Korean

Oldboy

In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen. It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The movie's tagline is, "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance." The imprisonee is Oh Dae-Su, an ordinary Joe who is snatched off a Seoul street corner and locked away in a dank, windowless fleabag hotel room for the aforementioned 15 years. Just as abruptly he is released, and thus the five days begin. Why did this happen to Oh Dae-Su? Ah, but that would be telling, and in fact we don't know ourselves until the final wrenching scenes.

Oldboy breaks into a classic three-act saga, the first of which details the hallucinatory period of imprisonment in which Oh Dae-Su wades from mild insanity to outright psychosis in the hands of unseen yet attentive captors. Act 2 is the revenge, when an entirely different tone takes over and Oh Dae-Su moves with single-minded purpose and clarity. It's this section that has gained the most notoriety, primarily for the claw-hammer dentistry scene, the one-man-army tracking shot, and the wriggling octopus that Oh Dae-Su consumes in a sushi bar (he's been dead so long he simply needs life back inside him in any way possible). In act 3, answers finally start to emerge and the sinister atmosphere grows even more profound--not without a healthy dose of extra bloodletting, of course. Oldboy is an undeniably poetic masterpiece of tension, fury, and dynamic craft. Ultimately, its epic cycle of tragedy is of the sort that mankind has been inflicting upon itself for all time. Some of the images may be gruesome, but all converge into a kind of beauty. It's in the telling of this lurid tale that these details become one and the memories of pain ultimately heal. --Ted Fry

After being kidnapped and held a prisoner for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su is mysteriously set free with money and new clothes, and searches for his captor.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: OLDBOY
Title: OLDBOY
Street Release Date: 06/27/2006
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Working miracles with only a single set and a handful of characters, Korean director Kim Ki-Duk creates a wise little gem of a movie. As the title suggests, the action takes place in five distinct episodes, but sometimes many years separate the seasons. The setting is a floating monastery in a pristine mountain lake, where an elderly monk teaches a boy the lessons of life--although when the boy grows to manhood, he inevitably must learn a few hard lessons for himself. By the time the story reaches its final sections, you realize you have witnessed the arc of existence--not one person's life, but everyone's. It's as enchanting as a Buddhist fable, but it's not precious; Kim (maker of the notorious The Isle) consistently surprises you with a sex scene or an explosion of black comedy; he also vividly acts in the Winter segment, when the lake around the monastery eerily freezes. --Robert Horton

A tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breathtaking landscape tended to by a solitaryMonk. Into this serene setting comes a young child who will become the Old Monk's protege... and so begins a lifelong journey of hope despair passion and redemption in a film hailed as "A triumphof sheer cinematic craft" (Rene Rodriguez Miami Herald). From the brash actions of youth through the dawn of adolescence and the fullness of adulthood one man's life lessons are learned as seasons pass his emotional inner life changing as the landscape around him. Award-winning Korean writer/director/editor Kim Ki-duk has crafted a lushly exotic yet universal story about the human spirit and its evolution from Innocence to Love Evil to Enlightenment and ultimately to Rebirth that Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News calls "A beautifully composed canvas the sort of film one falls into resurfacing at the end with great reluctance."SPECIAL FEATURES: Previews Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (Korean) English French SubtitlesSystem Requirements:Running Time 103 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: R UPC: 043396041271 Manufacturer No: 04127

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword (with Digital Copy)

A Wuxia adventure out of South Korea, The Legend of the Shadowless Sword is a handsome martial arts epic by Kim Yung-jun (Flying Warriors). The film's simple story allows for exceptionally creative action sequences about every three to four minutes, while simultaneously building a noble tale full of faith, love, and sacrifice. A beautiful female warrior named Yeonsoha (Yoon So-yi) goes in search of the last, living prince of the Balhae dynasty and its kingdom, overrun years before by the Geordan empire. The prince, Jeong Hyeon (Seo Jin Lee), has been in hiding 14 years as a black market trader, concerned primarily for his own safety and deeply cynical about any thought of going back to retrieve his family's throne. Yeonsoha, however, proves persuasive, especially in light of the many attempts on Jeong's life by a gang of assassins. The shady killers are led by a vengeance-seeking Kun (Hyeong Jun-Shin) and his assistant, (Ki-Yong Lee), another sword-wielding babe who gets into plenty of wild skirmishes with Yeonsoha.

