Tag: Korea

Humint (휴민트, Ryoo Seung-wan, 2026)

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There’s something ironically dehumanising about the term “human intelligence”. Even the security services who court them seem to look down on their informants, viewing them more as traitors to their own side than those who’ve come over theirs. We have to ask ourselves if either side is really any better than the other. As Zo’s boss tells him, everyone’s just using each other to survive. There doesn’t seem to be a lot more to this world than that, just desperate struggle and cynicism.

Ryoo Seung-wan’s Humint (휴민트) is, like many similar films, at least as equally critical of the South as it is the North as the idealistic NIS officer finds himself an outlier among his comparatively coldhearted colleagues. In the course of his mission trying to find out who’s selling drugs to teenagers in Korea, Zo (Zo In-sung) uncovers a human trafficking network operated by the Russian mafia targeting North Korean women possibly with the complicity of their government. But his bosses don’t care about that, they just want the drugs, and it’s a bonus that they come from the North. Zo dangles the possibility of salvation in front of a woman trapped in a South East Asian brothel, but when it comes down to it, his boss won’t approve her rescue. They’ve effectively killed her, but all his boss tells him is that you have to get used to this sort of thing and you can’t afford to get hung up on each and every informant.

Still, what they’re asking them to do is necessarily dangerous and any promise they may make about protecting their informants is a lie. On the other side, the North sends young women to Vladivostok as “foreign currency earners” ostensibly working in a restaurant, but actually used as honeytraps drugging their clients and sleeping with them to get them hooked. Seon Hwa (Shin Se-kyung) is, ironically, in this position because the North does not seem to have kept its promises either. Her mother has advanced cancer, but her treatment needs money and so her father started smuggling to get it. When he got caught, her whole family was disgraced. She had to drop out of university and begin working as a foreign currency earner, breaking her engagement with top torturer Geon (Park Jeong-min). Geon is in town because he suspects the locale consular official is complicit with a series of mysterious disappearances of North Koreans near the Russian border, and he’s right. 

Hwang (Park Hae-joon) is certainly a slippery individual, apparently making Vladivostok his own personal fiefdom and, in the end, over playing his hand in trying to use Seon Hwa to take out Geon when he could probably just have let her go to make Geon leave him alone. “Do what you have to do to survive”, most people seem to say and it’s clear that personal relationships cannot reallysurive in this world in which human life is cheap. Seon Hwa and Geon’s romance was broken by the brutality of the North Korean regime, but it seems that the South is unwilling to save them. When Zo realises that Seon Hwa’s cover has been blown, he breaks protocol to try and save her, not wanting another woman’s death on his conscience. But though he unmasks the human trafficking ring, he’s reprimanded by his superiors who still complain that they’ve not made enough progress on the drugs case because Zo got sidetracked by the trafficked women. 

The women are, obviously, the ones who suffer because of these too regimes and perhaps by extension the division of Korea. Seon Hwa does her best to fight back, saving the other women so they can escape together, but is finally left with nothing. She has no country, and only asks to be sent somewhere where nobody knows her to start again. Expressing a new cold war anxiety born of geopolitical fluctuations as the South contends with the uncertainties of the North’s interplay with Russia and China, Ryoo’s espionage thriller has a retro quality, but also hints at contemporary unease, suggesting finally that there are really no good guys left and even idealists like Zo are compromised by their allegiance to an inhuman regime. Zo and Geon may become temporary allies in their quest to save Seon Hwa, but just as often point their guns a each other in Ryoo’s impressively staged action scenes amid a constant atmosphere of mistrust and betrayal.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Desperate Chase (필사의 추격, Kim Jae-hoon, 2024)

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The peaceful life of Jeju Islanders is disrupted by the threat of crime and drugs in Kim Jae-hoon’s zany comedy, The Desperate Pursuit (필사의 추격, Pilsaui Chugyeok). Though nobody is really being desperately pursed, time moves quite slowly on Jeju, the film plays into a generalised anxiety in recent Korean film in which the local community is fearful of “foreign” incursion, not only from meddling mainlanders but from Chinese investors who are currently buying up land and thereby pushing locals out.

The main drama revolves around an old-fashioned market that Taiwan-based gangster Zhu (Yoon Kyung-ho) wants to use as a medical centre that will act as a drug hub. Everyone who works there uses Jeju dialect and is keen to protect this disappearing slice of their local culture. According to some, they’ve already seen off the yakuza and aren’t planning on giving in to Triads either, though Zhu has already proved himself more ruthless by murdering his mole at the market when he asked the gangsters to avoid using violence because it was making his job of convincing people to take the settlement money and leave more difficult. Meanwhile, detective Su-gwang (Kwak Si-yang) who has been transferred to the island temporarily due to excessive use of force in Seoul remarks on how the landscape has changed since he last visited with all the new Chinese-owned skyscrapers.

