Crying Fist

Crying Fist (Joo Meok Ee Oon Da)

Release Date: 2004
Director: Ryu Seung Wan
Writer: Ryu Seung Wan

Cast:
Choi Min Sik
Ryu Seung Beom




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Sypnosis:

The movie revolves around two men who get a second chance at life through boxing.

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photo credit : hancinema.net

Happy End

Happy End

*For Mature Audiences Only
Release Date : 1999
Director: Jeong Jiu
Writer:

Cast:
Choi Min Sik ... Seo Min Gi
Kim Il Beom ... Ju Jin Mo



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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 (end)


Sypnosis:

After working for a bank for more than six years, Seo Mingi (Choe Minsik) unexpectedly loses his job. Meanwhile, his wife Choe Bora, head of a private English language institute for children, maintains a secret relationship with Kim Ilbeom (Ju Jinmo), her college friend, although she still cherishes her husband and baby. Tension mounts after Seo discovers the extramarital affair between the two lovers. Although the three main characters are dreaming of the happy ending, the tragic love triangle leads them instead to catastrophe.

Like the case of "A Good Lawyer's Wife" (directed by Im Sangsu, 2003), this movie, produced four years earlier, satirizes the disintegrating family structure of today, questioning the time-honored law of morality and the existing concept of family. This movie also features the changing roles for men and women as well as a shift in consciousness by women, who live under the still-dominating patriarchal family structure.

Although she has achieved success in her career and fulfilled her desires, the female protagonist Choe is in utter confusion about choosing between her husband and her young, handsome lover. This movie is a portrait of a middle-income family suffering from domestic strife and also the post-IMF financial effects that hit Korea in the late' 90s.

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photo credit : seoulselection.com

Chihwaseon aka Strokes Of Fire aka Pale Fire

Chihwaseon aka Strokes Of Fire

Release Date : 2002
Director: Im Kwon Taek
Writer: Im Kwon Taek, Kim Yong Oak, Min Byung Sam

Cast:
Choi Min Sik ... Jang Seung Up
Yoo Ho Jeong ... Mae Hyang
Ahn Sung Ki ... Kim Byung Moon
Son Ye Jin ... So Woon



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Sypnosis:

During the 1850s, KIM Byung-moon saves young Seung-up from being beaten by a group of drifters. Seung-up draws him a picture to explain the reason of being beaten. KIM looks carefully at Seung-up's rough yet extraordinary talent... and years later, KIM encourages Seung-up to pursue the life of a true artist and gives him a pen name, Oh-won. Seung-up meets Mae-hyang, a daughter of a declined Yangban(nobility) who attracts him deeply. But, they part when she runs away from persecution of the catholic.

Seung-up leaves and wanders about in pursuit of the truth of art. Nobody can hold on to him. Only through pleasure can he eagerly stroke his paintbrush. He confirms the power of his brush stroke through his painting of a monkey with a liquor bottle in hand while mocking the world. As fame builds up, he yearns to change and stretch beyond his limits. Then one day, he experiences all his body's energy flowing into the paintbrush. Seung-up, in a misshaped bowl, discovers the state he has strived to attain and turns his back to the world and fades away...

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photo credit : hancinema.net

Failan

Failan

Release Date : 2001
Director: Sung Hae Sung
Writer: Jiro Asada

Cast:
Choi Min Shik ... Lee Kang Jae
Cecilia Cheung ... Kang Failan



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Sypnosis:

After the death of her parents, Failan moves to Korea, penniless, hoping to make a living. She gets involved with an agency that arranges a marriage to a man named Lee Kang-jae, whom she has never met. Her new husband brings her great comfort after the troubled times of the past. In reality, he cares little for his wife, as he lives a less-than-moral life on the side.

