The 11 High-quality Korean Films Cinema Escapist
Compared to earlier than coronavirus, South Korean cinema was in a much less illustrious country throughout 2021, with theaters closed for a lot of the yr due to local outbreaks. Despite this, some Korean films nonetheless controlled to debut.
You might be thinking: what are the Best Korean Movies of 2021?
Cinema Escapist‘s staff have curated this listing of the top eleven Korean movies from 2021 to meet your curiosity. We chose these eleven Korean movies based on their narrative craft, leisure fee, and societal significance. We’ve additionally protected streaming hyperlinks whilst movies are available on international structures like Netflix.
Our selections include films from genres inclusive of comedy, action, romance, horror, and more. K-celebrity trackers will even find titles offering pinnacle stars like Seo Ye-ji, Im Yoon-ah (Yoona), Byun Yo-han, Jo In-sung, and Jeon Yeo-been.
Let’s dive into 2021’s best Korean films!
Korean identify Director: Kim Chang-ju the head of a bank branch in Busan gets a restrained smartphone call that warns him that a bomb will burst off underneath his vehicle seat and kill him if he stops the auto. Thus starts the 2021 Korean thriller film Hard Hit, which stars Jo Woo-jin as the aforementioned bank head.
Not that many thriller movies got here out in Korea during 2021, which likely helped Hard Hit advantage vast traction with Korean audiences. It hit #1 on the container workplace upon its launch, and is the fifth highest grossing Korean film of 2021. With pumping heritage tune and high stakes, Hard Hit does create a dynamic environment that need to get you excited as a minimum for its first portions.
Korean title: 유체이탈자 action film Spiritwalker facilities on a person who’s lost his reminiscence and awakens in a new body each twelve hours, pressured to rediscover his identity each time. Soon, he meets a woman who says she acknowledges him—and begins to realise that a mysterious business enterprise is chasing after him.
Filled with dynamic motion sequences tinged with comedic factors, Spiritwalker seems like an fascinating combination between Memento and The Beauty Inside. Korean audiences gave the movie a heat reception upon its theatrical release in November 2021; Spiritwalker topped Korea’s box office for 2 weeks in a row.9.
Korean title Director: Jo Jin-mo a man named Young-ho and a girl named So-hee. The meet by threat through the mail, and start to broaden a connection via the ordinary trade of handwritten letters.
With this mail-based totally premise, Waiting for the Rain distinguishes itself from other Korean romances. It does an amazing job of tracing the evolution of a relationship over time and distance, as opposed to serving up romance in a hurried saccharine explosion. Furthermore, the movie’s capability to rouse nostalgia is well worth noting; it’s in reality fairly reminiscent of pinnacle Chinese tragi-romances like Us and Them.8. On the Line
Korean title Directors: Kim Gok, Kim Sun humans all around the global, South Korea blanketed. 2021 movement movie On the Line imagines what would possibly show up if sufferers of such scams decided to take revenge.
The movie stars Byun Yo-han (well-known for his role in K-drama Mr. Sunshine) as a former detective named Seo Joon, who now runs a production website online. When cellphone scammers target him and his fellow people, he vows retribution. Seo manages to tune down the pinnacle of the syndicate (performed via Kim Mu-yeol) who focused him, and unravels a bigger operation than he had even imagined.
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There are many Korean films related to ex-police officers taking revenge, so On the Line treads on mounted territory. However, its premise about telephone scams and fast pace should fulfill many audiences, simply as YouTube films of human beings getting revenge on scammers regularly move viral. Indeed, On the Line did pretty well at South Korea’s container office all through 2021, ranking fourth ordinary for earnings.7.
Korean identify: 미션 파서블 seeking out a mix of fun and movement, check out Mission: Possible.
This comedy-action film facilities on a spy named Yoo Da-hee, who’s tasked with preventing an palms smuggling operation in South Korea. Yoo is meant to cooperate with a South Korean spy, however she as a substitute hyperlinks up with a hapless detective named Woo Soo-han due to a case of incorrect identification. When a few key witnesses to the fingers smuggling case emerge as useless, this extraordinary couple should cooperate to live to tell the tale and locate justice.
In their roles as Yoo and Woo, lead actors Lee Sun-bin and Kim Young-kwang have incredible chemistry. The movie is complete of movement and doesn’t require plenty of intellectual funding; it offers solid enjoyment for its two hour runtime.
Korean name Starring: Seo Ye-ji, Kim Kang-woo, Yeom Hye-ran on the heels of her achievement in closing 12 months’s hit K-drama It’s OK to Not Be OK, actress Seo Ye-ji headlined the 2021 mystery-mystery Recalled. In this film, Seo stars as a girl who wakes up sooner or later to locate that she’s misplaced her memory. When she begins experiencing hallucinations that portend murderous future events, she realizes no longer everything is as it seems.
Recalled is a surprisingly suspenseful affair, one that reconstitutes many acquainted K-entertainment tropes however in a novel way. It doesn’t take lots effort to experience this unique movie, specially in case you revel in plot twists. Learn greater about Recalled in our complete-duration overview!
Korean identify Director: Kim Ji-hoon gained, Kim Sung-kyun, Lee Kwang-soo 11 lengthy years, an office worker named Park Dong-won has sooner or later stored up sufficient to shop for a domestic in Seoul. However, the night of his housewarming birthday party, a massive downpour plunges his new house into a large sinkhole. Together together with his antagonistic neighbor Jeong Man-soo, Park need to discover a manner to get his housewarming guests to protection.
Such is the idea of Sinkhole — which have become the second one-maximum grossing South Korean movie of 2021. This catastrophe comedy is full of hilarious moments, and also offers jabs at sky-excessive housing charges in Seoul. Altogether, Sinkhole is a chunk reminiscent of Exit, which blended comedy, catastrophe, and veiled social opinions efficaciously enough to be one in every of 2019’s top Korean movies.4.
Korean identify Starring: Uhm Tae-goo, Jeon Yeo-been, Cha Seung-received Genre: Action, Revenge
Park Hoon-jung is most known for guiding 2013 gangster-themed hit New World and writing 2010’s renowned movement thriller I Saw the Devil. In 2021, he lower back to direct Night in Paradise—a moody gangster revenge film that you may without difficulty flow on Netflix.
The movie makes a speciality of a gangster enforcer named Tae-goo, who gets exiled to the “paradise island” of Jeju after occurring a bloody stabbing spree of a rival gang. On Jeju, Tae-goo ends up residing with an palms dealer and his niece, a young girl named Jae-yeon. Tae-goo quickly discovers there’s extra to Jae-yeon than meets the eye, and the 2 begin to form a bond that gets examined while the effects of Tae-goo’s earlier violent moves trap up to him on Jeju.
With stylistic colour grading and cinematography, Night in Paradise is a visible dinner party. It carries loads of movement, and its specific placing of Jeju ought to show interesting specially for Asians greater acquainted with the island’s touristic popularity. Learn extra approximately Night in Paradise in our complete review.
Korean name Starring: Park Jeong-min, Im Yoon-ah (Yoona), Lee Sung-min
