south korean – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – No Other Choice

No Other Choice (2025)
Written by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye
Directed by Park Chan-wook

It’s always struck me as strange, bordering on obscene, how completely hands-off society is when it comes to job placement. We build entire educational systems around the promise of employability, saddle people with debt, tell them to “do everything right,” and then, at the moment where guidance would actually matter, shove them into the dark and say good luck. Even with a degree, even with experience, the expectation is that you will wander an increasingly incoherent job market on your own, refreshing dashboards like a lab rat pressing a lever for food pellets that never arrive. The application process is almost entirely online now, regardless of what boomers insist about “walking in and demanding a job.” I’ve played the LinkedIn game; I found nothing of substance. My wife did too and only ended up employed because of someone one of my sisters happened to know.

PopCult Podcast – A Thousand and One/Return to Seoul

Two women adrift in the world try and make sense of what is happening around them. One is an ex-convict trying to bring order to her life, while the other finds she has a desire to foment chaos as she struggles to reconnect with her roots.

Movie Review – Lady Vengeance

Lady Vengeance (2005)
Written by Chung Seo-kyung & Park Chan-wook
Directed by Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook is a master filmmaker. If you read my review of Decision to Leave last year, you know how much I love this director. South Korean cinema is the most vibrant creative filmmaking scene we have right now, with a diverse array of directors making all sorts of movies that play to their strengths. Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is fantastic at making biting social satires, Hong Sang-soo (In Front of Your Face) crafts gently paced slice-of-life dramas, Lee Chang-dong (Burning) dark stories of psychological trauma, and Park Chan-wook has mastered the art of telling tense & violent thrillers. Lady Vengeance was part of Park’s Vengeance trilogy, which started with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (still on my Watchlist), Oldboy, and finally, Lady Vengeance. Throughout every film, he follows the response of a profoundly wronged person and explores the effects their quest for vengeance has on them.

Patron Pick – Memories of Murder

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Memories of Murder (2003)
Written by Bong Joon-ho & Shim Sung-bo
Directed by Bong Joon-ho

The serial killer phenomenon has been around for a long time but only occurred in South Korea for the first time in the mid-1980s. In 1996, Korean playwright Kim Kwang-rim wrote Come to See Me, loosely based on these first killings where 10 women & girls had their lives taken by the same person. Director Bong Joon-ho co-wrote the film adaptation, which touches on the actual events but dramatizes most of its elements. This would be Bong’s more prominent debut after writing & directing the indie feature Barking Dogs Never Bite three years prior. The film would be released in the heart of what film historians now call New Korean Cinema, an explosion of movies from South Korea that exhibited filmmakers with incredible technical skills but also nuanced, complex writing & characterization. While a director like Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave) is known for gorgeously choreographed stylized violence, Bong is a director whose trademark (at least in my opinion) is his blend of horrific story beats and weirdly comforting dark comedy. It’s a delicate balance, but his movies always seem to pull it off.

PopCult Podcast – In Front Of Your Face/The Rainmaker

South Korean cinema continues to deliver incredibly thoughtful movies about the human condition. And Coppola continues making bonkers movies that wildly vary in quality.

Movie Review – Decision to Leave

Decision to Leave (2022)
Written by Jeong Seo-kyeong & Park Chan-wook
Directed by Park Chan-wook

Part of me is surprised at the moderate reviews Decision to Leave has garnered from audiences. However, I can understand it if you focus entirely on the plot. This is an homage to Hitchcock that is very obvious from the start. The shadow of Vertigo looms large, and that’s not a bad thing. A good crime thriller is rare, and South Korea certainly knows how to make good movies. It’s a pairing that meshes perfectly. But yes, you’ll not be blown away by the story, at least on the surface. It’s still a tremendously compelling story. Where Decision to Leave blew me away was with the cinematography. Holy shit! Park Chan-wook is one of the greatest directors of all time, but you forget in between watching his movies. Then when you sit down and watch one, it doesn’t take long to be reminded you are in the hands of a genuine master of the form. There are shots in this movie that blew my fucking mind! Even a person simply driving from one location to another always looks interesting. The camera is always put in a spot you wouldn’t expect, and it always works.

TV Review – Squid Game Season 1

Squid Game Season 1 (Netflix)
Written & Directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk

I was skeptical when I first heard about the viral Netflix hit Squid Game. Anytime a show is that popular and popping up in so many corners of the internet, I can’t help but think it’s some shallow meme-ish nonsense. However, the fact that it was a Korean series caught my interest. Over the last twenty years, I’ve enjoyed almost every film I’ve seen from that country. Their filmmakers have a fantastic eye and are telling stories that are relevant beyond their own culture. So when I heard Squid Game was addressing issues of economic class, I was sold that I needed to see it, spurred on by the hilarious right-wing media tripping over their feet to argue it wasn’t a critique of capitalism (even though that is what the creator said) and that it was “really about communism.”

Movie Review – Oldboy

Oldboy (2003)
Written by Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Jun-hyung, and Park Chan-wook
Directed by Park Chan-wook

It’s hard to pinpoint just when exactly American audiences got turned on to South Korean cinema. This year’s Parasite did wonders in spotlighting the great working coming out of that country. But back in the early 2000s, Oldboy was a film that seemed to grab the attention of audiences and not let go. Seventeen years later, it is still a harrowing experience, a combination of fantastic fight choreography and a nightmarish baroque plot of betrayal and other terrible things.

Movie Review – Parasite

Parasite (2019)
Written by Bong Joon-ho & Jin Won Han
Directed by Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho is a filmmaker genuinely interested in issues of class and social structures. You can see that in his previous work, especially Snowpierce, Okja, and The Host, but there are elements of this in all his work. Parasite is the synthesis of all these ideas, a perfect summation of his thoughts on the class divide and human nature. This is a film made by a creator who is at the height of their confidence. Bong Joon-ho is clear-headed with a thorough understanding of the story they want to tell and the psychologies of the characters populating that narrative. It may sound grandiose to say this, but this is an example of about as close as we can get to having a perfect movie.

Movie Review – Burning

Burning (2018)
Written by Jungmi Oh & Chang-dong Lee
Directed by Chang-dong Lee

Jong-su Lee is from a rural community north of Seoul but travels down to the big city to do odd jobs. While on one of these gigs he runs into Hae-mi, a woman he grew up with but only has faint memories of. They go out for drinks, and she explains how she’s going on a trip to Africa soon and wonders if he would stop by and feed her cat while she’s gone. Lee comes over to her apartment where they have sex, and then his life becomes distracted by his father’s arrest for assault and caring for the farm. When Hae-mi returns from her vacation she has Ben in two, the only other Korean she met while in Africa. Ben immediately captures her attention, and any feelings she had for Lee seem to have evaporated. However, Lee feels that there is something off about Ben, a man who makes money through mysterious circumstances and admits he doesn’t understand the emotions of other people. Lee fears that something terrible is going to happen to Hae-mi.