kyu-jang

Cast: Lee Sung-min (A Violent Prosecutor, 2016), Kim Sang-ho, Jin Kyung

Genre: Thriller

Synopsis:

An ordinary man witnesses a cruel murder.

 

Burning (working title)

Director: (Poetry, 2010)

Distributor: CGV Arthouse

Cast: Yoo Ah-in (Veteran, 2015), Jeon Jong-seo, Steven Yeun

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Synopsis:

A woman whose life is intertwined with two men – one rich and the other a courier who struggles to make ends meet.

 

Dokjeon (working title)

Director: Lee Hae-young

Distributor: Kidari Ent

Cast: (The Handmaiden, 2016),  (A Taxi Driver, 2017), Kim Joo-hyeok

Genre: Crime, Action

Synopsis:

Mr. Lee is an unknown boss of a drug organization and detective Won-ho (Cho Jin-woong) allies with Rock (Ryu Joon-yeol) from the drug organization to capture Mr. Lee.

 

PMC

Director: Kim Byung-woo (The Terror Live, 2013)

Cast: ,

Genre: Action, Thriller

Synopsis:

A Private Military Company attempts to rescue a captive in an underground bunker amid tense relations between North and South Korea.

 

Byeonsan

Director: (The Throne, 2015)

Distributor: Megabox Plus M

Cast: (Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet, 2016), Kim Go-eun

Synopsis:

A nameless rapper named Hak-soo (Park Jung-min) receives a call and returns to his hometown Byeonsan to meet his school friend Seon-mi (Kim Go-eun)

 

Money (literal title)

Director: Park Noo-ri

Distributor: Showbox

Cast: Roo Joon-yeol,  (Oldboy, 2003), Jo Woo-jin

Genre: Crime

Synopsis:

A new stock broker who dreams of becoming rich. Those dreams make him susceptible to a stock market scam that threatens to get him in trouble.

 

Additional sources: HanCinema, AsianWiki, Cine21

 

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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