To that extent, the contrast between the area around the airport and the location Su-gwang eventually finds himself in couldn’t be more stark. Though he encounters difficulty finding accommodation ironically because he’s from the mainland and all the landlords assume he’ll end up doing a moonlight flit, echoing the issues faced by international residents in the city, he’s eventually billeted in a pleasant country cottage owned by Ms. Yoo (Ye Soo-jung), leader of the market resistance, despite the objections of the crotchety old man who rents the other room. He’s not anticipating having to do a lot of policing, but is put straight on the case of a known conman they think may be in the area despite having previously fled abroad to evade all the warrants out against him. 

The conman is one thing, but the other disruptive force is the beauty clinic run by Dr. Yang (Park Hyo-joo) with the very ominous name of “Omerta”. Yang is cahoots with Zhu after having spent some time in China after losing her medical license due to providing illegal pain killers to her VIP patients in a damning indictment of amoral and exploitative status-driven culture. Their aim is to start dealing fentanyl in Korea through Jeju, though Yang warns him it’s a risky prospect with no infrastructure in place and in consideration of Korea’s tight drug laws, but Zhu is insistent. One of the chief weapons they have against Yang is that she only treats “VIPs” of which there aren’t any in the local community. In order to create a diversion, the local women eventually storm the place demanding treatment and accusing Yang of discrimination in their proud Jeju accents. 

Meanwhile, Su-gwang and his colleagues battle police corruption while trying to attack the real source of disorder in the form of Zhu and his men who have already struck deals with the local authorities. Zhu speaks fluent standard Korean and claims to have had a Korean father, though he abandoned him when he was five, but is also irritated by the constraints placed on him in this new territory. It really does turn out that everything about personal connections in Jeju, though in a more positive sense than it first sounded as the islanders band together to protect the market and expel the corruption of Zhu’s gang who want to ruin the beautiful local landscape and corrupt the populace by dealing drugs.

It has to be said, however, that there’s something a little sinister in the justification of Su-gwang’s violent policing which is treated as a bit of joke while coming from a place of righteous fury at the contemporary society in which the rich and powerful are free to get away with their crimes thanks to their connections. Jeju, however, does seem to mellow him a little with its laid-back atmosphere and cast of quirky characters where everyone really does know everyone even if outsiders are still viewed with a degree of suspicion. Partly a kind of tourist ad for the local community, the film paints the island as a place of warmth both in terms of its climate and the kindness of the locals, at least once you get to know them.

Trailer (Korean subtitles only)

Salsali, You Didn’t Know (007 폭소판 살사리 몰랐지?, Kim Hwa-rang, 1966)

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Gwang-sik (Seo Young-chun, a popular comedian nicknamed “Salsal”) is the very definition of someone who’s seen too many movies. The film opens with him playing a joke on his boss by messing around with a chocolate gun and stabbing a mannequin after becoming obsessed with the world of James Bond. Gwang-sik’s fixation echoes the kind of Bond-mania that was sweeping the globe, but has an additional flavour in the Korea of the 1960s that was ever watchful for North Korean communist spies. The title cards preceding the film even include a number to contact if you catch one or want to turn yourself in.

Nevertheless, Gwang-sik’s interest in 007 has a pulpier quality in which he sees himself as a kind of justice-minded vigilante and indulges in various gimmicks such as attaching knives to the bottom of his boots. The knife boots, however, turn out to be fairly impractical, getting stuck in a wall and making him a sitting duck for his enemies. Though they might fall for his chocolate gun, it doesn’t take them long to figure out that Gwang-sik is a complete idiot bumbling his way through life. He does, however, seem to have luck on his side. After going on the run with no money and promising to help a young lady who was robbed but also needs to get to Busan, Gwang-sik enters an amateur boxing competition despite weighing almost nothing and somehow ends up winning just on a fluke. 

He has a rather camp, effeminate quality that is finally fulfilled when he cross-dresses to go undercover as a dancer at a cabaret bar in order to unmask the criminals who robbed the jewellery store where he works. While he continues to read Casino Royale and idolise the hyper-masculinity of James Bond, the scenes at the cabaret bar seem inspired more Some Like it Hot as Gwang-sik unwittingly breaks hearts all over Busan and gets to do some very nifty dancing. For the avoidance of doubt, his relationship with Myeong-ja, the woman he met in Daegu, originally remains chaste, but she takes a liking to him for exactly that reason and, despite her appearing to be into the cross-dressing, they eventually become a heteronormative couple after Gwang-sik has solved the mystery and reclaimed his masculinity by putting on a stylish leather jacket.

