Korean films about palace intrigues

Thirteen-year-old Heo Yeon Woo, the daughter of a high-ranking official, accompanies her mother to the royal palace to attend her brother, Heo Yeom's civil service examination congratulatory ceremony. By chance, she comes across Crown Prince Lee Hwon. They fall in love, and Yeon Woo is chosen as the Crown Princess of Joseon. Before they can marry, the Dowager Queen secretly orders her death, in order to secure more power for herself. Yeon Woo becomes cursed and is stricken with an illness. All believe her to be dead, including the Crown Prince Lee Hwon. Heartbroken, he refuses to love another. Eight years later, the young king meets a shaman named Wol. He can’t help but find similarities between her and Yeon Woo and begins investigating Yeon Woo’s death.

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

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.

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.

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

Hyeong-min, a prominent police detective, and Tae-oh, a killer who has confessed to multiple murders, maintain a fierce psychological confrontation.

Faced with real-world opportunities and challenges, a couple endures the highs and lows of trying to make a long-distance relationship survive.

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.

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 teenage girl who has the ability to bring death by using Hanja (Chinese characters), names, photos, and belongings; and a just social issues reporter, fighting against the massive evil hidden behind an IT conglomerate. The film for the series "The Cursed".

A corrupt customs official joins forces with a vicious gangster to form the most powerful crime partnership in Busan.

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?

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…

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…

An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.

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.

An exceptionally talented face reader becomes entangled in a bloody power struggle between a child king and his uncle who plans to usurp the throne.

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.

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

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.

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.

During the confusing and conspiratorial Joseon Dynasty King Gwang-hae orders his councilor, HEO Kyun, to find him a double in order to avoid the constant threat of assassination. HEO Kyun finds Ha-sun, a jester who looks remarkably like the king, and just as feared, Gwang-hae is poisoned. HEO Kyun proposes Ha-sun fill the role as the king until Gwang-hae recovers fully and grooms Ha-sun to look and act every bit the king. While assuming the role of the king at his first official appearance, Ha-sun begins to ponder the intricacies of the problems debated in his court. Being fundamentally more humanitarian than Gwang-hae, Ha-sun’s affection and appreciation of even the most minor servants slowly changes morale in the castle for the better. However, his chief opposition, PARK, notices the sudden shift in the king’s behavior and starts to ask questions.

Pastor Park is head of a religious investigation center that exposes cults and cult leaders. While looking into a suspicious new religion called ‘Deer Mount,’ he slowly uncovers clues that connect this cult to a series of mysterious cases of missing teenage girls when a body is found inside a damaged tunnel beams. He begins to uncover dark secrets surrounding this cult and its enforcer Na-han.

After waking up with mysterious wounds on his hands, a champion fighter finds himself in an otherworldly battle against evil forces that wreak havoc in the human world.

Stuntman Cha Dal-geon gets involved in a tragic airplane crash and ends up discovering a national corruption scandal in the process. Go Hae-ri, the oldest daughter of a deceased marine, decides to work for the National Intelligence Service as a secret ops agent in order to support her mom and younger siblings, although all she wanted to do is to become a civil servant.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Set in the late 15th century during the reign of King Yeonsan, two male street clowns and tightrope walkers, Jangsaeng (Gam Wu-seong) and Gong-gil (Lee Joon-gi), are part of an entertainer troupe. Their manager prostitutes the beautiful Gong-gil to rich customers, and Jangsaeng is sickened by this practice. After Gong-gil kills the manager in defense of Jangsaeng, the pair flee to Seoul, where they form a new group with three other street performers...

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.

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).

To combat rising violent crimes, the Police Chief asks Detective Oh Goo Tak to form a team consisting of criminals. He is currently suspended from the police force for using excessive force. He then gathers team members: Park Woong Chul who is a gangster, Lee Jung Moon who is the youngest serial killer with extraordinary intelligence and Jung Tae Soo who is a contract killer. Police Inspector Yoo Mi Young also joins the team and she tries to have these guys work as a team by dealing with them rationally and sometimes emotionally.

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.)

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.

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.

In Cheonan, a serial murder case takes place, but the case becomes more and more of a mystery. Only Tae-suk, a cop, immediately senses that all the cases are by the same killer and starts investigation. One day, Dong-soo, a gang boss, got attacked by a suspicious man, and Tae-suk realizes that this man is the serial killer, K. Now, Dong-soo becomes the only witness and a survived victim from K.

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.

A young girl is raised as a killer in the Yanbian province of China. She hides her identity and travels to South Korea where she hopes to lead a quiet life but becomes involved with two mysterious men.

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…

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.

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

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 story of the Jangsan Tiger, who mimics human voices to lure them close, and a family affected by the creature.

On May 9th, a female high school student was brutally murdered. There are 7 suspects and 7 shadows that terrorize them. Who are they and which one of them is you?

Someone brutally murders Young-hoon’s wife. A hair sample was found on his wife’s body and the detectives use it to trace it back to his friend Joon-sung and locks him up. Seemingly becoming a murder’s wife overnight, Da-yeon asks Young-hoon to testify on his behalf but when he doesn’t show up for the trial, she goes to visit him at his house.

Being bullied at school and suffering violence at home, Mi-rae, a middle school loner, lives on the border between reality and fantasy. The only places she feels restful are the computer game world, and the would in the novel she writes in her notebook. As her classmates Baek-hap and Tae-yang come close to Mi-rae, she gradually opens up her mind to them. In the meantime, the computer game service is terminated, and the world in her novel also disappears, leading Mi-rae to face a tough reality again.