Happy End (South Korea, 1999)

Bora is a successful career woman who becomes involved with her destructive ex-lover, Kim. Bora's home life is a snore: she's mother to an infant child and her husband Seo, who has lost his job. But as time goes on, Seo starts suspecting his wife more and more...

Happy End stars Choi Min-sik (Oldboy, I Saw the Devil) and Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine, The Housemaid) as two spouses that drifts further and further away from each other. A dying love story about a desperate husband that culminates in a very powerful and unpredictable way.

Genre: Drama/Romance

Judgement (South Korea, 1999)

1995. Seoul. A huge shopping centre, the Sampung department Store collapsed, killing about 500 people and injuring many others. Half a million dollars were offered in indemnity to the victims' relatives, and this triggered a merciless looting made by unscrupulous people. In a morgue where the lifeless body of a girl lies, waiting to be identified, a man and a woman, who introduce themselves as the parents of the victim, are distraught over the loss of the young girl. However, after a moment's hesitation, a morgue employee claims he is the girls real father.

Judgement (a.k.a. Simpan) is an early film by the fantastic Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Thirst, Joint Security Area). A short film (26 min) that focuses on the greed which followed in the wake of a tragedy, and is an early example of Park Chan-wook's skills in film making.  

Genre: Short/Drama

Raise the Red Lantern (Hong Kong/China, 1991)

China in the 1920's. After her father's death, nineteen year old Songlian is forced to marry Chen Zuoqian, the lord of a powerful family. Fifty year old Chen has already three wives, each of them living in separate houses within the great castle. The competition between the wives is tough, as their master's attention carries power, status and privilege. Each night Chen must decide with which wife to spend the night and a red lantern is lit in front of the house of his choice. And each wife schemes and plots to make sure it's hers.

Raise the Red Lantern was directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), so it's no wonder why the cinematography is stunning. Zhang Yimou knows how to tell a story with unique scenery, almost as if they are his greatest actors. Raise the Red Lantern was named as one of the 25 movies you must see before you die, and is critically acclaimed throughout the world. A must for every asian movie fan.

Genre: Drama

Harakiri (Japan, 1962)

Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri (self-inflicted disembowelment). An elder warrior, Hanshiro Tsugumo, seeks admittance to the house of a feudal lord to commit the act. There, he learns of the fate of his son-in-law, a young samurai who sought work at the house but was instead barbarically forced to commit hara-kiri. In flashbacks, Hanshiro tells the tragic story of his son-in-law, and how he was forced to sell his real sword to support his sick wife and child.

A fascinating, tragic samurai tale that explores and tears down the code which the samurai lives by. Director Masaki Kobayashi (Kwaidan) was a huge fan of Akira Kurosawa's work and managed to make a jidaigeki film that doesn't try to compete with Kurosawa's epics, but has numerous times been called an anti-samurai film due to how it throws the whole samurai establishment under a bus, and exposes a lot of hypocrisy. Many scenes has a genuine sense of tangible anxiety, when it dawns on the character that death is unavoidable. Delivers great dialogue and minimalistic cinematography, and under a thick layer of grain portrays a much more restrained story compared to other films in the genre. Actor Tatsuya Nakadai (Sword of Doom) plays the lead role, and has cited Harakiri as his favorite film.

Genre: Drama