Though he makes constant references to the Korean War which mark him out as being from a slightly older generation than Myeong-ja, Gwang-sik seems caught between old and new Koreas by virtue of his job at the jewellery shop. Seong-ja, the unwilling scammer and Myeong-ja’s sister, carries out a complicated heist by trying to buy 950,000 won’s worth of jewellery suggesting that the economic situation has developed to the extent that it’s produced a new class of super rich people willing to spend this kind of money, which as someone later says is enough to buy a house in a nice part of town, on something inessential purely as a status symbol. She claims that she’s been robbed, as Myeong-ja is actually later hinting the growing wealth disparity and that there are still those trapped and desperate at the end of the economic ladder. Seong-ja herself is only doing all of this because she wanted to get enough money to send her sister to university, but has since fallen into crime and immorality and is now afraid to face her, leaving the two sisters on either side of a dividing line.

Meanwhile, she makes an unwitting co-conspirator of an acupuncturist who says he treats mental illness by telling him that Gwang-sik is her brother-in-law who literally lost his mind when she inherited her late husband’s estate instead of him. Now, she says, he just goes around asking everyone he meets for money and rants about cheques and promissory notes. Swayed by her 10,000 won certified cheque deposit, the acupuncturist seems to take all of this at face value and even describes the brother-in-law’s condition as a modern malady that causes people to become obsessed with money and consumerism. Ironically enough, Gwang-sik ends up “arresting” two men for counterfeiting currency they intended to circulate in the city as if symbolising the essential meaninglessness of money as a concept, though it’s all anyone’s after.

Seon-ja turns out to be working for a kingpin (Heo Jang-gang) who runs a swanky nightclub whom she appears to despise. No matter how much she regrets her choices, she is already too corrupted and cannot be allowed to join the new society like her sister Myeong-ja. Most of the film is taken up with silliness and Gwang-sik’s anarchic spy craft in which he has the ability to turn any situation to his advantage, uttering his iconic catchphrase, “Surprise! Salsali.” and behaving more like a hero from a classic serial rather than international spy James Bond, who didn’t really do a lot of crime prevention or protecting civilians in the course of his work. Nevertheless, the film ends on a note of reconciliation as Gwang-sik’s boss patches things up with the acupuncturist. Both men look on from a paternal position, supportive, if a little embarrassed by Gwang-sik’s intention to marry and wishing the new couple well for their future having fully transitioned into the contemporary society.

Halo (후광, Roh Young-wan, 2025)

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An astrologer delivery driver Min-joon (Choi Gang-hyun) meets tells him that he’s unlikely to achieve his dreams of becoming a film director in Korea. He was born under an unlucky star, destined to be a self-sacrificing figure overshadowed by his toxic family. However, the astrologer points out, the stars look different depending on where you stand, and according to him the best place for Min-joon is the UK, as unlikely as that might seem.

The astrologer doesn’t seem to hold out much hope that he’ll make it, though. He feels sorry for people like Min-joon who have an over-developed sense of responsibility for those around them and are incapable of putting themselves first. They may very well be toxic and dragging him down, but as Min-joon says, they’re still his family. When we first meet them, his parents are having a physical altercation in the police station while his older brother, Min-ha, who has learning difficulties, screams in terror and confusion. It seems that Min-joon’s father has taken to drink and either can’t or doesn’t work. He criticises the state of the nation that reduces people to living like this, but as his wife points out rather than worrying about the country perhaps he could fix the light in the bathroom that’s been broken for months. He asks why he should when it’s not their place anyway, which might explain a few things about the state of the nation.

In any case, Min-joon is surrounded by radio broadcasts about North Korean missiles and various other disasters that lend an additional sense of doom to his monotonous life. Min-joon is honest and hard-working, diligently delivering parcels all day long and taking good care of his van, only to be treated with contempt and a constant stream of problems from his family. He dreams of becoming a film director, but is always frustrated, first by being unable to afford a colour print of his script and pitch for a producer he met through a connection. He shows up in a neat suit ready to discuss his idea, but she immediately shoots him down by saying that no one makes this kind of film any more and he has zero chance of directing anything. She advises working on the set to gain more experience, but those kinds of jobs don’t usually pay very well and Min-joon probably couldn’t afford to take it even if he weren’t hurt and demoralised by the humiliating experience of being so casually dismissed.

That might be why he takes the astrologer’s advice to heart and starts working overtime to save money to move to the UK while sleeping in his van and washing in a local public toilet. He makes the convenience store guy put his buy one get one free sandwiches in separate bags as if ashamed to have him know he’s going to eat them both himself and that that’s his only meal. Even so, his mother asks him to lend them money to buy his brother, the oldest son, a wife from North Korea so he can live a settled family life, seemingly thinking little of Min-joon’s right to do the same. Meanwhile, Min-ha has suspiciously also come into quite a lot of money, and is later arrested for getting involved with a gang running telephone scams. Min-joon thinks Min-ha probably didn’t know or at least fully understand what he was getting into and was exploited by the gang because of his disability but the police won’t listen to him and a lawyer seems to suggest there’s nothing he can do, bearing out the inherent injustice of the contemporary society.

