The Battleship Island

The Namesake

In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers' arrest, and the aftermath. While his son takes Polaroid photographs, he retraces the steps of his childhood and interviews those who should remember. The story is disclosed in flashbacks that focus on the lovers (Paulina and Stanislaus), on a jealous and conniving neighbor, and on Mayer, the local SS commander who wants to find a way out of inevitable consequences.

A teenage girl is captured by a giant mutated squid-like creature that appears from Seoul's Han River after toxic waste was dumped in it, prompting her family into a frantic search for her.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

An Jung-geun fights for Korea's independence from the Japanese Empire and sparks a movement. In 1909, he assassinates Itō Hirobumi, the first prime minister of Japan and resident-general of Korea.

Claire, a school teacher with a camera is on her first visit to Cannes. She happens upon a film sales assistant, Man-hee, recently laid off after a one-night stand with a film director.

It is the night of March 25, 1949. A full moon hangs over Estonia. Endless rows of cattle cars are waiting to transport thousands of Estonian families, asleep in their homes, to Siberia. The Stalinist regime is ready to treat people like animals.

In 1909, several years after Korea is forced into becoming a Japanese colony, freedom fighters plot the daring assassination of Japan's prime minister during their quest for independence.

A Japanese-American director digs deep into the controversial 'comfort women' issue to settle the debate on whether the women were paid prostitutes or sex slaves, and reveals the motivations and intentions of the main actors pushing to revise history in Japan.

22nd of August, 1945. Japan lost the war and they loaded an 8,000 person Joseon laborer force onto a ship called the Ukisima to take them to the Busan Port. However, the ship sunk into the water due to an unknown blast. This is the story of thousands of Joseon people who dreamed of returning to their families and how they died.

May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.

This film is about of the life of the young patriotic martyr Yu Gwan-sun, who fought for the liberation of her country during the Independence Movement in 1919. As the Independence Movement becomes more and more intense among Korean students, the Japanese authorities order schools closed temporarily. Yu Gwan-sun (Do Geum-bong) persuades her neighbors to join the national movement, and continues her aggressive struggle against Japanese rule. An independent campaign at Aunae, a market site, is successful with the passionate participation of many people. She is arrested by the Japanese police for leading the campaign and has to endure horrible tortures. But she never gives up her fight, encouraging her cell mates to participate in the movement. She is finally taken to an underground room by the Japanese police and murdered.

In 1920, a combat flight training school named "Willows" is founded in California. People who want to fight for Korea’s independence from Japan gather at the school. Their mission is to bomb the palace of the Japanese emperor. The pilots’ ardent desire for Korea’s independence grows, but as they prepare for their mission, a spy in the school ruins their plans. However, KIM Ja-jung and the other pilots manage to get on board for what will most likely be their last flight.

Upon being released from prison, Kim Du-han begins rebuilding his street gang in the face of Hayashi's Yakuzas and increasing Japanese influence.

Following the final events of General's Son 2, Kim Du-han is forced to go on the lam but eventually returns to Jongro where he attempts to rebuild his gang with the brothers that are still alive and loyal and defeat Hayashi's Yakuzas once and for all.

During the Japanese occupation of South Korea, a Japanese bureaucrat is ordered to persuade an influential Korean patriarch into obeying the law of changing his Korean surname to a Japanese one.

A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

A man wanders around the mountains with a bleeding leg, holding a rifle in his hand. Seemingly a fugitive, he runs from as-yet unknown pursuers, but he also seems to be following somebody who has already walked the same path. As he hides in a secluded cave, past memories sweep through his exhausted mind, memories of lifelong cowardice and evasion. And this recollection leads to a reconstruction of early 20th century Korean history. Winner of Best Picture (Nam-a Pictures Co., Ltd.), Best Actor (Ha Myung-joong), Best Art Direction (Kim Yoo-joon), Best Lighting (Son Young-cheol) at the 14th Grand Bell Awards. (source: Jiro Hong, koreanfilm.org)

Jong-bun, in her eighties, is one of the last surviving 'Comfort Women' victims forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army during World War II. Back in 1944, at the end of the Japanese occupation in Korea, Jong-bun was a poor but energetic girl while Young-ae was the smart rich clerk's daughter. One day, Jong-bun gets abducted and finds herself on a train for Manchuria. To her surprise, she also finds Young-ae on the train facing the same fate to become a comfort woman. Jong-bun and Young-ae help each other go through the living hell and as the war comes to an end, they finally escape from the comfort women camp, only to face two different paths of life. Decades later, Jong-bun helps out a teenaged girl who is disoriented in life, reminded of her own painful past.