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Thursday, August 26, 2010

My Favorite Korean Films of the Last Decade

Since I'm only starting out here, I figure why not let you know a little bit more about my taste in Korean Cinema. So here is a top 10, like so many others, of the past (brilliant) decade of South Korean Cinema:

1. Memories of Murder
2. Peppermint Candy (technically '99, but I can't bring myself to exclude it)
3. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
4. Save the Green Planet
5. My Sassy Girl
6. Mother
7. The Power of Kangwon Province
8. A Bittersweet Life
9. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring
10. Sad Movie

Honourable mentions:

Oasis, The Chaser, 3-Iron, The Host, Oldboy, Chunhyang, Public Enemy, The Coast Guard, Once Upon a Time in High School, A Moment to Remember, Friend, Failan.

I plan to write articles on all of these films and I'm sure it will take me some time to get through all of them.

I would also love to hear your thoughts and know what your favorites of the last decade were!

5 comments:

  1. AGSeptember 8, 2010 at 2:21 PM

    Hi Pierce,

    Thank you for your blog, it is very interesting.

    I also write on Korean cinema with a friend. It is a new blog (written in French) that you can reach at : http://kim-bong-park.over-blog.com

    Your list is quite fair, but for us, Oldboy would be definitely first rank. This mind-boggling movie totally changed our view on cinema...

    Sans Congo

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  2. conranpSeptember 10, 2010 at 8:37 PM

    I was introducing Oldboy to a friend the other night and it reminded me of how much I love this film. I am a fan of the aesthetics in films and this one is simply magnificent in its staging and execution. It leaps ahead of other comic adaptations in terms of looks. Zack Snyder's 300 or Watchmen may have been near replicas of the graphic novels they were based on but Oldboy is so articulately constructed and teeming with imagination that it is a disservice to compare it to them. I never realised how tightly put together it was before this most recent viewing, everything is in its place and clearly every shot was meticulously storyboarded in advance.

    All in all, a sublime worth going back to again and again.

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  3. AGSeptember 10, 2010 at 9:32 PM

    totally agree with you. You are right to make an analogy with 300. It has definitely something of the hybris showed up in Oldboy. But Oldboy goes far deeper in human condition, it is really dizzy.

    The first time I have seen it, I lost my breath. Since then, I kind of discover new angles in the movie.

    Actually, our blog is called kim bong park for Kim Ki-duk, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, it is our holy trinity :-)

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  4. conranpSeptember 10, 2010 at 10:22 PM

    Ah ha! I figured the other two but I had thought Kim was in reference to Kim Ji-woon.

    But you're right they do make quite the holy trinity or trifecta or triumvirate or perhaps the triumphant trio?

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  5. AGSeptember 10, 2010 at 10:45 PM

    We made a reference to Kim Jee-woon by subtitling the blog "Des Bons, des Brutes et des Cinglés" for his movie The Good, the Bad and the Weird.

    A like the triumphant trio, it sounds like a super hero thing ! Or like South Park's "Super Best Friends"

    ReplyDelete