There really is no way out for him. He’s insulted by residents of the snooty apartment blocks he delivers to who don’t like him using their lift, his van gets robbed, and he ends up bumping it too, requiring even more money to repair and now he can’t even sell it to help his brother pay the compensation money for victims of the scam so he can stay out of prison. He repeatedly visits the apartment of a hoarder with a piles of boxes outside her door that she never opens. It’s like he too is trapped in the room surrounded by cardboard with only his family for company. His desperation mounts with frightening intensity until reaching its unavoidable conclusion as he seeks the only kind of escape available to him.

Halo screens in Chicago March 28th as part of the 20th edition of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Last Woman on Earth (지구 최후의 여자, Yeum Moon-kyoung & Lee Jong-min, 2024)

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Wronged by an internationally famous film director, a pair of aspiring filmmakers set their sights on cinematic revenge in Yeum Moon-kyoung and Lee Jong-min’s meta comedy, Last Woman on Earth (지구 최후의 여자, Jigu Choehuui Yeoja). Even so, they find themselves mired in a world of sexism and artistic jealousy ruled over by powerful elites content to feed on their aspiration, chew them up and spit them out only to, on the one hand, insist that exploiting them made them sad, and then on the other barely remember them at all and claim they did nothing wrong.

Hana and Cheol each have painful histories with a Hong Sang-soo like festival darling that have frustrated both their lives and artistic careers. They meet in a film class where they workshop their movies that are also attempts to overcome their trauma. Hana’s is a high-concept sci-fi drama shot like a silent film and peppered with intertitles in which the only woman left on earth after a virus wiped out all the others is imprisoned by men who harvest her eggs and attempt to clone her. Cheol’s is Hollywood gangster noir set in Chicago in 1989 in which he kills an annoying old man who was holding him back. Cheol annoys Hana by pointing out the theme of her film was “misandry”, as if there were something wrong with that, while she points out his film is obviously about his resentment towards a father figure. Even so, Cheol thinks the reason no one likes his script its that it’s too manly, and he could use some female input to help him score points on the grant application, which is how they end up working together.

Their various traumas highlight the problems in the mainstream film industry, even if Cheol’s problem is, in another meta touch, with indie filmmakers who make indie films to show to indie people at indie festivals. After being talked into a nude scene a more famous actress had refused to do, Hana became the talk of the town while her scenes from the movie ended up porn sites. She became a sex symbol, but was shamed out of show business. The only jobs she got offered were erotic movies and all she could do in the end was abandon her old identity. As she reveals in a lengthy musical number, she still wants to make films even though it’s painful and no one wants to seem to letter.

Like her, Cheol sought the approval of a master but feels betrayed by him. Tak stole his screenplay and used it to win awards in Europe without crediting him. Even since then, he’s been determined to become the Ant-Tak by doing what he couldn’t, making a hit popcorn movie that’s nothing more that an good time at the movies. But even Cheol can’t completely abandon the patriarchal mindset, first gender-flipping his revenge drama, then changing gears to make Hana the hero only to suddenly appear as a male character to swoop in and save her from the evil professor, Tak. 

Throughout the runtime, there’s the sense that the world is coming to an end, and of course it is because the world of this film lasts only until the closing credits. Still, they want to make the film anyway, even if there’s no tomorrow and no one will see it, because it’s what they have to do. They start out by making a documentary about Tak, hoping to destroy the Korean film industry by exposing what he’s really like. But Tak doesn’t really take them seriously. He points out he’s not Park Chan-wook or Bong Joon Ho, so no one’s going to watch their film anyway. Though he claims to feel bad about what happened to Hana after he used her for his film, he also says that it’s not his fault because that’s just how things were and everybody did it. Like Cheol, he’s now trying to make a “feminist” film to atone, laying bare the cynicism of these kinds of gestures intended only to whitewash the image of a tainted artist. But films after all “next world” and the way out. You can make one on your own, and it doesn’t really matter if no one sees it. Killing her past trauma, Hana transfers fully into the world of cinema, staying with Cheol to watch the world end as the camera continues rolling on waiting for the next world to enter the frame.

The Last Woman on Earth screens in Chicago March 27th as part of the 20th edition of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The First Ride (퍼스트 라이드, Nam Dae-joong, 2025)

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According to Tae-jung (Kang Ha-neul), the most hopeless phrase that Koreans say is “next time.” As he grew older and away from his childhood friends, he found himself saying “next time” more often without really thinking about it. But of course, the thing about life is that you always assume there’ll be a “next time”, but that might not necessarily be the case. Perhaps right now is a “last time” and you don’t even know it. The sometime narrator of The First Ride (퍼스트 라이드) tells us right away that this is a”sad story,” but it’s also happy a one about the enduring power of friendship even if you might not be all that close any more.

