If Hollywood floats above the political and economic struggles unfolding around it, providing a dreamy, celluloid escape from socialt urmoil, then Korean cinema is frequently the opposite: passionately engaged with reality. Through a century of Japanese colonization,devastating war, dictatorship, rapid-fire industrialization andpolitical upheaval, Korean filmmakers have chronicled the turbulent history of their nation in painstaking detail.

Spring in My Hometown 아름다운 시절
1998, 121 minutes
Director: Lee Kwang-mo
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Yu Oh-sung and Song Eun-suk

Lee Kwang-mo’s Spring in My Hometown takes a contemplative a contemplative examination of life in a remote village as its inhabitants deal with the tumult brought on by the Korea War.


Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 6:30PM
To The Starry Island 그 섬에 가고싶다
1993, 101 minutes
Director: Park Kwang-soo
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Moon Seong-keun and Shim Hye-jin

When Moon Chae-ku tries to bring his father’s body back to their native Kwisong Island for burial, a legacy of bitter politics and hard choices blocks his way home. A group of islanders, still furious at how his father informed on Communist sympathizers decades earlier, won’t let Moon’s boat dock. Waiting in limbo, Moon’s memories trace the tortuous path of his father’s turbulent life.



Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 6:30PM
Green Fish 초록물고기
1997, 111 minutes
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Han Suk-kyu, Moon Sung-keun, Shim Hye-jin, Oh Ji-hye, Han Sun-kyu, Song Kang-ho, Jung Jin-young, Myung Kye-na

Makdong (meaning "youngest sibling") returns home after two years of mandatory military service to find himself a stranger in a small town that has urbanized beyond recognition. Jobless, penniless, and unable to find work to support a family on the verge of falling apart,he heads for Seoul and a world of trouble. A beautiful woman he fortuitously saved on the train ride home leads him to a new life in organized crime.

Green Fish, Lee Chang-dong's acclaimed début film, features an all-star cast: Han Suk-kyu, arguably the most popular actor of the late 1990s; Shim Hye-jin, as the femme fatale; Song Kang-ho (The Host, JSA, The Show Must Go On), then fairly new on to the silver screen; Moon Sung-keun; Jung Jin-young; Oh Ji-hye; Myung Kay-nam; and Han Suk-kyu's brother, Han Sun-kyu. The film also benefited from a prestigious crew, including producer Kang Woo-suk. Often called the most powerful man in Korean cinema, Kang topped Cine21 magazine's list of the “50 Most Powerful Men in Korean Cinema” for seven consecutive years (1998–2004).

At once a stark, contemporary noir and a controlled melodrama, Green Fish immediately conquered the critics and won the Dragons & Tigers Award for new Asian directors at the 1997 Vancouver International Film Festival. Prior to his first film, Lee wrote the scripts for Park Kwang-soo's To The Starry Island and A Single Spark—both classics of the early 1990s.

In addition to a brief tenure as South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s first Minister for Culture and Tourism, Lee moved on to become one of South Korea's most prominent filmmakers. Peppermint Candy (2000), Oasis (2002), and his most recent feature, Secret Sunshine (2007), have drawn widespread critical acclaim, with the latter winning a best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.


Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 6:30PM
Young-Ja's Heyday 영자의 전성 시대
1975, 107 minutes
Director: Kim Ho-seon
Cast: Yeom Bok-sun, Song Jae-ho and Choi Bul-am

Also known as The Golden Age of Young-Ja and Young-Ja: On the Loose

A colorful melodrama of lust and innocence lost, Young-Ja's Heyday was a box-office hit and serves as a flamboyant introduction to a key Korean genre: the hostess film. Told through the reminiscences of an old flame, this cautionary tale of a woman's tragic moral and physical downfall has drawn comparisons with Kenji Mizoguchi's elegiac films,which also focus on unhappy and exploited women.


Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 6:30PM
The Ball Shot By A Midget 난장이가 쏘아올린 공
1981, 100 minutes
Director: Lee Won-se
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Jeon Yang-ja, Keum Bo-ra

“Violence is not just bullets, nightsticks and fists,” says one character in Lee Won-se's screen adaptation of Jo Se-hee's best-selling novel. Living a hand-to-mouth existence in the ironically named neighborhood of Haengbok-dong(happy street), Kim Bul-yi's family struggles with social acceptance, poverty and lost dreams. The film's exploration of one family's struggle to earn their daily bread illustrates Leo Tolstoy's immortal observation that "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."


Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 6:30PM
Deep Blue Night 깊고 푸른 밤
1985, 93 minutes
Director: Bae Chang-ho
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Jang Mi-hee, JinYu-yeong

Abandoning his pregnant fiancée in Korea, Baek Ho-bin (Ahn Sung-ki) starts a new life in America and marries Jane (Jang Mi-hee) for a green card. Plans go awry when, despite his brutality, she begins to fall for him. Adapted from a Choi In-ho novel, this dark vision of human depravity by director Bae Chang-ho (the “Steven Spielberg of Korea” in the 80s) seta box-office record by showing both the sinister and tragic dimensions of one man's American Dream. (Warning: This film contains scenes of sexual and physical abuse.)

Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 6:30PM
Black Republic 그들도 우리처럼
1990, 100 minutes
Director: Park Kwang-su
Cast: Moon Sung-keun, Shim Hye-jin, Park Joong-hoon

Set in the aftermath of the 1980 “Gwangju Uprising,” a pro-democracy protest brutally suppressed by the Chun Doo Hwan military regime, Park Kwang-su's Black Republic offers a hard-boiled portrait of an idealist on the run from the police. The protagonist, Han Tae-hoon, finds precarious shelter in a small coal-mining town, a bleak place left behind by Korea's rapid-fire industrialization. There, he gets a glimpse of a better life, as he falls for a waitress at the local teahouse. How long will it be until his past catches up with him?


Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 6:30PM
La Vie En Rose 장미빛 인생
1994, 93 minutes
Director: Kim Hong-joon
Cast: Choi Myeong-gil, Choi Jae-seong, Cha Gwang-su

Three fugitives from the law find an unlikely hideout at a 24/7 comic book (manhwa) rental shop run by a beautiful woman known only as “Madam” (ChoiMyeong-gil). One of them is the owner’s half-brother Jee-ho (Cha Gwang-su), a labor activist; the second is Dong-pal (Choi Jae-sung), a bottom-of-the-heap gangster; the third man is Yu-jin (Lee Ji-hyung), a penniless, mild-mannered poet. As days and nights go by, an intricate web of erratic relationships forms among the guests, against the background of a bleak, blue-collar district of Seoul in the 1980s.
(Warning: This film contains scenes of violence and sex that may disturb some viewers.)

About the Director

Kim Hong-joon is a professor at the Korean National University of Arts and the director of the Chungmuro International Film Festival. After working as an assistant to veteran director Im Kwon-Taek, Kim Hong-joon moved on to establish himself as a leading figure in Korean film culture. In addition to his provocative film work (Jungle Story and La Vie En Rose), he has programmed film festivals: from 2001 to 2005, he directed the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. From 2000 to 2005, he was a consultant to KOFIC (Korean Film Council), served as head of the Korean Film Commission, and became a recognizable television personality, introducing classic Korean films as host (and co-writer)of the television series Korean Classical Cinema Special, which served as the basis for My Korean Cinema. He is also the author of I, a Filmmaker: Kim Hong-Joon’s Film Notes, and Two or Three Things You Want to Know About Movies.


Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 6:30PM
A Romance Papa 로망스 빠빠
1960, 131 minutes
Director: Shin Sang-ok
Cast: Kim Sung-ho, Shin Sung-il, Choi Eun-hee

Kim Seung-ho plays a typical, optimistic Korean father—known as "Romance Papa" to his five children—who has always managed to support his family on his modest salary. When his company lays him off, he can't bear to tell them. His children find out in spite of him, and conspire to support the family without making their father lose face.