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photo credit : kfccinema.com

Shiri

Shiri aka Swiri

Release Date : 1999
Director: Kang Je Gyu
Writer: Kang Je Gyu

Cast:
Han Suk Kyu ... Ryu Jong Won
Choi Min Sik ... Park Mu Young
Kim Yoon Jin ... Lee Myung Hun


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Sypnosis:

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.Two special agents of O.P., South Korea's secret intelligence service, attempt to track down the terrorists and find the CTX. Meanwhile the 8th's ultra-bad female sniper, resurfaces to wreak havoc and haunt Ryu.

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photo credit : mediacircus.net

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi)

Release Date: 2005
Director: Park Chan Wook
Writer: Jeong Su Gyeong, Park Chan Wook

Cast:
Lee Young Ae ... Lee Geum Ja
Choi Min Sik ... Baek


Playlist URL

Trailer

On The Set

Sypnosis:

Acclaimed filmmaker Park Chan Wook returns to the director's chair to helm Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, one of the most highly anticipated Korean films of 2005. The film marks the end of Park's hugely popular "Vengeance Trilogy", a series of films that began with 2002's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and continued with 2003's internationally successful Old Boy. Unlike most trilogies, this trio of pictures is united not by plot or by characters, but by its thematic content, namely, revenge and its terrible consequences.

Actress Lee Young Ae (Joint Security Area, Jewel in the Palace) takes up the leading role in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, portraying Geum Ja, a beautiful woman just released from jail after thirteen years of imprisonment. Her crime? The kidnapping and brutal murder of a young child. Through the use of flashbacks, it is revealed that Geum Ja was extremely kind and generous to the other prisoners during her internment, earning a widespread reputation as a veritable saint among the imprisoned women.

However, Geum Ja's polite behavior masks her true intentions, for it seems she is totally innocent of the charges brought against her and is covertly hatching an elaborate plan to seek retribution on the twisted Mr. Baek, an English teacher played by Old Boy's Choi Min Sik who is responsible for her unjust conviction. And as soon as Geum Ja is released from prison, her demeanor changes. Once kind and considerate, she becomes cold and calculating. Enlisting the help of a retired cop (Nam Il Woo) and her daughter Jenny (who was adopted by an Australian couple during the anti-heroine's incarceration), Geum Ja sets in motion her plan for bitter vengeance, but will she succeed? Find out in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, a film that may just prove why revenge is a dish best served cold!

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photo credit : hancinema.net

Old Boy (Oldeuboi)

Release Date: 2003
Director: Park Chan Wook
Writer: Hwang Jo Yun, Lim Chun Hyeong, Park Chan Wook

Cast:
Choi Min Sik ... Oh Dae Su
Yu Ji Tae ... Lee Woo Jin
Kang Hye Jeong ... Mi Do


Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Trailer

Sypnosis:

In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen.

It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The movie's tagline is, "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance."

The imprisonee is Oh Dae-Su, an ordinary Joe who is snatched off a Seoul street corner and locked away in a dank, windowless fleabag hotel room for the aforementioned 15 years. Just as abruptly he is released, and thus the five days begin. Why did this happen to Oh Dae-Su? Ah, but that would be telling, and in fact we don't know ourselves until the final wrenching scenes. Oldboy breaks into a classic three-act saga, the first of which details the hallucinatory period of imprisonment in which Oh Dae-Su wades from mild insanity to outright psychosis in the hands of unseen yet attentive captors.

Act 2 is the revenge, when an entirely different tone takes over and Oh Dae-Su moves with single-minded purpose and clarity. It's this section that has gained the most notoriety, primarily for the claw-hammer dentistry scene, the one-man-army tracking shot, and the wriggling octopus that Oh Dae-Su consumes in a sushi bar (he's been dead so long he simply needs life back inside him in any way possible).

In act 3, answers finally start to emerge and the sinister atmosphere grows even more profound--not without a healthy dose of extra bloodletting, of course. Oldboy is an undeniably poetic masterpiece of tension, fury, and dynamic craft. Ultimately, its epic cycle of tragedy is of the sort that mankind has been inflicting upon itself for all time. Some of the images may be gruesome, but all converge into a kind of beauty. It's in the telling of this lurid tale that these details become one and the memories of pain ultimately heal.

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photo credit : mandiapple.com