Han Suk-Kyu Movies
This film opens with a young man arriving at an apartment and ending up on a concrete slab getting slowly dismembered with a scalpel by an unseen killer. That unfortunate soul, along with a number of other hapless victims, turns up in a bunch of plastic garbage bags littered around Seoul during Korea's steamy, rainy season. Burnt-out cop Jo (Han Suk-Kyu) is assigned to head up the investigation. The killer, who puts the limbs of a body with the corpse of another, clearly must have a basic grasp of surgery, Jo and his colleague Oh (Jang Hang-seon) quickly surmise. Their inquiry soon leads them to Chae Su-yeon (Korean idol Shim Eun-ha), a beautiful museum restorer who knew three of the victims. At first, she is wary and unresponsive. The cops' attention is briefly turned toward Kim Ki-yeon (Yu Jun-sang), an obsessive suitor of Chae who had not been seen for several days, that is, until a video tape surfaces of the missing man getting his legs lopped off. Later, as Chae begins to divulge the dark secrets of her past -- sexual abuse and the fiery death of a friend -- the body count grows and the murders become more gruesome. Director Chang Yoon-hyun's profoundly creepy "hardgore" thriller was a major box-office success in its native South Korea, matching that of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999). ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shim Eun-Ha
Billed as Full Metal Jacket meets Heat meets Nikita, Kang Je Gyu directs this wildly popular action-thriller about tensions between North and South Korea. The film opens with agents in North Korean spy school T19 engaged in an unbelievably difficult rigorous training regime. The school's fanatically committed leader, Park Mu Young (Choi Min Sik) singles out the beautiful and sinewy Lee Bang Hee (Kim Yun Jin), an ace student and a deadeye shot, for a top-secret mission. A couple of years later, South Korean intelligence agents are baffled by a spate of murders of scientists working on a top-secret defense project. Agents Yu Jong Won (Han Suk Kyu) and Lee Jang Gil (Song Kang Ho) suspect the North Korean Lee but cannot locate her. One day, Yu finally spots Lee Bang Hee icing an arms dealer with a sniper rifle. At the same time, North Korean spy Park Mu Young and his fellow commandos take out a military convoy and swipe a top-secret substance called CTX, an explosive that is completely undetectable. Park and Lee's plan slowly becomes horribly apparent: to blow up a North and South Korean friendship soccer game, launching a war that will bring South Korea under the North's hegemony. At the same time, South Korean intelligence is starting to suspect a mole in their midst and evidence seems to point to Yu's girlfriend. This film was screened at the 1999 Pusan Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Han Suk-Kyu, Choe Min-sik, (more)
- 1999
This documentary tackles the emotional battle to protect South Korea's national film industry against the corporate juggernaut of the MPAA (which is backed by the U.S. government). From a high profile hunger strike by Korean directors in the summer of 1998 to the current stalemate after the issue was separated from general trade talks, the film focuses on Korea's use of screen quotas for local flicks (currently standing at 106, but this is bound to be reduced). While the MPAA sees Korea as a key market in its attempts to dominate all of Asia, Korean filmmakers regard local productions as central to Korea's sense of national identity. This film was screened at the 1999 Pusan Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Myung Kye-Nam
Hur Jin-Ho's directorial debut came with this low-key Korean drama about a photographer, Jung-Won (Han Suk-Kyu), who runs a small studio in the almost rural environs of suburban Seoul. Days pass as he goes about his studio routines, enlarging class photos and taking family portraits. One day, Jung-Won meets young meter maid Da-Rim (Shim Eun-Ha) when she enters his establishment with a request for photos of parking violations. They make an unlikely twosome and are not immediately attracted to each other. Even so, they go on a date to an amusement park. Over time, a friendship develops, but Jung-Won has an unspecified terminal illness, a fact which is known only to his immediate family. Shown in the Critics Week section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Suk-Kyu, Shim Eun-Ha, (more)
- 1997
In this South Korean crime drama, Makdong (Han Suk-Kyu) is discharged from the army to find changes in his rural hometown village. Aboard a train, he meets nightclub singer Miae (Shim Hye-Jin), girlfriend of a Seoul gang leader (Moon Sung-Keun). Makdong joins the gang, but his increasing interest in Miae puts him in conflict with the boss. This film won the 1997 Vancouver Film Festival's Dragons and Tigers Award, given to top Asian films. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Han Suk-Kyu, Shim Hye-Jin, (more)
Writer Song Neung-Han made his directorial debut with this South Korean crime drama about sharp-witted young gangster Tae-Ju (Han Suk-Kyu) whose bar-hostess wife (Lee Mi-Yun) takes both poetry lessons and love sessions from a local poet. Meanwhile, Tae-Ju realizes he's only No. 3 in the pecking order of his urban gang, a situation that means competing with stupid tough Ashtray (named after his weapon of choice). Resentment re Japanese dominance, police corruption, and other serious themes surface as the industrial hip-hop music leads the storyline toward a conclusion set in the 21st Century. Shown at the 1998 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Han Suk-Kyu, Lee Mi-Yun, (more)
- 1996
This romantic epic Korean ghost story was one of the country's biggest all-time grossing films in 1996. Su-hyun is an art lecturer with a nearly perfect life. One day he sees an exquisite old wooden bed, made from Gingko logs, in the trash outside his apartment. He takes the bed into his own apartment. Before long he discovers the bed is haunted by the ruthless spirit of Gen. Hwang, who is only able to keep his human form by eating living human hearts. It doesn't take long before the lecturer learns that in Hwang's time, he had been a court musician and had stolen the general's true love, a beautiful princess. Hwang only wants the princess's soul, which heretofore had been trapped in the gingko bed. Now she too stalks the earth looking for victims and using handy bodies to rest within. It is while resting in a stolen body that Su-hyun's girl friend, a doctor gets involved in the mystery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
