Director : Kim Sung-su
Cast : Ahn Sung-Ki, Jung Woo-sung, Joo Jin-mo, Zhang Ziyi and Yu Rong-guang

Synopsis
In the late fourteenth century a Korean diplomatic envoy is sent to make peace with the new Ming government but its members are accused of spying and are ultimately exiled to a remote desert in the west. Upon escaping from their captures and heading home for Korea, they come across Yuan soldiers who have kidnapped a Ming princess, Princess Fu-Rong (Zhang Ziyi), and decide to rescue her in order to secure safe passage home by the Ming court.

Review
by Vincent Yeoh

Directed by Kim Sung-su who has already established his finely polished, Hong Kong inspired action in contemporary films like Beat (1997) and City of the Rising Sun (1998). In Musa he’s taken a large scale period drama epic and given it a dose of dramatic realism, which lacks nothing as a historical epic and yet has better action sequences then some Hollywood productions of a similar scale without having to resort to the use of CGI characters. Musa is a record breaker, having taken five years to make and being the most expensive move in Korean history with a budget of 8 million Korean dollars. This movie runs at almost 3 hours long and is long to sit through.

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Director : Joon-ho Bong
Cast :  Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim, Jae-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon, Seo-hie Ko and No-shik Park.

Synopsis :
South Korea in 1986 under the military dictatorship: Two rural cops and a special detective from the capital investigate a series of brutal rape murder. Their rude measures become more desperate with each new corpse found. Based on a true case.

Review
by Edward Tang

Memories of Murder is very much different from this round of things, the killer is never seen and although he is a psycho, his killings are not only disgusting, but neat. There truly isn’t a corpse that is seen all sliced up and shit to gain shock value, they actually focus on the storytelling element. Even though there isn’t an “ending” to this noise, the “whodunit” factor always comes into play. Beautifully shot, from long fields to dark nights filled with blood and rain. A superb cast that includes some great performances, mostly from the likes of Kang-ho Song (JSA).

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Directed : Park Chan Wook
Written by : Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-Gyeong
Cast : Lee Young-Ae, Choi Min Mik

Synopsis :
“A high school student (Lee) goes to jail in order to save the teacher (Choi) she loves. When she leaves prison 13 years later, she finds she has been betrayed and prepares to take her revenge.”

Reviews
by Edward Tang

Ah, from the moment you view the opening stylized credits you know that you’ll be in for a damn good ride brought to you by Mr. Park Chan-wook. Returning for the final time to his vengeance-themed flicks, you can bet your ass that he delivers the goods again. From the beginning to end, you are treated with a visual display that most directors couldn’t even handle if they tried. Everything in this film is up to par, whether it be the performances (I don’t think you’ll find a film that this man has directed where the actors weren’t pure goodness throughout), the plot, the awesome musical score, direction or anything in between. Perhaps the only thing people would bitch about would be the lack of “action” in between scenes like the infamous hallway fight in Oldboy or when that Green-haired douche in Mr. Vengeance smacks down the kidney-thieves. What we have here is a gift, the perfect conclusion to the GREATEST trilogy of films I’ve ever seen. Take the gift, unwrap it and enjoy.

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Director : Park Chan Wook
Cast : Yeong-ae Lee, Byung-hun Lee, Kang-ho Song, Tae-woo Kim and Ha-kyun Shin.

Synopsis
In the DMZ separating the Koreas, peace is as fragile as the wooden bridge linking North and South. When two North Korean soldiers are killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier, it threatens to ignite a full-scale conflict. An impartial Swiss intelligence team is sent to investigate and they quickly find flaws in the official version of events. Why were 16 bullets found at the crime scene when the assassin’s gun housed only 15 rounds? It’s a race to uncover the truth as tensions rise at the most heavily armed border on Earth.

