Train to Busan (2016)

This was one of the most popular recent horror movies I hadn't seen yet. I would have saved it for later in the month, but I was in something of a hurry to find a Halloween-appropriate movie, and this was the main one left on my Netflix list.

In Seoul, Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) has devoted more of himself as a fund manager than as a husband or father. He reluctantly agrees to take young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) to Busan so she can spend her birthday with his ex-wife. But news reports of random riots turn out to have been an understatement: Everyone who gets bitten turns just as berserk, and one such victim boards their train....

KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

This may be the most on-the-nose movie title since Snakes on a Plane. I wondered if it would be similarly stupid in a self-aware way. When I saw that it was partly comedic and had a warm reception, I took a chance on it.

Korean pop girl group HUNTR/X, consisting of never-relaxing lead singer Rumi (Arden Cho for speech/Ejae for singing), dour dancer Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna), and eager-to-please rapper Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami), has a rare secret reason for performing: Their music and extreme popularity reinforce a mostly invisible barrier to keep soul-sucking demons out of the land. They also use mystical melee weapons to kill demons they meet on the wrong side of the barrier. They are on the verge of fully sealing away Demon Lord Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun) when things start to go wrong. First Rumi's voice keeps cracking in rehearsals. Then a faux-friendly, disguised demon band, the Saja Boys, debuts to steal their fans, and the heroines don't dare fight in public. Then Saja Boys leader Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop/Andrew Choi) discovers compelling evidence that Rumi had a demon parent, which she hasn't told even Mira and Zoey -- but Jinu doesn't either, because he now feels kinship with Rumi. Their interactions become...complicated....

Lost in Starlight (2025)

I don't think I ever saw a South Korean animation of any length before. This new one is presently the most popular on IMDb. I did not know it was Korean when I tuned in; I just thought it looked interesting.

In 2051, Nan-young (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) has been training for a mission to Mars, but since her mother died there 25 years ago and she keeps getting lost in flashbacks, she is not the space agency's top choice. In the meantime, she literally bumps into Jay (Justin H. Min), an amateur singer-guitarist whose music she digs. Gradually, they fall in love, despite her determination not to form an earthly attachment. He's none too keen on her following her dream either, tho she does inspire him to return to his rock band.

Snowpiercer (2013)

This stops streaming on Netflix at the end of the month, but I hadn't noticed that when I chose it. Mainly, it was about the highest-profile title left on my list. And with the current weather, it seemed appropriate.

The starting event happens only the year after the film's release, so you might think of it as alternate history now: An anti-global-warming measure goes horribly right, rendering the earth nigh uninhabitably frozen. Fortunately, businessman Wilford (Ed Harris) had the foresight to create a somehow self-sustaining train that harvests water by plowing through snow, and it houses more life than you might expect. Unfortunately, those in the rear cars are impoverished and tyrannized, with small children taken away for secret purposes. Hard to retain gratitude for lifesaving at that point. After 17 years of this, Curtis (Chris Evans) leads the biggest lower-class revolt yet, heading for the engine room to seize control. Given the length of the train, the locked doors, and the brutal guards, this will take a while, but they enlist the help of a stoned lock specialist (Song Kang-ho) and his seemingly clairvoyant daughter (Go Ah-sung).

World War Z (2013)

I chose this partly for being relatively popular and partly because Netflix will drop it at the end of the month. Aside from that, all I knew going in was what the Z stood for. The first question in my mind was how the story would differ from that of the quintessential Dawn of the Dead.

Well, for starters, there is an unambiguous protagonist, Gerry (Brad Pitt), whose background as a UN investigator makes him especially important to combatting the viral zombie outbreak. Only about half an hour in, he gets his wife (Mireille Enos) and daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) from overrun Philly to a reasonably safe outpost. But even favor from the UN deputy secretary-general (Fana Mokoena) won't let them all live there indefinitely; Gerry has to pull his weight by going back into danger for clues on how to vaccinate against zombification. And yes, the characters do say "zombie" eventually.

The Wailing (2016)

I don't remember learning about this South Korean TV movie before. Most likely, it was on an online list of great horrors. In any case, it was the only horror I found left on my Netflix list.

Officer Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won), a police officer for the village of Gokseong, comes to recognize a pattern: Locals covered in boils are growing violently insane before dying. A theory tying the symptoms to drugs is not entertained for long, and for some reason, nobody even mentions the possibility of a natural disease. Reportedly, the first case emerged shortly after the arrival of an unnamed, reclusive Japanese man (Jun Kunimura), the subject of many rumors, including that he is a ghost. Jong-goo pays him a visit with a translating deacon (Kim Do-yoon) and finds a ghastly shrine but nothing to justify an arrest. When Jong-goo's preteen or early teen daughter (Kim Hwan-hee) shows early signs of the condition, his wife (Jang So-yeon) calls on a shaman (Hwang Jung-min) for an exorcism. A strange woman in white (Chun Woo-hee) often appears with warnings, but Jong-goo doesn't know much about her or whether to trust her.

Past Lives (2023)

I recalled almost nothing about this title except that it was nominated for Best Picture. It turns out to have had only one other Oscar nod, for Best Original Screenplay, so no one seriously expected it to win. I would have given priority to Poor Things, but that wasn't an option from United.

Thanks to two time jumps, there is a clear three-act structure. First Na Young (then played by Seung Ah Moon) and Hae Sung (then played by Seung Min Yim) are preteen classmates and fierce academic rivals. Just as they start to grow fond of each other, Na moves to Toronto for a more promising future and changes her name to Nora Moon. They rediscover each other on Facebook 12 years later (now played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo), having many video calls until Nora takes an indefinite hiatus to focus on work. Another 12 years later, in what I take to be 2023, they finally meet in RL again, specifically in New York City, where Nora lives with husband Arthur (John Magaro). This marriage is stable, but Nora and Hae can't help thinking about what could have been -- and, from a Buddhist perspective, what may have been in previous incarnations.

Pork Chop Hill (1959)

I've hardly seen any depictions of the Korean War outside of M*A*S*H, which involves little to no onscreen battle. For more of that, I figured on Lewis Milestone to do a good job. And it's based on a soldier's account, so I stood to learn true history.

In 1953, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army seizes the American outpost on the titular hill. Lt. Joseph G. Clemons (Gregory Peck) leads K Company in an effort to recapture it, starting before dawn. But higher-ups have not prepared them well. For example, one border is much better defended than was said, keeping L Company too busy to meet up as soon as expected. It soon becomes apparent that heavy losses will follow.

Drive My Car (2021)

This Japanese film does not include the Beatles song, which really wouldn't fit the dramatic tenor. Instead, it's based on a Haruki Murakami short story by the same title. How a 40-pager plus bits of two others in the collection made the basis for a 179-minute feature is beyond me, but the latter was too esteemed for me to pass up.

In the late 2010s, middle-aged Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) doesn't want to act on stage ever again due to emotional issues regarding his late wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima). Nevertheless, his past as the star of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya gets him tapped to direct another production thereof. One condition of the arrangement is that he not drive himself, given his glaucoma. He reluctantly accepts young woman Misaki Watari (Tōko Miura) as his chauffeur and lets her hear him go over lines in his car with a recording of Oto. Young actor Kōji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) is surprised when Yūsuke casts him as Vanya. Imagine his surprise if he'd known that Yūsuke caught him committing adultery with Oto.

3-Iron (2004)

On one hand, I've grown leery of R-rated Korean features, which aren't all as watchable as Parasite. OTOH, writer-director Kim Ki-duk did a peaceful yet adequately engaging job with Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. And 2004 was a great year for cinema in my book.

In a modern South Korean city, a possibly homeless young man, Tae-suk (Jae Hee), puts flyers on doors, picks the locks of those that leave the flyers on long enough to suggest that the residents are on vacation, and then bums around before a hasty getaway. The Netflix description makes it sound like a slice-of-life that never goes anywhere, but that would be misleading. The plot starts to progress when he stumbles on a former photography model, Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-yeon), who decides to run away with him from her physically abusive husband, Min-gyu (Kwon Hyuk-ho). She's content to go everywhere with Tae-suk -- until they discover a corpse and become implicated. And Min-gyu has an in with a dirty cop....

