Korean cinema 101

In the late 1980s, censorship laws in South Korea were relaxed after president Park Chung Hee was assassinated and the country moved towards democracy. Although theatre attendance remained low, more adventurous and exciting films were starting to be made. In 1992, Samsung financed the romantic comedy, Marriage Story, which became the first non-government funded film in Korean history.

By 1999, Korean films overshadowed Hollywood productions domestically. Notably, the spy film Shiri out-sold Titanic, The Matrix and Star Wars, and shortly later the South Korean film My Sassy Girl outsold Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

SHIRI

D-War, or Dragon Wars was a seventy-five million dollar monster epic, shot in English and specifically designed to sell to international audiences. A huge hit in Korea, D-War took record-breaking numbers in the first week but didn't fare so well in the US, with Variety calling it "Z-grade". The story concerns (as you'd guess by the title) various large lizards and humans fighting each other in the feudal past and a modern city. Due to the financial success of D-War, a sequel is in the works, however it has been put on hold as director Shim Hyung-rae completes other projects, including The Last Godfather - an unofficial sequel to The God Father and Fish Wars, a film in which fish take revenge on humans. We kid you not.

D-WAR

Park Chan-wook introduced the West to his so called ‘Vengeance Trilogy' with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance in 2002, which was then succeeded by Oldboy in 2003 and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (or Lady Vengeance) in 2005. Each film depicts cases of extreme revenge and violence. The Vengeance films were very well received in Korea and have a respectable cult fan base in here and in the US.

The winner of the Gran Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Oldboy, is perhaps the Korean film with which most local audiences are familiar. Park Chan-wook's masterpiece is noted for its expertly crafted corridor fight scene, which took three days to shoot and a scene in which the main character eats a live octopus. Four octopuses were eaten in the making of this film.

OLD BOY