The story essentially follows Jeong and Yeonsoha's efforts to get back to a waiting army of Balhae exiles awaiting a king's leadership. As the hours and days pass, Jeong gets in touch with the man he once was, a fearless warrior whose exploits on the battlefield are well-known to Yeonsoha, whose connection to the prince seems mysteriously personal. The film's numerous fight scenes are never redundant, employing all manner of props and ideas for exciting fights. But it's the performances that really hold everything together, the deep if understated emotions and the excitement of watching two mismatched lead characters slowly realize how important they are to one another. --Tom Keogh

LEGEND OF THE SHADOWLESS SWORD (DVD MOVIE)

Tae Guk Gi - The Brotherhood of War

A big, bruising epic of the Korean War, Tae Guk Gi smashed box-office records when it played in South Korea in 2004, almost as though the country needed to re-live the trauma at a 50-year distance. For the rest of the world, this movie looks like a ground-level reckoning in a melodramatic key, with an authentic feel for battle lines as well as home front. Tae Guk Gi follows two brothers--one uneducated and forceful, the other intellectual and reserved--as they are united and then divided by the conflict. The broadly emotional story has some of the power of tales of the American Civil War, when family members found themselves on opposite sides of a battle. Director Kang Je-gyu , who made the lively female-assassin hit Shiri, takes a blunt approach to the material (including a Saving Private Ryan-style framing device). And at 150 minutes, he has plenty of time for head-splitting, blood-spraying combat. This movie is meant as a punch in the stomach, and it connects. --Robert Horton

In the powerful tradition of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers comes this box-office hit from Korea.From the director of Shiri comes the epic tale of two brothers. Jin-tae a shoemaker has worked tirelessly to provide money for the younger Jin-seok to go to college. But each of their hopes and dreams are shattered when both are forced to join the army against their will. Torn away from home and family Jin-tae vows to protect Jin-seok despite the dangers and the cost. In the searing crucible of battle fate intervenes forcing their bonds of faith love and trust to be tested time and again in this suspense-filled action-packed war drama.System Requirements:Running Time: 140 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: R UPC: 043396090064 Manufacturer No: 09006

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Before he made the notorious cult hit Oldboy, South Korean director Chan-wook Park created Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, an equally gruesome yet elegant meditation on revenge. Desperate to get a kidney transplant for his dying sister, a deaf and dumb young man named Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin, Save the Green Planet!) kidnaps the daughter of a wealthy industrialist named Park (Kang-ho Song, Shiri). Despite Ryu's best intentions, things go horribly awry, setting in motion a series of escalating revenges--to describe the plot in more detail would undercut the movie, because much of its power comes from the spare and skillful storytelling. Chan-wook Park is careful to ground the audience in the characters' emotional lives; when the violence begins, the bloody events unfold with the hypnotic power of the revenge tragedies of the Shakespearean era, which had over-the-top plots and littered the stage with bodies, yet were full of rich poetry. Park's eye for startling images and careful editing creates a visual poetry, grotesque yet often haunting. Certainly not a film for everyone--squeamish viewers had best beware, while anyone who wants their violence flagrant and guilt-free will be disappointed--but cinephiles looking to have their hearts squeezed along with their stomachs will enjoy Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. --Bret Fetzer

Unable to afford proper care for his sister dying from kidney failure, Ryu turns to the black market to sell his own organs only to end up cheated of his life savings. His girlfriend urges Ryu to kidnap the daughter of wealthy industrialist Dong-jin, who recently laid him off. Ryu agrees, but unforeseen tragedies turn an innocent con into a merciless quest for revenge. Bound by their personal losses and deep-seated anger, the two men are thrust into a spiral of destruction.

3-Iron

Words really do get in the way in 3-Iron, a strange, poignant South Korean film from director Kim Ki-Duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring) in which the central character doesn't utter a single word. It's not explained why the puck never speaks, but it adds an element of mysticism to this love story that's at once humorous and disturbing. In this case, the knight in shining armor, Tae-Suk (Hee Jae) is a vagabond who supports himself by breaking into people's homes when they're on vacation. But rather than steal possessions, he cooks himself a meal, carefully washes the dishes, takes a bath, does their laundry, fixes anything broken, sleeps in their pajamas, and leaves each home spic and span. One day he trespasses on the home of a battered wife (Seung-yon Lee) who's still home. Fascinated, she leaves her husband and joins in his adventures, until one of their random break-ins gets them in trouble and the couple is forced apart.

