Lee Byung-hun Movies

Censored upon its original release in Korea due to scenes of extreme violence, director Kim Jee-Woon's uncompromising meditation on the morality of revenge tells the story of a special agent who sets out to give the serial killer who murdered his wife a taste of his own medicine. Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, and the Weird) and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Former Los Angeles cop Kline (Josh Hartnett) accepts a job searching for the son of a prominent businessman in the Philippines after gunning down a serial killer in the line of duty, and finding it impossible to put the incident behind him. Following his leads to Hong Kong, Kline discovers that the boy has decided to cut himself off from society while becoming embroiled in an increasingly explosive street war between the mafia and the police. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Three Asian directors, from Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, join forces to create an omnibus horror film, Three...Extremes. In Fruit Chan's "Dumplings," shot by Christopher Doyle, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), a thirtysomething former actress with a philandering husband (Tony Leung) goes to visit Aunt Mei (Bai Ling), who sells the most expensive dumplings in Hong Kong. Mrs. Li knows about their rejuvenating powers, and she also knows about their unpleasant main ingredient, but after some initial nausea, she digs right in. In Oldboy writer/director Park Chan-wook's "Cut," a successful filmmaker (Lee Byung-hun of Joint Security Area) arrives home to find that a disgruntled extra (Lim Won-hee) has taken over his home, and fastened his pianist wife (Kang Hye-jun of Oldboy) to the grand piano. The madman threatens to cut off the wife's fingers, one by one, unless the director strangles the helpless child he's tied to the couch. Takashi Miike directs the last segment, "Box," about a young author and former circus performer, Kyoko (Kyoko Hasegawa), seemingly haunted by the ghost of her twin sister, who died a mysterious and horrible death while practicing their act. Adding to Kyoko's trauma, her editor (Atsuro Watabe) is a dead ringer for her old stepfather/ringmaster, who may have perished in the same "accident" that took her sister's life. Three...Extremes was shown at Subway Cinema's New York Asian Film Festival in 2005. For the American release of Three...Extremes, the order in which the films are presented was altered from the original "Box," "Dumplings," and "Cut" to "Dumplings," "Cut," and "Box." This film was actually preceded by another omnibus film, Three, that was nevertheless retitled Three...Extremes II for the English-language market and issued after this one. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

My Beautiful Girl Mari concerns a lonely boy who must contend with a mother who constantly spends time with her boyfriend, a deceased father, his sick grandmother, and a cat who often goes missing. In response he becomes deeply involved in a fantasy world that features the title character. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Riding the trend of Korean action blockbusters after the phenomenally popular Swiri, Park Chan Wook directs this murder mystery thriller about death on the DMZ. The film opens with a shooting along the heavy militarized border between North and South Korea, which leaves a North Korean soldier (Shin Ha- Kyun) dead and a South Korean soldier injured. Hoping to reduce the potentially explosive political fallout by solving the crime quickly, both countries agree to an investigator of Korean-Swiss descent named Sophie Jean (Lee Yeong-Ae). As she methodically sifts through the evidence, Sophie learns that the testimony of two other soldiers -- North Korean Oh Kyeong Pil (Song Kang-Ho) and South Korean Lee Soo Hyeok (Lee Byung-Hun) -- are completely contradictory. Another witness (Kim Tae-Woo) tries to commit suicide rather than divulge information. Sophie soon concludes that a group of guards from the North and South, after years of eyeing each other, started meeting in the North Korean guard house to chat, fawn over porn, and to play cards. Why this informal détente dissolved into bloodshed is a thornier question. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi