Korean films about male friendship

The suicide of a former high-school bully puts the boy's father on a quest for answers.

Based on true events, renowned mountaineer UM Hong-gil sets out on a mission to Everest to retrieve his late junior climber's body and faces the greatest challenge of his life.

Gon, a Korean hitman bred in the United States where he works for a Chinese triad, usually flawless in taking out his targets, makes a terrible mistake in fulfilling a mission. Swamped by feelings of regret, Gon no longer wants to be a hitman, but, in order to tie up loose ends, his boss forces him to do another job in Korea.

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.

Amid a coup, a North Korean agent escapes south with the country's injured leader in an attempt to keep him alive and prevent a Korean war.

After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.

When an old collaborator gets severely injured, a veteran policeman tries to figure out the way to bring to justice the ultimately suspected aggressor, a spoiled young executive, heir to a mega corporation, who believes he is above the law.

Choi Jong-goo used to be a popular troubleshooter. He is now a bully who lives in a market where merchants turn their backs on him. Jong-goo lives on alcohol and is very violent. His daughter uses bad language and violence against people around her. There are sexual violence cases involving minors around him and his daughter is also involved in the case. Jong-goo is accused of a crime. They're looking for a criminal who sexually assaulted his daughter. At this time, Soo-jin, a woman who lives in pain appears. The veiled Soo-jin is always an angel who does good things and protects children. And she feels unbearable anger towards those who do evil around her. How will Jong-goo and Soo-jin will solve this series of events?

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.

Two best friends, So-yool and Yeon-hee, dream of becoming the top artists in Seoul together. But their friendship doesn't last long as Yoon-woo, So-yool's first love and songwriter, falls in love with Yeon-hee and her voice. So-yool's feeling of jealousy and inferiority towards Yeon-hee grows by the day, and she eventually makes a drastic decision to bring the two lovers down.

The film mainly follows the famous 1597 Battle of Myeongryang during the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-1598), where the iconic Joseon admiral Yi Sun-sin managed to destroy a total of 133 Japanese warships with only 13 ships remaining in his command. The battle, which took place in the Myeongryang Strait off the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula, is considered one of the greatest victories of Yi.

A deadbeat teacher helps an angry, aimless teenager find direction in life during his final year of high school.

In the 1970s, Korea is under the absolute control of the President Park who controls the KCIA, the organization with an edge over any branch of government. The director of KCIA, KIM Gyu-pyeong, is the seemingly most prospective second-in-command. In the midst of reign of fear, a former KCIA director, PARK Yong-gak who knows all about the government’s obscure operations, exiles to the U.S. where the investigation of ‘Koreagate’ is underway. As the tension escalates, the stifling political maneuvering by the all second-in-command’s unfolds.

Thrown straight into a dangerous mission with none of his memories intact, a man must escape death while trying to figure out who he is, how he ended up here, and who is the mysterious voice in his ear calling him "Carter"?

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.

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.

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.

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…

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…

As a grisly virus rampages a city, a lone man stays locked inside his apartment, digitally cut off from seeking help and desperate to find a way out.

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.

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

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.

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.

A story about a mentally ill man wrongfully accused of murder and his relationship with his lovingly adorable 6 year old daughter.

The Plan Man is about a man who lives everything according to plan until he meets a woman who wasn't a part of it.

In this true story from 2002, South Korean patrol boats engaged in a deadly battle with North Korean patrol boats who crossed the maritime border known the Northern Limit Line and attacked.

A kidnapper disappeared 15 years ago without a trace. Five days before the case's statute of limitations expires, someone anonymously leaves a flower at the crime scene. A few days later, another kidnapping takes place using the same method on a similar target.

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

As a North Korean sleeper cell agent, Ryu-han infiltrates the South and assumes the role of a village idiot in a rural town. He observes the townsfolk and waits patiently for his mission. One day, after 2 years of playing the role of the village idiot, fellow elite spies Hae-rang, posed as a rock star and Hae-jin, posed as an ordinary student, are dispatched to the same town as Ryu-han. He helps the other two spies settle in and teach them how to adjust in the South. There is a sudden drastic political power shift in the North and all three spies receive an urgent and ultimate mission.

When a young mother reconsiders abandoning her baby, she discovers a scheme selling foundlings for adoption.

Doo-Sik (Jo Jung-suk) gets paroled from prison thanks to his younger brother (Do Kyung-Soo) Doo-Young. Doo-Young is a promising judo athlete. After 15 years, Doo-Sik (Jo Jung-suk) suddenly appears in front of Doo-Young and they begin to live together. Doo-Young becomes involved in an accident before the selection for the national team.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A shady cop finds himself in over his head when he gets caught between Internal Affairs and the city’s corrupt mayor, in this scintillating crime drama from Korean maestro Kim Sung-soo (The Warrior).

When an unknown toxic gas strikes Seoul in an unprecedented act of terror, Yong-nam has just met Eui-ju from college by chance at his mother's birthday banquet. The city falls under sudden noxious gas attack and together, they must escape the panic-stricken city.

In real life, Kwon Yoo is unemployed, but in the virtual game world he is the best leader. Kwon Yoo is then framed for a murder. With the help of hacker Yeo-Wool, he tries to uncover the truth behind the murder case.

A three-tiered story centered on a trio of French tourists visiting the same seaside resort.

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.

After a terror incident occurs mid-flight, a passenger jet declares an emergency.

A transgender cop's retirement plans are interrupted by a gang seeking revenge for their arrest.

Record-shattering Korean girl band BLACKPINK tell their story — and detail the hard fought journey of the dreams and trials behind their meteoric rise.

Kingdom of Goguryeo, ancient Korea, 645. The ruthless Emperor Taizong of Tang invades the country and leads his armies towards the capital, achieving one victory after another, but on his way is the stronghold of Ansi, protected by General Yang Man-chu, who will do everything possible to stop the invasion, even if his troops are outnumbered by thousands of enemies.

When Hye-Jung was young, her life was difficult. She was good at fighting, but also studied well. Overcoming her tough situation, she is now a doctor.

Jong-Woo (played by Sin Ha-gyoon) is a poor, beleagured taxi driver with a bad attitude, understandable given the kind of clients he has to deal with. So when one night, a polite, well-dressed man offers an outrageous sum of money to rent the taxi for an extended period, Jong Woo doesn't ask any questions, though he does make rather cheerful and inappropriate conversation with his uninterested charge. It's difficult to blame Jong-Woo for this, given that it takes him some time to realize that he is not the protagonist of a low-brow comedy, but of an action-packed thriller.

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel. (Remake of the Chinese film “Drug War,” 2012.)

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.

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.