Korean films about hard life

The destinies of hard-luck lowlifes slowly converge and come crashing down: Jung-man barely gets by working at a sauna and taking care of his sick mother until he finds a bag full of cash in the locker room; Tae-young is in trouble after his girlfriend runs away with the money he borrowed from a loan shark. Soon, a dead body mysteriously turns up; Mi-ran, caught between her husband’s violence and a dead-end job as a bar hostess, she finds a young lover, Jin-tae who offers to kill her husband… And now their dog-eat-dog game starts.

In the early 1980s, South Korea is torn by student protests over the lack of representation in the government. Song Woo-Seok is a successful attorney in Busan specializing in tax law. His views regarding civil liberties are changed by student activist Park Jin-woo. When Jin-Woo is brutally tortured and put on trial for his activism, Woo-seok decides to defend Jin-woo as his client.

A bad guy, a cruel guy, a lame guy, a cowardly guy and the meanest woman gets involved in a beautiful university student's murder case.

An assassin named Tae-goo is offered a chance to switch sides with his rival Bukseong gang, headed by Chairman Doh. Tae-goo rejects the offer that results in the murder of his sister and niece. In revenge, Tae-goo brutally kills Chairman Doh and his men and flees to Jeju Island where he meets Jae-yeon, a terminally ill woman. Though, the henchman of the Bukseong gang, Executive Ma is mercilessly hunting Tae-goo to take revenge.

Ja-yoon is a high school student who struggles with memory loss after she endured some unknown trauma during her childhood. While trying to uncover the truth, she is unwittingly dragged into a world of crime and finds herself on a journey that will awaken many secrets hidden deep within.

Jun-shik, who works for Tatsuo’s grandfather’s farm while Korea is colonized by Japan, dreams about participating in the Tokyo Olympics as a marathon runner. Tatsuo also aims to become a marathon runner, so the two become rivals. But the war breaks out and they both are forced to enlist in the army. Tatsuo becomes the head of defense in Jun-shik’s unit and he devises a scheme but fails. Jun-shik and Tatsuo are held captive by the Soviets. They run away but soon are captured by the Germans and forced to separate. In 1944, they meet again on the shores of Normandy.

In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.

Set in the 19th century, when lowly butcher Dol Moo-Chi refuses to carry out an assignment, his failure causes tragedy to unfold upon his family and himself. As Dol Moo-Chi is about to be executed, a group of righteous thieves known as Kundo arrive.

In 2029, the elite police squad Illang combats a terrorist group opposing reunification of the two Koreas. But another enemy may be lurking nearby.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Grandmother Mi Ja works part-time as a caretaker, and struggles to raise a teen grandson by herself. Despite her tough situation, she speaks softly, dresses fashionably, and approaches the world with child-like curiosity. Enrolling in a poetry class, she endeavors to capture life in verse form, but her simple dream of completing a poem is stalled by the early signs of Alzheimer's disease and the heavy financial and emotional burden of her grandson's shocking wrongdoing.

A case of the flu quickly morphs into a pandemic. As the death toll mounts and the living panic, the government plans extreme measures to contain it.

A man becomes a fugitive from the police after he kills one of the men who raped and murdered his daughter.

Eun-young is a woman cursed with great beauty. Wherever she goes, she gets unwanted admiration from men and jealousy from women. One day, one of her stalking admirer invades her place.

After moving into a new house, a young girl begins displaying strange and disturbing behavior until, one day, she disappears behind a closet. While the devastated father is left with no clue about his daughter’s disappearance, an exorcist shows up to help.

Seo-jin is a widower still grieving his wife’s death. Then he receives the news that her long-lost younger sister, Yoo-jin, who went missing 25 years ago, has turned up. Unlike the rest of his family, who welcome her into their arms, Seo-jin feels that Yoo-jin is a stranger.

A bullied teenager who is locked up at a juvenile detention center due to an unexpected accident, meets a mixed martial arts champion to break through his own limits.

A life-changing story of a man who has lived as a loner his entire life. Jae Shik begins to live together with a child with a hearing-visual disability, as they change each other's lives and try to find a way to communicate.

Stagnant since 1903, at an elevation of 9000', a volcano erupts on the mythical and majestic Baekdu Mountain.