Tae-jung, Yeon-min (Cha Eun-woo), Do-jin (Kim Young-kwang), and Geum-bok (Kang Young-seok) have been friends since they were six years old, but Yeon-min is moving to New Zealand with his family right after he graduates high school. To mark the occasion, the boys decide to go on a trip and pick Thailand for their destination because Yeon-min’s favourite DJ is going to be playing at a festival. After managing to convince their parents, they finally set off only to be frustrated by an unexpected development that prevents them from travelling. Ten years later, Do-jin has been having a hard time, spending the intervening years in and out of pyshciatric hospital. He nevertheless wants to recreate their teenage trip as soon-to-be 30-year olds. As Yeon-min is unable to come, he decides to take him along with them in the form of a life-size pillow with his face on it, which proves very confusing for the good people of Thailand.

It’s clear that each of the young men has had various struggles in the intervening years. Geum-bok became a tattooist and is still in flight from his mother’s determination that he follow in her footsteps by becoming a Buddhist monk. He ends up going on holiday with his head shaved and wearing monks’ robes hoping for one last hurrah. Tae-jung, meanwhile, is on the way to achieving his dream of becoming president by working as a secretary to an assemblyman who is currently on hunger strike to protest some kind of injustice. Tae-jung’s pure-heated belief in political integrity becomes something of a thorn in the side of his boss who, is of course, not really going so far as to refuse all food, so he’s only too happy to let him go on a once-in-a-lifetime male bonding trip. Tae-jung is also followed by Ok-sim (Han Sun-hwa), who sees herself as his girlfriend, while he seems to be indifferent to her partly because of his own unresolved trauma and fear of making new relationships. But Do-jin who has suffered the most, unable to get over Yeon-min’s absence and looked after Tae-jung and Geum-bok while he struggles with mental health issues including hallucinations and delusions. 

Nevertheless, their time in Thailand is mainly spent on goofy fun which more than once gets them sent to the local jail only to be rescued by an exasperated embassy official (Yoon Kyung-ho) who tries to persuade them to go home early or at least pretend not to be Korean. A baffling plot development in which the gang are kidnapped for illegal organ transplant takes the film in a darker direction though is still mostly played for laughs and acting as a mild caution about the dangers of travel, and most particularly of people who seem nice but might have ulterior motives. It’s only Ok-sim’s messiness that saves the day in the end even if she begins to become slightly fed up with Tae-jung’s continued insensitivity towards her in flirting with other women during their trip. 

But even so, through their shared experiences, the three men begin to overcome some of their shared trauma while reaffirming their friendship. Do-jin comes to accept the truth and is able to begin living a more settled life thanks to the support of his friends in processing his guilt and grief. Though they may not be so close any more, the memory of their childhood friendship becomes a sustaining force for each of them, while they try to maintain their relationship as adults with busy lives. They are, however, much better equipped to that after their strange trip to Thailand despite its continuing absurdity.

Trailer (English subtitles)

My Daughter Is a Zombie (좀비딸, Pil Gam-seong, 2025)

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Jung-hwan’s (Jo Jung-suk) daughter Soo-a (Choi Yu-ri) is growing up. She’s no longer enthused about going to the amusement park for her birthday and wishes her father would stop buying churros to mark the occasion. Maybe there’s a part of Jung-hwan that’s frightened of this development, no longer quite knowing who his teenage daughter is becoming and confused by her moodiness. When she’s bitten during the zombie epidemic, however, it might be Jung-hwan who’s bitten off more than he can chew in deciding to hide her from the authorities in the hope she might get “better”.

More family drama than horror movie, Pil Gam-seong’s webtoon adaptation My Daughter is a Zombie (좀비딸, Jombittal) is on one level about unconditional parental love as Jung-hwan refuses to give up on Soo-a and continues to “train” her to regain her memories. With echoes of another pandemic, the film considers society’s reaction to “infectees” who are rounded up and killed to stop the threat of the infection. On returning to his rural hometown to live with his mother, Jung-hwan reunites with a childhood friend, Yeon-hwa (Cho Yeo-jeong), who has since become a teacher, but she has a pathological hated of zombies and until recently had made a point of beating them to death with her kendo sword. Still carrying the trauma of having to kill her fiancé who attacked her, Yeon-hwa doesn’t want to accept that Soo-a could be getting better because that would mean the “zombies” she killed were just people who were ill and could have recovered if she hadn’t murdered them out of rage and prejudice. Indeed, once the infection calms down, the relatives of people killed by state forces begin to ask questions and protest that their loved ones shouldn’t have been treated with such cruel indifference.

