South Korean cinema has been a global force since the late 1990s New Wave, producing directors like Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook whose genre craft carries genuine weight. Memories of Murder and The Handmaiden are just two examples of what this cinema does so well: unsettling, meticulously constructed stories that reward close attention. Browse Macca's Korean reviews below.
Rating: 4.0★
Park Chan-wook returns in 2025 with No Other Choice, a South Korean and French co-production that wears its genre labels, comedy, crime, thriller, with a studied looseness that feels entirely characteristic of the director. The film is adapted, in broad strokes, from Donald Westlake's 1993 novel
Rating: 3.5★
South Korean cinema had, by the mid-2000s, already announced itself to international audiences in no uncertain terms. Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder had arrived in 2003 to widespread critical admiration, and Park Chan-wook was busy cementing his reputation with the Vengeance trilogy. Into this fertile
Genre Crime
★★★★ — Memories of Murder (2003)
Genre Horror
★½ — Peninsula (2020)
Genre Animation
★★★½ — Lost in Starlight (2025)
Genre Thriller
★★★★½ — The Handmaiden (2016)
Genre Drama
★★½ — Yellow Colt (2014)
Genre Animation
★★★ — Seoul Station (2016)
Genre Action
★★★½ — #Alive (2020)
Genre Horror
★★★½ — The Wailing (2016)
Genre Horror
★★★★ — Train to Busan (2016)
Genre Comedy
★★★★ — Parasite (2019)
Film images and data courtesy of TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
The best new reviews, a buried gem with where to watch it, and where the every-country challenge is up to. Free, no spam.
Subscribe free