After his career takes a turn for the worse, superstar actor Kang Seo Joon is afraid he’s hit rock bottom. But after a chance meeting brings the talented chef Han Ji Woo into his life, Seo Joon is certain his luck is about to change.

A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.

Korea, 1950. A child's vow to take care of his family marks the beginning of a lifelong promise spanning sixty years.

Jang-bu was an ordinary boy except his special talent; To see every moving thing like a slow motion video. As friends teased him by calling ‘monster eyes’, he decided to stick at home and not to go out. Television has been his only friend. Time passes by, and now grown-up Jang-bu works at the CCTV control center which is the best job for him. When he sees people’s life through camera, he feels he’s sharing their ordinary life that he’s never had. This new job opens his heart to the world and Jang-bu starts to make some friends out of the control center. With his dear friends he receives sense of himself and finally decides to propose a girl that he loved for long from CCTV…

In 1951 ceasefire is declared, but two remaining armies fought their final battle on the front line Towards the end of the Korean War, a South Korean battalion is fiercely battling over a hill on the front line border against the North in order to capture a strategic point that would determine the new border between two nations. The ownership of this small patch of land would swap multiple times each day. Kang is dispatched to the front line in order to investigate the tacit case that’s been happening there. But he gets spiraled into the war that’s more terrifying than death itself when he meets his friend Kim, who has transformed into a war machine, and his unit. As the countdown for ceasefire begins, both sides become more vicious, resulting in deaths of countless lives until the last man could claim the land.

Martial law is declared when a mysterious viral outbreak pushes Korea into a state of emergency. Those on an express train to Busan, a city that has successfully fended off the viral outbreak, must fight for their own survival…

A wife, overwhelmed with hatred for her husband, inflicts an unspeakable wound on their son, as the family heads towards horrific destruction.

Jin-seok, 21-year-old, moves into a new house with his family. He suffers from a slight schizophrenia but he carries an ordinary life under the warm care of the family. His older brother Yu-seok is a decent college student, a mentor, and role model for Jin-seok. One night, his beloved brother is kidnapped by unidentified assailants before Jin-seok’s eye. Jin-seok can’t recognize their faces, but can remember only the VIN that matches with no car. After long silence of 19 days, suddenly Yu-seok returns home, but remembers nothing which had happened in the meantime. And soon Jin-seok feels Yu-seok is a total stranger…

After his business goes bankrupt, 30 something Kyeong-Min kills his wife impulsively. Hiding his anger, he seeks out his former middle school classmate Jong-Seok. Jong-Seok now works as a ghostwriter for an autobiography, but he dreams of writing his own novel. For the first time in 15 years they meet. Kyeong-Min and Jong-Seok both hide their own current situations and begin to talk about their middle school days.

Chief of the ‘Special Crime Unit’, OH Gu-tak, looks for the former gangster, PARK Woong-chul, whom he had worked with before, and recruits a con artist, KWAK No-soon, and a convicted cop, KO Yoo-sung in the new team. With new blood, the ‘Bad Guys’ have become stronger and tougher. As they dig deeper into the case, they sense that a much bigger crime organization is behind it all and they begin the hunt for bad guys…

A young girl is kidnapped by a serial killer. The serial killer uses manholes to kidnap and kill his victims. The young girl's older sister tries to save her before it's too late.

The region where the borders of North Korea, China, and Russia come together, forms a sort of modern day wild west, where more than half of the population relies on illegal activity in order to survive. In Yanbian, on the Chinese side of the border, Gu-nam wiles away his days driving a cab and spends his nights getting drunk and gambling. His wife went to Seoul to work and send back money, but it’s been months since he has heard from her. When local crime lord Myun offers to erase Gu-nam’s debts in exchange for a contract killing in Seoul, Gu-nam reluctantly accepts.

Dae-ho, an investigative journalist, seeks to track down the whereabouts of his son who was abducted three years ago. With the help of a detective and a psychiatrist friend, he will retrace his memory of the incident through the use of lucid dreaming techniques.

Three disaffected youths live in Datong in 2001, part of the new "Birth Control" generation. Fed on a steady diet of popular culture, both Western and Chinese, the characters of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in the People's Republic of China, one detached from reality through the screen of media and the internet.

