Starring

Lee Byung-hun
Hwang Jung-min
Kim Yeong-cheol
Kim Roe-ha
Lee Gi-yeong
Shin Min-ah

Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculating crime boss, Kang, to whom he is unquestionably loyal. The two share concerns over business tensions with Baek Jr., a son from a rival family, which is when Kang assigns Sun-Woo what is perceived (at first) to be a simple errand while he is away on a business trip — to shadow his young mistress, Heesoo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with another, much younger man, with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair. As he performs his duty — following Heesoo, and escorting her to a music recital one day — he becomes quietly enthralled by the girl’s beauty and innocence, as glimpses into his lonely, empty personal life become more prevalent.

When he does come to discover Heesoo’s secret lover directly in her home, he fiercely beats him, but seeing the girl’s traumatized state causes him to take pause, pulled by his attraction to her. He thus spares the two on the condition that they no longer see each other again, earning him Heesoo’s enmity.

Meanwhile, Sun-woo continues to be embroiled in personal business with Baek Jr., over having beaten up several of his henchmen earlier for overstaying their welcome at the hotel. He is then threatened by one of his enforcers to apologize, but he adamantly refuses, fueled by his frustrations over Heesoo. As he relaxes in his apartment later one night, he is suddenly kidnapped by Baek’s men to be tortured, but before they can do so, they receive new orders via phone call, and he is abruptly carried off to Kang, who has returned from overseas and has found out about his attempted cover-up of Heesoo’s affair. Kang’s men torture him into confessing why he lied, until he is left alone to think about his answer. A daring but messy escape follows, after which Sun-woo plans his revenge.

Alternative Title: My Tutor Friend
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Film Date: January, 2003
Korea Casts:
Kim Ha Neul, Kim Ki-Woo, Kong Yu, Kwon Sang-Woo
Description:

A man from a wealthy family who should be in his second year of college, is still finishing his highschool requirements. His family hire a tutor for him who is his own age but she comes from a poor background.

Starring

Song Kang-ho
Shin Ha-kyun
Bae Doona

Ryu, a deaf-mute, works in a factory to support his ailing sister who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Ryu tries to donate one of his kidneys to his sister, but is told that as his blood type doesn’t match that of his sister, he is not a suitable donor. After being laid off from his job by the factory boss, Ryu contacts a black market organ dealer who agrees to sell him a kidney suitable for his sister in exchange for 10,000,000 Korean won, plus one of Ryu’s own kidneys. He takes the severance pay from his factory job and offers the money to the organ dealers, who take the money and one of his kidneys, but then disappear. Three weeks later, Ryu learns from his doctor that a kidney has been found for his sister and that the operation will cost 10,000,000 won, but since the organ dealers stole his money, he won’t be able to pay for it.

In need of money for the operation and in retaliation for his being fired, Ryu and his girlfriend Yeong-mi, a radical leftist, conspire to kidnap the daughter of the boss who fired him. Instead they both realize that the kidnapping would immediately put them under police suspicion, and decide to kidnap Yu-sun, the daughter of the boss’s friend, Dong-jin, another factory CEO. The girl stays with Ryu’s sister, who takes care of her while the distraught Dong-jin arranges for a ransom. After Ryu collects the money and returns home, he learns that his sister has discovered his scheme and, unwilling to be involved or burden Ryu further, has killed herself. Ryu takes Yu-sun and his sister’s body into the countryside to bury her by a riverbed. While Ryu mourns, Yu-sun slips into the river and drowns.

Directed by Park Jin-pyo
Written by Park Jin-pyo
Starring Sol Kyung-gu
Kim Nam-ju
Kang Dong-won

One day, the only son of famous news anchor, Han Kyung-bae, disappeared without a trace. Soon, the kidnapper calls the nine-year-old boy’s mother, Oh Jisun, demanding $100,000 as ransom. The police assign veteran detective Kim Wook-jung to the case and assemble a top-notch task force under his command. However, the kidnapper constantly outwits the police traps and keeps calling the parents with yet another instruction for the money drop. The only clue the police and the parents have is the kidnapper’s voice recorded on the tape; his cultured, but emotionless voice, which often gives anyone who listens goose bumps. The parents become restless and angry as days turns into weeks, and one day, when the kidnapper calls Han Kyung-bae with another set of instructions, he turns the situation completely around and demands a direct confrontation. He starts giving instructions to the kidnapper, and…

Directed by Law Chi-Leung
Starring Karena Lam
Angelica Lee
Andy Hui
Release date(s) 2004
Running time 88 min
Country Hong Kong

