10 Korean movies worth waiting for in 2017
Korean cinema has just had a brilliant year with “Train to Busan”, “The Wailing” and “The Handmaiden”. This year, audiences continue to look forward to many explosive works from the land of kimchi.
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The King (January 18):Just released in Korea, the crime film The King immediately attracted more than 2 million viewers after only one week of showing. The film stars Jung Woo Sung and Jo In Sung, and is directed by Han Jae Rim (The Face Reader). The King follows an inspector from the time he first started his career, until he used many tricks to become an underground power in the 1990s in Korea. |
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Single Rider (February 22):Lee Byung Hun is having a great time. After completing The Master in his home country and The Magnificent Seven in North America in 2016, he participated in the drama A Single Rider directed by new director Lee Joo Young. In the film, he plays a man who is caught up in a major scandal in Korea and is forced to leave his home country and go to Australia where his wife and children live. A Single Rider is notable because it is the second Korean film made by Warner Bros. after The Age of Shadows (2016). |
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On the Beach Alone at Night (Spring 2017):In the summer of 2016, the Korean showbiz world was shaken by the affair between married director Hong Sang Soo and beauty Kim Min Hee. The love scandal occurred during the time they were filming On the Beach Alone at Night - a new work selected to compete for the Golden Bear at this year's Berlin Film Festival. Strangely, the content of the film is very similar to the real-life story, revolving around the thoughts of a woman having an affair, played by Kim Min Hee. After the film, she and Hong Sang Soo are expected to release Claire's Camera and another project together in 2017. |
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A Special Lady (Spring 2017):Nicknamed “sex bomb”, but Kim Hye Soo is actually very talented and always proves her attraction through each work. After Coin Locker Girl (2015), the beauty returned with the main role in the work of new director Lee An Gyu. In A Special Lady, Kim Hye Soo plays a prostitute who gradually climbs to the second position of a large gang. While enjoying her new life, she discovers that she has an illegitimate child and that becomes a weakness for her enemies to exploit. |
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Battleship Island (summer 2017):In the summer of 2015, the crime film The Veteran attracted 13.4 million Korean viewers, helping director Ryoo Seung Wan get “sweet revenge” on the producers who doubted his talent. This year, Ryoo will release Battleship Island - a film set in the time when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese occupation. On Hashima Island, 400 exploited Korean prisoners try to escape the enemy siege to return to their homeland. The project features two handsome men Song Joong Ki - So Ji Sub, along with The Veteran star Hwang Jung Min. |
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Okja (summer 2017):After the blockbuster The Snowpiercer (2013), director Bong Joon Ho returned to the monster movie genre, where he had a resounding success with The Host a decade ago. Like his most recent project, the talented filmmaker recruited a multi-national star cast, including Ahn Seo Hyun, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gylenhaal, Paul Dano... for Okja. The film revolves around a Korean girl's journey to rescue the strange creature Ojka from dark corporations. Okja is expected to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival before being distributed by Netflix. |
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Taxi Driver (summer 2017):Jang Hoon is a director with a series of quality films including Rough Cut (2008), Secret Reunion (2010) and The Front Line (2012). This year, he is exploring a topic that is of great interest to the Korean public: the Gwangju massacre of 1980. According to the producer, Taxi Driver is a journey film, following a taxi driver (Song Kang Ho) trying to help a German reporter (Thomas Kretschmann) get to the scene to report on the bloody event. |
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Along with the Gods (Part 1) (summer 2017):This is one of the most curious film projects in Korea because of the investment budget of up to 25 million USD and is based on the comic series of the same name. However, Along with the Gods is said to be a prequel to the manhwa series, divided into two parts, recounting the seven challenges that a deceased man must overcome in hell in 49 days. Director Kim Yong Hwa reunited with Ha Jung Woo after the hit Take Off (2009), and recruited a number of stars such as Cha Tae Hyun, Ju Ji Hoon, Ma Dong Seok... for the blockbuster. |
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Glass Garden (summer 2017):The film is Moon Geun Young's second film in the past 10 years after The Throne (2015). In Glass Garden, directed by Shin Su Won, she plays Jae Yeon - a scientist specializing in artificial blood research, living in seclusion in a greenhouse. Jae Yeon's life intrigues a writer and he decides to retell the story in his new work. |
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| VIP (fall 2017):Not stopping at Single Rider, Warner Bros. this year also invested in producing another Korean film called VIP. The film is about the hunt for the son of a North Korean general suspected of being a serial killer. The complexity of the case forced spies from South Korea, North Korea and Interpol to cooperate with each other. The biggest star of VIP is actor Jang Dong Gun. |
According to Zing
