If You Were Me
Anthology film of six shorts by leading Korean directors. Park Chan-Wook, tackles racial prejudice and the economic exploitation of immigrant workers through the real-life story of a Nepalese woman in Korea. Jeong Jae-Eun, tackles the plight of a paedophile released into the community. Yeo Gyun-Dong, invites disabled actor Kim Moon-Joo to re-enact his most famous protest. Im Soon-Rye, goes for the engrained sexism of Korean men with superb wit and, Park Jin-Pyo, confronts the horror of children forced into oral surgery to improve their English-speaking ability.
Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook
Yeo Kyun-dong
Yeo Kyun-dong
Yim Soon-rye
Yim Soon-rye
Jeong Jae-eun
Jeong Jae-eun
Park Kwang-su
Park Kwang-su
Park Jin-pyo
Park Jin-pyo
Casts & Crew
Baek Jong-hak
Ji Jin-hee
Dong Hyo-hee
Kim Choo-wol
Jeon Ha-eun
Yim Soon-rye
Also Directed by Park Chan-wook
A man casually sets up for a fishing trip at the water's edge. Evening comes and a tug on his line presents him with the body of a woman.
a successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra, who forces the director to play his sadistic games. If he fails, his wife’s fingers will be chopped off one by one every five minutes
This is the story of Ryu, a deaf man, and his sister, who requires a kidney transplant. Ryu's boss, Park, has just laid him off, and in order to afford the transplant, Ryu and his girlfriend develop a plan to kidnap Park's daughter. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.
A remake of the 2005 film with the same name. After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.
A Nepalese woman named Chandra spends six years in a mental hospital after she was mistakenly accused of losing her mind. Tackles the human rights of foreign laborers in Korea. N.E.P.A.L is part of the South Korean omnibus film, If You Were Me. Comprising six short films directed by six prominent Korean directors and commissioned by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, If You Were Me deals with discrimination in the country. The directors were given free rein with regards to subject and style.
Han is a suicidal saxophonist, Mun is violent simpleton with an I.Q. of 80 and Maria is single mother with dreams of becoming a nun. Han has tried numerous times to kill himself but nothing ever works. When he witnesses his wifes infidelity, it is the last straw. He gets a call from Mun and both decide take things into their own hands by robbing a cafe at gunpoint. They run into Maria who is determined to find her baby who was taken from her. Maria decides to use the two men to get her baby back and joins the team.
Over 98 days from August 20th to November 25th 2013, 2821 people from around the world sent 11,852 video featuring many different faces of Seoul. 154 were selected, edited, and made into a movie.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
Young-goon, mentally deranged and frequently electro-charging herself with a transistor radio, has been admitted into a mental institution. Firmly believing herself to be a cyborg, she refuses to consume like a human being. Il-soon is another patient, who catches the eye of Young-goon and soon becomes a close friend. Il-soon is now confronted with the biggest task - to cure Young-goon’s mental problem and have her eat real food.
Also Directed by Yeo Kyun-dong
On one gloomy rainy night, a writer encounters an unexpected visit paid by a woman of his past. Seeking solitude from her ex-lover, she finds solace in this gentleman and from that day on, they cherish every inch of each other's body and indulge in ecstasy until her forbidden past is gradually revealed.
A satirical allegory of contemporary South Korean politics, the film follows the exploits of two convicts who accidentally escape while being transferred to another prison. Before they can turn themselves back into custody, they meet a female outlaw. She persuades the pair of prisoners to rob a bank in Seoul. When their robbery turns into an embarrassing fiasco, the two decide to flee to the North Korean border.
Koo Yi-Do is one of the few people who has a sincere outlook on the world. He denounces the reality portrayed by films and works on a script for a "sincere" movie. Unfortunately, there are too many obstacles that keep him from finishing the job. His plan to shoot a film by peeping through a hole in a motel wall is deterred when he is arrested for circulating illegal videos.
Korea, 1724. Once upon a time in the Choson Dynasty, Chun-doong falls in love at first sight with a beautiful woman whilst in the middle of a fight.When she is delivered by accident to Chun-doong's tavern to work as a maid, he is the happiest man in the land until she is snatched away by her rightful owner.He vows to get her back, but alone he is no match for Man-deuk.
Although international marriage migrant Asian women have lived for from three to 20 years in Korea, their lives are sometimes viewed with racist eyes. And sometimes, it is not easy to live in the same discrimination as Korean women's lives. As they travel to the sea with a birthday friend, they think about happiness by recalling the day, week, and ten years ago.
With his film having failed and producer having run away, Man-soo needs to pay back all the film’s debts. While Man-soo also makes plans to run away, he receives a call from the money lender. Instead of paying back the money, the money lender proposes that Man-soo, as a favor to the money lender, make a movie for his old father. Old BAE is from North Korea, and has longed to visit his hometown before he dies. With no other alternative available, Man-soo accepts the threatening proposal to shoot the film. From the very beginning of shooting, things get more complicated, and soon they find themselves in a big mess.