In a futuristic world, Michelle lives everyday battling with DNA Hackers who use their skills to hack into people's bodies and kill them. She is an assassin, trying to keep her younger brother, Jackie, out of trouble. When Jackie gets involved in a petty crime of robbery, he propels himself into the world of DNA Hackers, Shylocks (Loan Sharks) and Gangs

The story of Joseon's tyrant king Yeonsan who exploits the populace for his own carnal pleasures, his seemingly loyal retainer who controls him and all court dealings, and a woman who seeks vengeance.

Busan, South Korea, 1970s. Lee Doo-sam is a small-time smuggler. After helping a drug gang to smuggle meth, he falls into the dark crime world. Quick-witted and full of ambition, he eventually takes over the drug underworld and starts to lead a double life: a good community leader during the day but an infamous drug lord during the night.

Sung-soo has everything a man could want: a beautiful wife and children, a comfortable home and luxury car, and plenty of money in the bank. When he learns that his estranged brother, Sung-chul, has gone missing, haunting memories of their troubled past urge him to visit his brother’s apartment in search of answers.

On September 4, 1984, democracy movement leader Kim Jong Tae (Park Won Sang) is arrested and taken to an infamous interrogation facility in Namyeong-dong. For the next 22 days, he would be cruelly and continuously tortured in all manners by interrogators intent on forcing him to confess to communist collaboration.

Joo Joong-won is the arrogant, greedy CEO of Kingdom, a conglomerate that includes a supermall and a hotel. "Ghost whisperer” Tae Gong-shil, is a misunderstood outcast who can't keep a boyfriend or a job since a near death experience left her seeing needy ghosts. She feels compelled to help them resolve their earthly issues so they can move on to the afterlife... and he feels compelled to think she's crazy. Soon their lives merge into a complicated web of hijinx, misunderstandings, and... yes, love.

The film is based on a true yet unsolved murder case from the early 1990s that is known among Koreans as the "disappearance of the frog children." In 1991, five elementary school students told their parents that they were going to hang out on a nearby mountain to catch frogs, and then they go missing.

The struggles of an artist. Jang Seung-up (1843-1897), also called Owon, focusing on the years 1882 to 1897, when Korea was in political upheaval, caught between China and Japan, the conservative dynasty dying, and peasant revolt at hand. Jang, born poor, has genius; a merchant, Kim, becomes his patron, finding him a teacher. Jang must convince others that a commoner can have talent, then move beyond his ability to copy old masters and find his own style. He's bedeviled by a temper and alcohol, arguments with patrons as he seeks commissions, and relationships with kisaeng, particularly Mae-hyang, that start and stop. It's the life of a restless spirit producing great art.

A former intelligence agent gets involved with the first human clone, Seo Bok, who others seek, causing trouble.

South Korea, 1993. An agent of the National Intelligence Service is sent to Beijing with the assignment of infiltrating a group of North Korean officials with the ultimate goal of obtaining information about the North Korean nuclear program.

Nicknamed after a human-devouring spirit, the ruthless leader of an overseas black ops team takes up a dangerous mission in a city riddled with spies.

May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.

Shuji is an uncompromising young filmmaker at odds with Japanese society. One day he learns that his loan shark brother, who had helped to finance his films, has been executed by his own yakuza gang for failing to repay his debts. Described as a love poem to Japanese films of the past, as well as a protest at the present, CUT is an exploration of one man’s obsessive relationship with cinema.

When an illicit arms deal goes bad, North Korean spy Pyo Jong-seong finds himself targeted not just by the South Koreans but also his own bosses.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

Having died unexpectedly, firefighter Ja-hong is taken to the afterlife by 3 afterlife guardians. Only when he passes 7 trials over 49 days and proves he was innocent in human life, he’s able to reincarnate, and his 3 afterlife guardians are by his side to defend him in trial.

Jae-Hyeok lives with his mother, his sister-in-law and nephew Min-Jae in a small Korean town. He is dating Yeon-Joo, while working at the local nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, Pyung-Sub works at the same nuclear power plant. He is worried about conditions there, but nobody in the government listens to him. An earthquake strikes the small town where Jae-Hyeok lives and causes explosions at the nuclear power plant. The situation quickly spirals out of control, leading the entire nation to panic. To prevent another nuclear disaster, Jae-Hyeok and his co-workers return to the nuclear power plant.