South Korea’s blockbuster cinema started here.
Here are 10 cracking titles to bring you up to speed. Action has also proved to be a fertile ground for socio-political commentary, with dicey relations with North Korea underpinning Typhoon (2005), the surveillance state surveyed in Cold Eyes (2013), and class warfare at play in Veteran (2015). Yet they maintain a distinctive flavour that stems not only from cultural elements but from a taste for blending action with other genres, whether comedy, romance or even tear-jerking drama. South Korea’s action films are certainly indebted to international influences – The Villainess pilfers from the 1970s female exploitation items churned out by Japanese studio Nikkatsu, as well as Luc Besson’s iconic thriller Nikita (1990). He even masters the tricky first-person shooter format that has tripped up his Hollywood counterparts. Although its plot is hardly original, The Villainess is hard to beat as a purely visceral experience, with Jung delivering a run of vicious set pieces that mix bullets, knives and vehicular mayhem. The latest export is Jung Byung-gil’s relentlessly exciting The Villainess, in which top assassin Sook-hee (a ferocious Kim Ok-bin) becomes a sleeper agent for South Korea’s intelligence agency. Following the local blockbuster success of Kang Je-kyu’s pioneering Shiri (1999), then the most expensive film made in the country, innovative genre directors like Kim Jee-woon and Ryoo Seung-wan have become internationally regarded auteurs, while actors such as Won Bin and Gong Yoo have cemented their stardom by undertaking roles that are as emotionally searing as they are physically taxing. South Korea’s commercial cinema has developed at an unprecedented pace in recent decades, with the action genre at its creative forefront. The Villainness is out in cinemas and on BFI Player from 15 September 2017
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