It’s a black comedy movie whose story is a day's journey of a movie director who got an offer to make a movie with a best-selling book called Dinner with Jesus.
Also Directed by Yim Soon-rye
Waikiki Brothers is a band going nowhere. After another depressing gig, the saxophonist quits, leaving the three remaining members to continue on the road. The band ends up at the lead singer's hometown, which was a popular hot spring resort in the '80s, but the return home is filled with reservations of previous and past disappointments, a lost love, unemployment and tragedy.
Three young men face the university entrance exams upon which their economic and social fates depend.
An impossibly cute and thoroughly touching omnibus of 4 short fillms about how humans can elevate their own relationships through bonding with animals - featuring some of the cutest puppies and kittens ever on the silver screen!
Formerly known as "How to Travel with a Cow" A bachelor poet lives in a remote area of Kang-won province. He goes to sell a cow but the price is too low. He gets a call from his former lover, who married his friend seven years ago. His friend has died, and she asks him to come to the funeral. He goes to the funeral with the cow. The man, the girl, and the cow leave on a journey.
Hae-gap is a director who makes anti-government documentary films. One day, Hae-gap’s son, Na-ra, runs away from home, but Man-deok, a freeloader living in Hae-gap’s house ends up bringing him back. Later, Man-deok raids the head developer of Deul Island to stop its exploitation, and Na-ra helps and ends up getting caught. In order to bring Na-ra out from jail, Hae-gap signs to stop making anti-government films and moves to Deul Island with his family. Na-ra sees his father leading a good, quiet life there and starts opening up. But when a construction company charges in to clear-out the island and the islanders fall at risk of losing their homes, Hae-gap leads a strike against it and his family fall in grave danger...
A young woman leaves the city to return to her hometown in the countryside. Seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, she becomes self-sufficient in a bid to reconnect with nature.
Seung-yun is stressed out because he is sent to several private academies after school. His mother reproves him for not living up to her expectations. His father takes pity on him for being nagged on by his mother all the time... Ju-hun, a new employee at a company, is a vegetarian and cannot drink alcohol at all. Chang-su thinks Ju-hun is eccentric and is displeased with him... Su-hyeong sent his son and daughter with his wife to study abroad, but he grows tired of staying alone in his empty house... SONG has lived with her authoritarian husband without any serious problems, but she does not want to stay with him anymore. GWON, an old man, pretends to be calm in the face of his wife’s request for divorce. But actually he can’t do anything by himself... These are not unfamiliar fictional events but rather they reflect the lives of ordinary people in Korea at the present time. Through their stories, shows us how a society imposes normalcy on its people in their daily lives.
Korea and Denmark had shared four Olympic titles for women’s handball from 1988 to 2000, with the Danes winning the latter two. The two dueling teams met again as finalists in 2004, and the pulsating game continued long and hard with a tie score leading to two killer overtimes and a penalty throw showdown.Korea lost, but won what many call a silver medal that shines more brightly than the gold. At the time, Korean women’s handball was at its worst state ever, and players who should have been retired joined the national team to face the indefatigable Denmark. It was a miraculous achievement _ “the greatest moment of our lives” (the film’s title in Korean).
A story about a diplomat and a national intelligence service agent who struggle and risk their lives on foreign soil to save Korean hostages that have been abducted in the Middle East.
Also Directed by Jeong Jae-eun
The fashionable Hye-joo is focused on her career at a brokerage house. She's making a decent living, but her co-workers look down on her. Tae-hee is sick of living under the thumb of her domineering father. She spends her time doing volunteer work for a poet with cerebral palsy. Sullen Ji-young lives in poverty with her grandparents and struggles to find work. The girls, close friends in high school, find themselves drifting apart as their adult lives begin to take shape.
“We endured gender discrimination for a long time, and now we’re starting to speak out.” Sound familiar? This is from a KBS talk show taped sometime in the 1980s/1990s, when the Republic of Korea was faced with a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, economic growth and social reforms had changed the situation of women in principle – but not in practice, as White Slavery was rampant and rape a widely downplayed crime, while men behaved grosso modo as if nothing had happened and blah-blah’ed about women as flowers and some such.
Young Yu-jin likes The X-Files and keeps a diary written in a secret code.
I wanted to document various stories around apartment buildings from the first-generation urbanologist of Seoul and also from the apartment generation who was born and raised in apartments. They have cozy memories, upcoming anxieties and inconvenient experiences in their apartments, and in addition, they have witnessed the street trees growing up all the while. I was sad to hear that the residents do not garden trees because they want to start to rebuild as soon as possible.Therefore, the life circulation of an apartment building in Korea is only 30 to 40 years.