Then again, in terms of zombie movies, people who suggest that perhaps they should give the infected a chance rather than proactively killing them don’t usually last very long. The film takes place in a universe in which zombie movies exist with Train to Busan even getting a name check, but none of that’s very helpful to Jung-hwan as he tries to figure out how to keep his daughter safe while also trying to heal her. His job as a tiger trainer seems to come in handy in trying to navigate Soo-a’s new aggressive nature, while his mother Bam-soon (Lee Jung-eun) mostly makes use of her god-given granny powers and a wooden spoon to keep Soo-a in line. 

Meanwhile, the promise of a cure and treatment in America is waged agains the vast bounty the government is offering as a reward for turning in zombies. A not so friendly face shows up and tries to kidnap Soo-a for the reward money while even crassly suggesting to Jung-hwan that they split it between them when he tries to intervene and get Soo-a back. In healing Soo-a back to health, Jung-hwan is both attempting to repay a debt and assert himself as Soo-a’s father by essentially rebooting her so that she recovers the shared memories of her childhood.

To that extent, Soo-a’s time as a zombie is a kind of express adolescence in which she travels from grunting teenager to a young woman with a better appreciation for her father and the trouble he went to raise her. Of course, one could say that it’s all a little patriarchal and perhaps Jung-hwan is “taming” her to fit his own image of what his daughter should be much as he tamed the tiger and taught it to dance, but then again Soo-a is also readjusting herself and trying to figure out how to be a person in her own right after moving to her father’s rural hometown where she’s badgered into attending the local school despite her “illness” because there are only four other pupils and otherwise it’s going to have to close. The village is very proud of its current zero infections record, but the funny this they’re all very accepting of Soo-a, though they just think she’s a bit different rather than a “zombie” after buying Jung-hwan’s possibly uncomfortable excuse that she suffered brain damage in an accident. A father’s undying love does, however, eventually save the world after a continual process of being wounded by his daughter and healing again gives Jung-hwan a means to beat the disease if only in his refusal to give up on the idea his daughter will eventually recover.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Pollen of Flowers (화분, Ha Gil-jong, 1972)

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Park Chung-hee kept a tight rein on cinema which he saw as an important political tool and means of communication. That’s not to say, however, that criticising his authoritarian regime was impossible, but that criticism was often expressed in unexpected or abstract ways. The debut film of Hollywood-trained director Ha Gil-jong, The Pollen of Flowers (화분, Hwabun), was adapted from a novel by Yi Hyoseok that was published in 1939 when Korea was under Japanese rule but now speaks directly to the contemporary era as a young man and woman long for escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the “Blue House”.

The Blue House is the name for the residence of Korea’s president and where Park Chung-hee lived at the time, but within the context of the film, it’s inhabited by the mistress of a wealthy businessman, Se-ran (Choi Ji-hee), and her younger sister, Mi-ran (Yoon So-ra). The relationship between the sisters is, however, much more like mother and daughter with Se-ran repeatedly stating that Mi-ran is “everything” to her and that she must grow up to become a “great woman”. The slightly uncomfortable implication is that she is encouraging a possible relationship between Mi-ran and her patron Hyeon-ma (Namkoong Won) or at least that by “great woman” she means Mi-ran should be the partner of a great man who moves within their social circles. Ominously, however, the film opens with Mi-ran discovering that all the fish in their pond have died making it clear that the water here is poisoned and the atmosphere rancid. 

It’s not exactly clear how old Mi-ran is intended to be, only that Se-ran had been worried that hadn’t yet started menstruating. She’s spent her entire life in the cosseted environment of the Blue House and knows nothing of the world outside. That she gets her period for the first time when her father brings his secretary/secret lover Dan-ju (Hah Myung-joong) to the house suggests that she has, in a sense, been liberated by his arrival. For whatever reason, Se-ran had tried to warn her off him. She appears jealous while implying that Dan-ju is a dangerous social climber who threatens the integrity of her household. Mi-ran replies that you shouldn’t judge someone because of their background, but in a fit of pique also refers to Dan-ju as a “servant” which hurts both his feelings and his male pride.

But Dan-ju himself is something of a cypher whose motivations are often unclear. Having grown up working class, he’s risen in the world through complicity with Hyeon-ma’s authoritarian rule. As Se-ran says, Hyeon-ma is infatuated with him but perhaps more as a symbol of his overall control. He reminds Dan-ju that he controls his future and repeatedly asks him if he wants to go back to his old life of being a “scumbag” not quite realising that Dan-ju may have become fed up with his degradation and no longer thinks this kind of success is worth it. Hyeon-ma refers to Dan-ju as his “dream and ambition,” even going so far as to say he’d like to start a new life with him, though this is obviously not something that would be considered publicly acceptable in the Korea of the early 1970s. The film is often referred to as the first to depict a same-sex relationship, but it’s one motivated more by power than by love. It’s not clear if Hyeon-ma is so convinced that Mi-ran is completely safe with Dan-ju because he believes him to be interested only in men, or if he is certain that his control over him is absolute, while Dan-ju may not actually be interested in men at all and is only submitting himself to Hyeon-ma’s attentions in return for social advancement.