The movie begins with a young woman, who attended a wedding party held in a hotel and became drunk, waking up in one of the hotel rooms; only to realize in horror that her kidney has been surgically removed. Socialite Ching (Angelica Lee), who also attended the party, identified Ling (Karena Lam) as the prime suspect because she found out that Ling was the only stranger presented in the ball room. She is unknown to everyone in the party, even to the hotel staff. During the police investigation, Ching discovers that Ling has been secretly involved with her boyfriend Wai (Andy Hui Chi-On), and this is the very reason why she was in the hotel when the crime was committed. Ling was released uncharged due to insufficient evidence as police believed Ching could be framing her for cheating with her boyfriend. Rather than quickly disappear, Ling starts stalking Ching, apparently jealous that Ching could have everything Ling wanted without an effort while Ling has to fight for it. Ching, at the beginning, sees that as a form of harassment, but soon twists it around and follows Ling instead. Ling seems accepting of this, showing her the darker side of life living as a poor girl compared to Ching’s rich-girl background. The two engage in a subtle cat-and-mouse game, and Ching begins to fear for her life when Ling starts making threats to remove her kidney too.

Year: 2004
Directed: Shinya Tsukamoto
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Runtime: 01:25:16
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitle: English
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Nami Tsukamoto, Kiki, Kazuyoshi Kushida, Lily, Hana Kino
Imdb: Vital

Synopsis / Plot

Hiroshi Takagi returns home to begin his new life after having his memory wiped away in an auto accident. Fascinated by a dusty dissection textbook, he enrolls in medical school where he catches the eye of Izumi, a beautiful fellow student who desires his attention. But it’s another beauty that becomes his obsession: the dead woman on the cadaver table. Starting with the tattoo on her arm, patterns of recognition begin to return to Hiroshi and soon he is having visions of a life with this woman. The deeper he cuts into her flesh, the closer he gets to unlocking the dark memories of his forgotten past.

Aka: Acacia
Year: 2003
Directed: Ki-hyeong Park
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Runtime: 103 mins
Country: south Korea
Language: Korean
Subtitles: English (Hard Coded)
Cast: Hye-jin Shim, Jin-geun Kim, Oh-bin Mun, Na-yoon Jeong

Synopsis / Plot

After unsuccessfully trying to have a baby of their own, Dr. Kim Do-il and his father convince his wife Choi Mi-sook to adopt a child in an orphanage. Mi-sook is connected to arts and chooses the six years Kim Jin-sung that loves to draw trees. The boy becomes close to the eight years old next door neighbor Min-jee and is attracted to an old Acacia tree in their lawn. When Mi-sook unexpectedly gets pregnant, her mother asks her to return Jin-sung to the orphanage, beginning the rejection process of the boy. When the baby is born, Mi-sook does not treat Jin-sung well, who believes the acacia tree is his mother, and in a rainy night he vanishes. Along the next days, the family becomes insane, disclosing a dark secret about Jin-sung.

Kyong-gu Sol, plays middle-aged gangster, Jae-moon, who wants to kill a man. Specifically, he wants to kill Dae-shik, the guy who knifed his life-long buddy. He’s too rabid for anyone in the gang to stand in his way and so he grabs newbie gang boy, Chi-juk, and heads down to Dae-shik’s hometown to stake out his mother’s house and wait for his chance to sink a sashimi knife into his unsuspecting enemy’s guts. Dae-shik’s hometown is a misbegotten concrete scab without even a bar and Jae-moon and Chi-juk spend their time hanging around Dae-shik’s mother’s restaurant trying to kill the days that crawl by without going crazy. As they fall more and more into the patterns of an average person’s daily life, all the crazed blood-lust and drive for revenge that originally motivated them starts looking like nothing more than a death wish and their loyalty to their gang becomes a prison cell where they’ll die.

Directed by Lee Myeong-se (이명세)

Screenplay by Lee Hae-kyeong (이해경), Lee Myeong-se (이명세)

•Action

111min | Release date in South Korea : 2005/09/08

In the late Chosun dynasty, counterfeits were circulating around. Detective Ahn of Left Security Station and a passionate newcomer, Nam-sun try to trace the source of the counterfeiting. They chase the Secretary of National Security and his man ‘Sad Eye’ as suspects. A predestined battle between the best woman detective in Chosun, Nam-sun, and a mysterious assassin ‘Sad Eye’ is unfolded. A magnificent, chivalric film that showcases Lee’s style.

After investing two years of his life to develop the simulation game “Who R.U.? “, Hyung Tae (Cho Seung-woo) puts the game on-line to observe the players ‘ responses to it.One of the frequent players of the game is In-Joo (Lee Na-young) whose incredible scoring results amaze Hyung-tae and she also feels a strange attraction to the young game designer. The two may be playing a simulation game but their affection is based on true feelings …