Review
by Edward Tang

Park Chan Wook has easily produced the best string of Vengeance-plotted films in existence, starting with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance to Oldboy and he might do the same in his 2005 release of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I found both films to be completely out of the ordinary and quite the punch that cinema needed. They not only included a great story, but had excellent performances and direction. I didn’t know of anything else he made, until I rented JSA yesterday, and I can say that Mr. Vengeance himself, can now be labeled as Mr. Genius. This film is based on the DMZ that separates North and South Korea (craftily remade in a studio, nicely done might I add), and relationships between such. The film packs a heavy punch, and gives a more simplistic reveal than other films that you might expect from ParkChan-wook , but the results are always deadly.

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Director : Kim Sung-Ho
Producer : Kim Eun-Yung
Screenplay : Kim Sung-Ho
Cast : Yoo Ji-Tae, Kim Myung-Min, Kim Hye-Na

Synopsis
Wu Young-Min is the head of security at a shopping mall which is about to reopen after a terrible fire. As an ex-cop, Young-Min is haunted by the tragic event which resulted in his decision to leave the police force. When a young woman is found dead inside the mall and the investigative team arrives to look into the murder, Young-Min finds that he knows the lead detective on the case – Ha Hyun-Su. Young-Min wants to leave the police to their job of finding out what happened to the girl but finds himself being pulled into the case – especially when another dead body is found in the mall.

Review
by Martin Cleary

Into The Mirror is one of those films that fans of J-Horror should enjoy, it has some interesting ideas hidden within its average plotline. The style of film is familiar: an ex-cop who is haunted by his past is forced to confront his fears. Throw into the mix some creepy murders, an ex-college who dislikes him and a friend who just so happens to be a psychologist (what a coincidence!) and you sort of know what type of film this will be from the beginning.

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Director : Kim Ki Duk
Cast : Seung-yeon Lee, Hyun-kyoon Lee, Hyuk-ho Kwon, Jin-mo Ju and Jeong-ho Cohi.

Synopsis
A young man breaks into empty homes to partake of the vacationing residents’ lives for a few days.

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Director : Kim Ji Woon
Producers : Lee Yo-jin, Oh Jeong-wan
Exec Producer : Park Dong-ho
Scriptwriters : Kim Jee-woon
Editor : Choi Jae-geun
DoP : Kim Jee-woon
Production Designer : Ryu Seong-hie
Sound : Choii Tae-young
Score : Dalpalan, Jang Young-kyu
Cast : Lee Byung-hun, Shin Min-a, Kim Young-chul, Whang Jung-min, Kim Roi-ha, Moon Ching-hyuk, Lee Ki-young, Oh Dalsoo, Jin Gu, Kim Hae-gon

Synopsis
Assigned to guard the headstrong young girlfriend of his crime syndicate boss, normally cold-blooded enforcer Seon-woo lets his guard slip for an instant – and pays an horrific penalty. Made by acclaimed writer-director Kim Jee-woon (The Quiet Family, A Tale of Two Sisters), this raises the bar for onscreen violence and mayhem, its dream-like tone giving way to pure ballistic bedlam, as Seon-woo – bloodied, but by no means beaten – returns to seek revenge against his former master. With its hard-bitten visual style, all rain and shadowy angles, and immaculate production values, this brutal masterpiece will have genre fans nailed to their seats.

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Director : Ki-Hyung Park
Cast : Hye-jin Shim, Jin-geun Kim, Oh-bin Mun and Na-yoon Jeong.

Synopsis
Korean director Ki-Hyung Park (WHISPERING CORRIDORS) continues his exploration of the supernatural with the thriller ACACIA. After a couple’s efforts to conceive continually end in disappointment, they adopt young Jin-seong, whose mother has died. Jin-seong seems drawn to a tree in the couple’s backyard, constantly climbing and drawing pictures of it. But when his new mother finally manages to become pregnant, Jin-seong disappears, and a number of strange occurrences–and dead bodies–pile up, all seemingly centered on the mysterious tree.

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