What he comes to represent for each is freedom. After running away, Mi-ran explains that she was happy with her life within the Blue House, in other words under authoritarianism, because it treated her well and so she could think of no other happiness. But meeting Dan-ju has shown her that happiness is possible outside of it. Love is a force that threatens the social order, and now Mi-ran resents her tightly controlled life and longs for the freedom Dan-ju represents over the patriarchal oppression represented by Hyeon-ma to which Se-ran has wholly submitted herself. Now that she’s committed to the regime, she cannot permit Mi-ran to leave it and tries to convince her to study music abroad and date an international pianist who could help career. Hyeon-ma, meanwhile, reacts in jealousy and frustration. He beats Dan-ju and throws him in his shed echoing the torture and imprisonment of dissidents that took place under Park’s regime. 

As time passes, however, something evidently goes wrong with Hyeon-ma’s business causing him to flee in a hurry abandoning Se-ran and Mi-ran to their fates. The ominous maid who has been dropping rats through their windows, eventually tries to release Dan-ju with whom she has some kind of intimate connection, with the consequence that he haunts the mansion like a ghost. Mi-ran appears to have reassimilated, dancing with another man while wearing what looks very like wedding a dress, but her desire for freedom is reawakened by Dan-ju’s return. The house itself is then stormed by the revolutionary force of Hyeon-ma’s creditors who are not exactly noble avengers. They raid the place looting his possessions to get back what they’re owned, even going so far as to cut off Se-ran’s finger to take her ring and pulling out her gold teeth. The message seems to be that the dictator will probably get away (Park didn’t, he was assassinated by the head of his own security forces), but a heavy price will be paid for complicity when the regime falls, as all regimes eventually do. 

The King’s Warden (왕과 사는 남자, Chang Hang-jun, 2026)

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Can a king govern effectively if he does not know his people? Korean historical films are renowned for palace intrigue, but what’s often forgotten is the lives of ordinary subjects living in far off villages for whom the ruler is a distant authority whose efforts are more likely to hamper their lives than help them. At the beginning of Chang Hang-jun’s The King’s Warden (왕과 사는 남자, Wanggwa Saneun Namja), village chief Heung-do (Yoo Hae-jin) goes out to hunt deer which is the only access to meat the villagers seem to have while many of them have only vague memories of ever having even seen hot white rice.

Still, after he’s chased by a tiger, Heung-do is rescued by a nearby village which is in full festival mode celebrating the birthday of the young son of a regular villager. The boy’s father makes fun of Heung-do for eating deer which he says smells bad and offers him some of their lavish banquet. This village used to be poor like his, but at some point they agreed to host an exiled official, the former Minister of Justice. Though the minister was rude and entitled, he soon began to start teaching the local children for something to do resulting in one of them becoming a top scholar. And political realities being what they are, the minister’s supporters began sending lavish gifts to the village to hedge their bets on his eventual rehabilitation. Shortly put, that’s how they’ve all become rich beyond their wildest dreams and all they had to do was put up with someone being difficult and annoying for a short period of time.

Obviously, Heung-do wants this for his village too, but unbeknownst to him they’re sent the deposed king Hong-wi (Park Ji-hoon) who ascended the throne as a child and has been usurped by his uncle. This obviously places them in a precarious position. Heung-do has to report to the Town Office on Hong-wi’s every move fearing that they’ll all be killed if anything happens to him, while the usurpers, led by treacherous courtier Myeong-hoe (Yoo Ji-tae), are actually banking on the fact that Hong-wi won’t be able to adjust to a life of exile having never lived outside of the palace and will likely either die or take his own life. For his own part, Hong-wi seems to have become depressed. He’s on a kind of hunger strike as a protest and later tries to end his life only to be saved Heung-do.

Hong-wi is indeed in a difficult position himself, still only a teenager and likely aware that there is only a small possibility of him surviving very much longer given that others make take up his cause and challenge his uncle’s claim to the throne which makes his mere existence an existential threat. Not having the power to do anything, refusing to eat is his only means of asserting control. Heung-do, meanwhile, is fairly ignorant of all this though tries his best to convey that Hong-wi refusing the food the villagers have prepared for him despite not having enough to eat themselves is both rude and causing them anxiety that perhaps it’s not to his taste and their commonness is killing him. 

