Jang Hang-seon Movies
- 2008
A lawyer takes on a difficult case under risky circumstances in this thriller from South Korea. Yu Ji-yeon (Kim Yun-jin) is a successful defense attorney and the mother of an eight-year-old girl, Eun-yeong (Lee Ra-hye). Ji-yeon attends a school event with her daughter and becomes distraught when Eun-yeong goes missing. After twenty-four hours, Ji-yeon receives word that the girl has been abducted by kidnappers, and in exchange for Eun-yeong's freedom, the kidnappers demand an unusual ransom. Jeong Cheol-jin (Choi Myeong-su) has been accused of murder, and has little hope of being found innocent given the evidence stacked against him; if Ji-yeon will represent him in court and he goes free, Eun-yeong will be released to her. Desperate to see Eun-yeong returned to safety, Ji-yeon begins looking into Cheol-jim's case with the help of Kim Seong-yeol (Park Heui-sun), a longtime friend who is also a police detective. But given Eun-yeong's health and Seong-yeol's spotty relationship with his fellow officers, Ji-yeon fears she may not be able to crack the case in time to save her little girl's life. 7 Days (aka Sebeun Deijeu) began production in 2006 with Yun Je-gu as director and Kim Seon-ah playing Ji-yeon before Kim Yun-jin was recast in the lead and Won Shin-yeon took command of the director's chair. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Yun-jin, Kim Mi-suk, (more)
- 2007
In this supernatural romance from South Korean director Hwang Qu-dok), the lines between reality and fantasy blur as a university professor recalls the curious story of how he met his wife. Enthralled by the news coverage of a disaster that has stricken the nearby Kangweon province, university professor Hyeon Su-yeong (Jeong Jin-yeong) eventually pulls himself away from the story and makes his way to class. Upon arriving, Hyeon's students seem more interested in their professor's personal life than the lesson at hand. Asked about how he met his wife, the teacher flashes back to the summer of 1979. As the temperatures continued to rise that year, the students poured into the streets to protest the military-backed government. It was during this time that Hyeon met the free-spirited beauty that he took to calling "Pippi" (Kim Min-seon) after she playfully refuses to divulge her real name. One day, during a student demonstration, Pippi makes a remark to Hyeon about the importance of following a loved one wherever they may go before fatefully leaping off of a sizable cliff. Later, while attempting to tutor a disturbed young girl (Cha Su-yeon) who hasn't quite recovered from the recent death of her parents, Hyeon gradually starts seeing Pippi as if she had never even died. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeong Gyeong-ho, Kim Min Seon, (more)
When a series of dead bodies are found all clutching different tarot cards and the discovery of the sole suspect's lifeless body leaves the murder investigation down a dead-end road, it's up to the cops to stop the killing in director Min Byung Jin's tense thriller. At first confounded by the appearance of the suspect's lifeless body, investigators discover something far more sinister is at work when they find that the details of each murder have been uploaded to the internet with the added promise that more killings are on the way. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
The sophomore effort of writer-director Kim Jee-woon, who had success on the festival circuit with his 1998 black comedy The Quiet Family, Banchik Wang opens by introducing us to harried office grunt Im Dae-ho (Song Kang-ho). Nagged by his father, hassled by his boss, and secretly in love with a female colleague, Dae-ho finds solace in wrestling and the so-called "foul kings," or take-no-prisoners championship wrestlers who will do anything to win a match. He decides to try his own hand at the sport and is eventually -- if reluctantly -- taken on as the pupil of a weathered coach (Jang Hang-seon). Training by the coach's daughter (Jang Jin-yeong) allows Dae-ho to develop self-confidence, and after becoming the accidental victor of his first fight, he prepares for a tag match against reigning champion Yubiho (Kim Su-ro), who wants an easy win to further his career in Japan. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Song Kang-ho
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