Okja (2017)

This pre-Parasite Bong Joon Ho hit had been sitting on my list for some time. Every once in a while, someone would either praise it or, less often, diss it. Neither the title nor the poster appealed to me, but eventually, I decided to know for sure how to feel about it.

The fictitious Mirando Corporation, under new CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), has been breeding "super pigs" larger in adulthood than hippos and with exceptionally efficient metabolism. The plan, of course, is to combat human hunger. A rural South Korean farmer (Byun Hee-bong) has raised reputedly the most magnificent super pig, Okja. But But Mija (Seo-hyun Ahn), his early teen granddaughter, has grown too attached and doesn't want her taken to Mirando HQ in New York City. Being more headstrong than smart, Mija sets out for the Mirando station in Seoul without a plan....

Parasite (2019)

I don't normally put off Best Picture Oscar winners. My main reason for doing so this time was that it sounded thrilling enough for me to reserve for October. On further reflection, it hardly seemed a horror. By then, I had to wait out the Netflix disc availability lag.

In modern South Korea, the impoverished Kim family discovers a golden opportunity to become servants -- the father a chauffeur, the mother a housekeeper, the son a tutor, and the daughter an art therapist -- for the affluent Park family. Since the Parks would be unlikely to hire four people they knew to be related, the Kims pose as strangers to each other, in addition to faking their expertise. The charade works masterfully. But when the Parks go on vacation, the Kims discover they're not the only, well, parasitic presence in the mansion. There comes a conflict of interest, and the only perceived way to avoid prosecution involves potentially lethal force.

The Attorney (2013)

Wow, that long since I last saw a movie from East Asia? And it doesn't look like I've reviewed any South Korean cinema before. I was thinking of skipping this review, but I'd rather rectify the gap.

In the late '70s and early '80s, Song Woo-suk stands out among attorneys for skipping college, not acting very formal, and taking cases that bring him an unpopular image but good money. He grows less greedy with time and attempts to pay for a dine-and-dash of long ago. Busan restaurateur Park Dong-ho and her high school son, Jin-woo, are friendly toward him, until he has a drunken brawl over politics. His chance to make it up to them comes when Jin-woo and many classmates get arrested on charges of sedition.

Cloud Atlas (2012)

The Wachowskis have not done a great job of sustaining their directorial popularity in the wake of The Matrix, with V for Vendetta being their one other major hit as writers and producers. This may explain why they decided to try something different, adapting a David Mitchell bestseller into one of the most expensive indies yet, sharing credit with German cult director Tom Twyker (Run Lola Run).

Specifically, we get six alternating subplots across different settings and even genres. In 1849, an American aristocrat visiting a Pacific island contends with illness, envy of his wealth, and a burgeoning sympathy toward slaves. In 1936, an aspiring British composer works on "The Cloud Atlas Sextet," but his history of gay sex limits his options for exposure. In 1973, an investigative journalist follows a murder trail toward a horrible San Francisco corporate conspiracy. In the present, an elderly British publisher learns the ups and downs of working with a thuggish author, followed by the untrustworthiness of his own brother. In 2144, South Korea has been manufacturing female clones for servitude, and one with the telltale serial number 451 rebels. In 2321, an unspecified disaster has led to Hawaii being divided into primitive tribes and a handful of elite technocrats, and one of the latter needs assistance from the former.

What draws these subplots together? Lots of little things: a recurring birthmark on focal characters, parallel moments in their lives, actual references to the past. Oh, and more than a dozen actors play multiple roles, among them Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, and Wachowski staple Hugo Weaving, hinting at reincarnations. If there's a single overarching theme to the whole thing, it's championing resistance against tyranny -- which, come to think of it, describes the other Wachowski movies I know.