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Starring: Kang-Ho Song, Byung-Hun Lee, Young-Ae Lee
Year: 2000
Time: 110 min
- Special Jury Award, Fajr International Film Festival, Iran, 2001
- Invitation to Goteborg Film Festival, Sweden, 2001
- Best Film, Director, and Photography Award, Blue Dragon Film Festival, Korea, 2001
Shots ring out in the middle of the night on the hypermilitarized border between North and South Korea, and soon two northern soldiers are dead, and commandos from the south are storming across the border to rescue their own wounded man. It has the makings of an international disaster if neutral Swiss and Swedish investigators don't get to the bottom of the mystery fast. The job falls to Major Sophie Jean, an ethnically Korean Swiss military lawyer flown in to conduct the investigation ? her first time ever in Korea. She is handed prepared statements from all the survivors and expected to certify one of the countries' official lines and go home. But right away, the evidence doesn't match the official statements and the major begins to look for another explanation. In fact, by the end of "Joint Security Area," she has discovered a far different and more tragic truth from the one that everybody wants her to certify. "You haven't learned much about Panmunjom," the location of the one crossing point between North and South Korea, her superior officer scolds. "Here, the peace is preserved by hiding the truth. What they both really want is that this investigation proves nothing at all."
Starring: Oh Seong Yoo, In-Hwan Park, Yeong-Suk Jeong
Year: 1999
Time: 105 min
A North Korean spy, Lee, Cheol-Jin is an operation staff against the South on an invaluable mission of 'solution of food shortage in the North'. After arriving in Seoul he takes a taxi to get the first contact with Mr. Ooh, a veteran stationary spy in Seoul for 30 years. However, he is robbed of all his things by a quartet of burglars in taxi and became penniless. Mr. Ooh and Lee finally meet and Lee tells him his story happened to him. Mr. Ooh doubts of Lee's quality, but he gets to be sure that Lee is a true spy from the North, who is sincere, simple and delicate. Given time to them is only one week. Lee's mission is to take genes of super pig developed in the South away and carry them to the North. In the meantime, Lee, having a bad impression on the South because of the robbery on his first day in Seoul becomes open his mind by thoughtful care of warmhearted Hwaii, a daughter of Mr. Ooh. Although Lee is ignored by Mr. Ooh thanks to his stupidness from time to time, he never gives up his mission. Finally Mr. Ooh and Lee set to work after planning carefully.....
Starring: Dong-Gun Jang, Hye-Jin Yoo
Year: 2002
Time: 94 min
On the peaceful seaside of the East Coast, a young couple making love in the military security area is captured by the NVG (night vision goggle) of Cpl. Kang. Overwhelmed with fear after seeing the bare back of the man, Cpl. Kang pulls the trigger and the corpse of the man is torn into pieces. After finding out what he has done, Kang turns pale, but the Marine Corps awards him a leave saying that he had killed a North Korean spy. After confessing to his girlfriend about the incident, Cpl. Kang engages himself in violent actions and he is terminated from military service for having a mental disease. Cpl. Kang wanders around the military base, believing that he is still with the Marine Corps. On the other hand, Mi-Young, who has lost her boyfriend to the rifle of Kang, believes that every man is her boyfriend. A delicate relationship is built between Kang and Mi-Young.
Starring: Kang-Ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doo-Na Bae
Year: 2002
Time: 121 min
- Best Film Award, Busan Film Critics Association, Korea, 2002
- Special Jury Award, Noir in Festival, Italy, 2002
A young man named Ryu, who is deaf-mute since his birth, has to work very hard at a factory to gather some money for an operation for his sister. His sister needs a new kidney as soon as possible but Ryu is starting to get desperate, because so far no donor has showed up. Ryu is ready to do anything to save his sister, even trying illegal ways to get the new organ. Unfortunately for him that second alternative doesn't go as he planned. He's now back again at the square one and he needs to find another alternative. Meanwhile, Dong-Jin, a businessman who has worked really hard to get where he is, tries to live a quiet life with his young daughter. But one day, Dong-Jin daughter gets kidnapped for a big money ransom. Those who seem to be behind that kidnapping are Ryu and his girlfriend, trying to gather money for the kidney transplant of Ryu's sister. Unfortunately for both parties, the kidnapping leads to a series of incidents that nobody has ever imagined.
Starring: Kyung-Gu Seul, Soo-Ri Moon
Year: 2002
Time: 132 min
- Special Director's Award, Award for Best Young Actor or Actress, Venice International Film Festival, Italy, 2002
- Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award, Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada, 2002
Jong-Du, a mentally handicapped petty thief, is arrested almost as soon as he is released from jail because he has no money to pay a restaurant bill. Some time later, his brother arrives to get him out on bail and to give him a job and a humble abode. Jong-Du goes to visit the family of the man he is supposed to have killed in a road accident - a crime that was actually committed by his brother - and meets the daughter of the house, the spastic and handicapped Gong-Ju. After a first encounter that goes gruesomely wrong, she seeks contact again with Jong-Du and a close bond develops between these two outcasts. He is the first person who sees Gong-Ju as more than a cripple and she is the first person not to judge him instantly by his deeds. Oasis has been filmed in a loose, documentary style, without much stylistic intervention, so that all attention is focused on the characters. Gong-Ju and Jong-Du are portrayed brilliantly by the actors who also played in Lee's previous film, Peppermint Candy. Moon So-Ri rightly won the prize for the best young actress at Venice.
Starring: Kyung-Gu Seul, Soo-Ri Moon
Year: 2000
Time: 127 min
- Winner of Special Jury Prize, FICC (Federation of International Cine Club)
- NETPAC (Network of Promoting for Asians Cinema) at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2000
- Selected for Director¡¯s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival, France, 2000
- Selected among 10 best foreign film by Kinema Junbo, Japan, 2001
Peppermint Candy depicts a man¡¯s life in seven separate chapters, covering a span of twenty years and going backward in time. Young-Ho is a crazed forty-year-old man who shows up unexpectedly at a reunion party of a group of former factory workers. He climbs onto a railroad bridge, and as he is about to jump into the path of an approaching train, cries, ¡°I want to go back.¡± In seven parts, in reverse-chronology order from 1999 to 1979, the film shows the most significant moments of his life.
At the time when Korean cinema was drifting into more commercial waters, Peppermint Candy seemed like a gamble. But the movie was highly acclaimed both by critics and general public, and performed well at the domestic box office.
Starring: Suk-Gyu Han, Hye-Jin Sim, Sung-Keun Moon
Year: 1997
Time: 111 min
- Award for Best Young Actor or Actress, Daejong Film Festival, Korea, 1997
After military service, Makdong returns to Ilsan, a suburb of Seoul that personifies the 'Korean dream': the rapid modernization of Korea in the last thirty years. That dream means for instance that the rice patties around Makdong's birthplace have made way for ugly tower blocks. Makdong has trouble not thinking about earlier, better times. His mentally handicapped brother is the only one who is happy with Makdong's return. His other brothers have left the house, looking for a career. Makdong goes to Youndeungpo, a down-at-heel district of Seoul, where industry is hand in hand with the nightlife that is dominated by violence and crime. In search of work, he meets the nightclub singer Miae, the gangster moll of Bae Tae-Gon. Through this man, Makdong gets a chance to prove himself. He is soon drawn into the criminal gang. The only complication is that Makdong and Miae feel like soul mates. When Bae Tae-Gon's former boss gets out of jail and demands his district back, Makdong does something he would have been better off not doing. The coda of the film however puts these events in a different light... Eat and be eaten, that seems to be the credo of this occasionally brutal film about the weaknesses of modern society and the demise of family values.