Adding in a reliance on some stunning visuals, 3-Iron does a good job filling itself out in a non-implicit way. In this case, compliments and banter aren't needed to tell you that the pair has found a bond that no one can wrest away from them. The ending may tickle suspended reality (it's either becoming supernatural or someone's a lot more nimble than we thought), but it's still a poetic conclusion to this twisted fairy tale. --Ellen A. Kim

The story of a young man who makes a hobby out of breaking into strangers homes, encounters a battered young woman who after the death of her husband by his hands, runs away with him.
Genre: Foreign Film - Other
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-APR-2006
Media Type: DVD

A Tale of Two Sisters (Two-Discs)

Two young sisters recovering from an unnamed trauma must face a mysterious past in this excellent South Korean shocker. A worldwide hit upon its release and based on an old Korean fairy tale; two sisters (wonderfully played by Su-jeong Lim and Geun-yeong Mun) come to live with their cold and distant father and turn-on-a-dime stepmother in a house where nothing is as it seems. A wonderfully haunting score, starkly beautiful imagery, and a labyrinthine plot that twists and turns at every dark corner all set the stage for a riveting and often terrifying guessing game of a movie. Equal parts drama, mystery, and ghost story, A Tale of Two Sisters is a richly complex and challenging cinematic treat that may very well demand repeat viewings. --Matt Wold

The Restless

Set in a fantasy world for souls that have passed away long before they are reincarnated, this epic film combines various elements/genres like romance, fantasy, sword plays, martial arts and the never-ending fight between good and evil. The midheaven is a place for those who have died in the real world but have failed to ascend to heaven.

Oldboy (Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition)

In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen. It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The movie's tagline is, "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance." The imprisonee is Oh Dae-Su, an ordinary Joe who is snatched off a Seoul street corner and locked away in a dank, windowless fleabag hotel room for the aforementioned 15 years. Just as abruptly he is released, and thus the five days begin. Why did this happen to Oh Dae-Su? Ah, but that would be telling, and in fact we don't know ourselves until the final wrenching scenes.

Oldboy breaks into a classic three-act saga, the first of which details the hallucinatory period of imprisonment in which Oh Dae-Su wades from mild insanity to outright psychosis in the hands of unseen yet attentive captors. Act 2 is the revenge, when an entirely different tone takes over and Oh Dae-Su moves with single-minded purpose and clarity. It's this section that has gained the most notoriety, primarily for the claw-hammer dentistry scene, the one-man-army tracking shot, and the wriggling octopus that Oh Dae-Su consumes in a sushi bar (he's been dead so long he simply needs life back inside him in any way possible). In act 3, answers finally start to emerge and the sinister atmosphere grows even more profound--not without a healthy dose of extra bloodletting, of course. Oldboy is an undeniably poetic masterpiece of tension, fury, and dynamic craft. Ultimately, its epic cycle of tragedy is of the sort that mankind has been inflicting upon itself for all time. Some of the images may be gruesome, but all converge into a kind of beauty. It's in the telling of this lurid tale that these details become one and the memories of pain ultimately heal. --Ted Fry

Tartan's top selling Asia Extreme title gets the deluxe treatment with this ultimate collector's set. Oh Dae-su is an ordinary Seoul businessman with a wife and little daughter. After who, after a drunken night on the town, he is locked up in a strange, private "prison" for 15 years until he is unexpectedly freed. He's determined to discover the mysterious enemy who had him locked up.

The Warrior

The Warrior combines gorgeous cinematography, complex historical politics, and joltingly bloody action sequences to create a sweeping historical spectacular. A squadron of Korean soldiers, sent to protect a diplomatic envoy to China, find themselves unmoored when the envoys are killed in clashes with Chinese and Mongol soldiers. Struggling to return home, they rescue a high-handed Chinese princess (Ziyi Zhang, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and decide that protecting her is their best chance to survive, and possibly improve Korean-Chinese relations as well. Unfortunately, the Mongols want her back, and the squadron find their numbers slowly diminishing as they fight their way to an isolated military outpost. Though there's a more realistic context for the action--The Warrior is based on a historical event and the characters are well-developed--the battle scenes deliver some visceral thrills; the violence is graphic (beheadings, arrows plunging into necks, limbs sliced off) but grippingly choreographed. An above-average action movie; however, it is highly recommended that viewers watch it with subtitles, as the dubbing is typically wretched. --Bret Fetzer

An action-filled epic starring Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Hero upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha) The Warrior recounts the tale of a group of Korean envoys who entered China on a mission and were never heard from again. Captured and accused of espionage by Ming warriors the Korean delegation is exiled by their captors to a remote desert. On their journey back to Korea they rescue a kidnapped Ming princess (Zhang). In their effort to take the princess to safety the group encounters rival Mongol warriors whom they face in a breathtaking battle scene.System Requirements:Run Time: 154 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 043396134904 Manufacturer No: 13490