Ryoko Matsumura is a popular writer in her 50's. She also knows that she has Alzheimer’s. Ryoko Matsumura begins to teach at a university. She meets a young Korean man in his 20's. They become attracted to each other.
South Korean anthology series featuring one-act dramas selected from the O'PEN Drama Storyteller Exhibition.
Ordinary teen So-Yo (Chun Jung-Myung) discovers the world of inline skating and his life changes forever. He joins a group of skaters, which includes group leader Gap-Ba (Lee Chun-Hee), skater Moggy (Kim Kang-Woo) and his girlfriend Han-Joo (Jo Yi-Jin). Han-Joo is an aspiring filmmaker who films her boyfriend's amazing skating sets. So-Yo also finds Han-Joo attractive. Meanwhile, group leader Gap-Ba hopes to send his send team to the world inline skating championship in Los Angeles, but mandatory military service is right around the corner. Meanwhile, Moggy takes part in a commercial shoot which causes major problems for the tight-knit skating group.
Seung-Jin and Ji-Seon are high school students who sneak out at night and play. They are friends but what they want is different. Seung-Jin is ashamed of having a father who is too old and Ji-Seon is bored with her daily routine and her family. Seung-Jin wants to be a photographer, so she carries around a camera and one day…
A documentary film about Seoul City Hall Construction. The construction project has a hard going in every way. A city plan, excessive administrative notions, a design and all got mingled up. Can the project sail, yes?
Also Directed by Park Kwang-su
A porn actress decides to stop working in that industry to devote herself to conventional cinema. In her first non-pornographic shooting she faces a situation she did not expect... a sexual scene. Part of the '2000 Jeonju Digital Project'.
Moon Chae-Ku and his friend Kim Chul try to bring the body of Moon's father back to his native Kwisong Island for burial. Their ferry is intercepted by resentful islanders who will not let the boat dock, because of the father's political activities in the 1950's, informing on Communist sympathizers. Kim Chul, through flashbacks, recalls people and events from his island childhood.
Chilsu and Mansu focuses on Chilsu, a smooth-talking billboard painter who struggles to hold down a job, and his evolving friendship with Mansu, a capable and intelligent worker who is held back in life because his father is an “unreformed” Communist sympathizer.
A social drama about a young student activist who hides from the authorities by working in a small mining town.
A little girl is reunited with her reluctant small-time criminal father. Jong Dae is a lowlife conman and gangster who lives in a old trailer in a junkyard by the sea. Not exactly ideal father material. He is (understandably) shocked when, while in jail yet again, a social worker visits to inform him that he has a seven year old daughter called Joon (Seo Shin Ae) who has been living in an orphanage and is on her way to America to be adopted. Little Joon desperately wants to meet her daddy before she leaves.
A reporter investigates a case in which a Korean woman, who has been living in Europe since she was 3 years old, is accused of murdering her adopted father. This is complicated by the fact that she is suffering from traumatic memory loss.
A biographical film about Jeon Tae-il, a worker who protested labor conditions through self-immolation.
In the late 19th century Catholicism was gaining a foothold on Jeju island, much to the horror of the Confucian community, who were seeing their influence diminishing as well as getting increased taxes from Catholic-friendly government officers. The conflict became a religious war that resulted in a rebel Confucian army massacring hundreds of Christians in little more than a matter of days. The Uprising details the events leading up to the assault, focusing on the story of Yi Jae-su, the young man destined to become the leader of the rebel army.
Also Directed by Park Jin-pyo
One day, the only son of famous news anchor HAN Kyung-bae, disappears without a trace. Soon, the kidnapper calls the mother demanding a $100,000 ransom. The police assign a veteran inspector to the case and assemble a top-notch task force to work under his command. But the kidnapper constantly outwits the police and continues calling the parents with yet more instructions for the money drop.
Whenever elementary school teacher Kang Joon-soo (Lee Seung-gi) falls in love, he always gives too much of himself to the relationship. Yet despite that, he ends up being the one getting dumped by his girlfriends. Joon-soo has been friends for 18 years with Kim Hyun-woo (Moon Chae-won), a weather forecaster whose beauty belies her witty tongue and aggressive manner.
A funeral director meets a man who has been battling Lou Gehrig's disease since he was young. The two fall in love and hope for a cure that can keep him alive.
An old bachelor Seok-joong, who has no experience in dating, falls in love at first sight with a prostitute named Eun-ha. At first Eun-ha shows no interest in Seok-joong, but gradually she begins to be flattered by his devotion and eventually falls in love with him. They marry. However, one day, Eun-ha finds out that she is infected with HIV and decides to leave Seok-joong...
This atypical romance stars two 70-plus actors playing elderly lovers who meet after they're widowed. Sparking controversy in Korea for its explicit sexuality, the film brings an unblinking eye to the portrayal of society's forgotten seniors.