It’s this more human kind of interaction that eventually brokers an easier friendship between the villagers the exiled king in which it seems as if Hong-wi would have “proved most royal” if he had not been usurped and continued to reign into adulthood. He has become better acquainted with the way his subjects live, while Myeong-hoe and his ilk are only concerned with power and courtly intrigue rather than the actual business of government. Nevertheless, in the end Heung-do must pick a master. To save the villagers he may need to sacrifice Hong-wi and demonstrate his loyalty to the new regime (who may or may not honour their promises), or else decide to risk being taken down with him if they continue to protect this man they’ve come to see as a friend and who is himself conflicted in the knowledge that his presence places them at risk.

Domestic viewers well acquainted with historical fact will know the direction that this story will eventually take, though the earlier parts of the film are largely concerned with village life in which the villagers great their hardship with good humour. As such, they never really question it but only look for ways to improve their circumstances and settle on making themselves even more subservient to authority, while even an exiled king finds himself entirely powerless within an inherently corrupt feudal system. The growing friendship between Heung-do, the villagers, and Hong-wi has then a poignant quality in their shared sense of futility and the glimpse of what might have been a better society for all if only Hong-wi had been allowed to follow his kingly destiny unfettered.

The King’s Warden opens in UK cinemas 6th March courtesy of Central City Media.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

Ghost Train (괴기열차, Tak Se-woong, 2024)

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Why are there so many stories about haunted stations? Perhaps it’s their liminal status that gives them an eerie quality. By definition, you’re not supposed to stay here. To that extent, they’re a kind of purgatorial space between one destination or another. We leave so quickly it’s like a part of us is left behind, hovering, and never able to find the exit. In any case, Gwanglim seems to have its fair share of ghost stories as investigated by “horror queen” Da-kyung (Joo Hyun-young) in an attempt to boost the fortunes of her failing YouTube channel.

She herself admits that her problem is she’s run out of content, which is why she’s badgering the stationmaster (Jeon Bae-soo) for information on this supposedly haunted spot. The funny thing is that the stationmaster seems to know a lot more than you’d expect about these cases, including their full backstories, which have nothing to do with the station or his job. You’d think that would give Da-kyung pause for thought, but she’s already drunk on the promise of a scoop and has ironically convinced the stationmaster to talk with the gift of alcohol. As she continues to listen to his stories and the ratings of her channel improve, she takes on an increasingly vampiric appearance while the stationmaster seems to become ever sicker. Nevertheless, Da-kyung only becomes thirstier for gruesome tales even as the stationmaster tries to warn her off by asking what the real reason behind her animosity to rival beauty influencer Lina (Jung Han-bit) might be.

In this, her story parallels that of a young girl on the train who is insecure in her appearance and contemplating plastic surgery only to be haunted by a woman in bandages seemingly jealous of the beauty the young girl doesn’t know she already has. Da-kyung has a crush on her boss, Woo-jin (Choi Bo-min), but thinks he prefers Lina and not just because her channel pulls in millions of viewers. Lina is a classic mean girl who endlessly puts Da-kyung down as a means of asserting her own superiority while Da-kyung secretly looks down on her for her vacuity. As her channel improves and she grows in confidence, Da-kyung sheds her dowdy outfits for something a little more stylish but is still consumed by resentment towards Woo-jin in her, it seems possibly mistaken, belief that he prefers Lina because she aligns more closely with socially defined ideas of typical femininity in her tendency to behave like a silly girl who can’t do anything for herself except look pretty around men. 

It is, as the stationmaster says, foolish to chase after what you think you’re missing and end up losing what you already had instead of learning to happy just with that. The other stories too are about overreaching greed, such as that of a homeless man who discovers a magic vending machine that disappears people and allows him to pick up their clothes and wallets to enrich himself though he never escapes the station despite his increasing desire to disappear random people until the point he realises he has consumed himself. Da-kyung is urged to delete her videos by someone who encountered something dangerous at the station, explaining that it’s built on the former site of a chapel that belonged to a cult where a mass suicide took place, further suggesting that the location itself is greedy for the souls of those who were, in a way, trying to turn away from this hyper-capitalistic vision of the world only to fall victim to it.

The stationmaster too dislikes those who profit from the misery or misfortune of others, which is what he assumes Da-kyung to be doing in her voracious appetite for ghost stories. In the very first tale, a young woman repeatedly bangs her head into a glass door, but no one attempts to help her. Everyone just moves to another carriage or generally away from her. These stories are only interesting for their gore and strangeness, no one really cares about the victims or learning from the past, which is to say we’re stuck in the station reliving the same trauma and unable to progress to a better a place. Da-kyung is stuck here most of all, and in her way, also hungry for souls lured in by lurid tales of untold horrors.

Ghost Train is released on Digital in the US on February 17 courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)