A young man, whose only possession is a motorcycle, spends his time riding around the city looking for empty apartments. After finding one, he hangs out for a while, fixing himself something to eat, washing laundry or making small repairs in return. He always tries to leave before the owners get back but in one ostensibly empty mansion he meets the abused wife of a rich man and she escapes with him.
A wife, overwhelmed with hatred for her husband, inflicts an unspeakable wound on their son, as the family heads towards horrific destruction.
A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.
A group of very different people set sail on an old warship. The passengers include a senator with his son, a newly-wed couple, a mysterious old man, a group of sex workers and a gang of violent criminals. At first the aggressive behaviour of the thugs and their leader is directed at the first class passengers, but then more and more indiscriminately against the rest of those on board. Rape is followed by murder and it’s not long before the first of numerous and increasingly brutal mutinies takes place.
Jae-Young is an amateur prostitute who sleeps with men while her best friend Yeo-Jin "manages" her, fixing dates, taking care of the money, and making sure the coast is clear. When Jae-Young falls in love with one of those men, she suppresses her feelings towards him in respect of her friend who's jealous.
A condemned prisoner slowly falls in love with the married female artist who decorates his prison cell. Jin is a convicted killer awaiting execution on Death Row; Yeon is a lonely artist locked in a loveless marriage.
Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country.
On a fishing boat at sea, a 60-year old man has been raising a girl since she was a child. It is agreed that they will get married on her 17th birthday. They live a quiet and secluded life, renting the boat to day fishermen and practicing strange divination rites. Their life changes when a teenage student comes aboard.
Young is a nameless actor who dreams of becoming a big movie star. Then one day, he makes his breakthrough with a film and becomes a star overnight.
A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.
Consumed by jealousy, a woman takes an extreme step and undergoes surgery for a new face. Although her lover of 2 years misses her, he falls in love with the new face, not knowing it's the same woman.
On May 9th, a female high school student was brutally murdered. There are 7 suspects and 7 shadows that terrorize them. Who are they and which one of them is you?
In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.
Gang-pae is #2 gangster in his organization who longs to become an actor. Su-ta is a superstar actor who takes on the role of a gangster in an action movie called Rough Cut. When another actor leaves the set due to Su-tas violent ways, the production is on the verge of shutting down. Su-ta asks Gang-pae, whom he met by chance, to play alongside him in the movie in order to save the production.
A growing friendship with their neighbors softens the resolve of a group of North Korean spies who are posing as an ordinary South Korean family.
Poongsan has the unenviable - and death-defying - job of delivering messages across the North and South Korean border to separated families. When South Korean government agents ask him to smuggle in In-ok, the lover of a high-ranking North Korean defector, into the South, the damsel and rescuer fall in love instead.
20 years after discharge from the army and now an excavator driver, a former paratrooper who had been mobilized to suppress the May 18th Democratic Uprising in Korea in 1980, happens to find a skull in the ground one day. Driving his excavator, he pays visits to his former superiors one by one and realizes they were all both assailants and victims of the times.
A woman who desperately wants a baby asks a girl who is considering abortion to give her the baby instead. The two arrive at an isolated vacation home to spend time in seclusion until the girl gives birth to a baby, but they unexpectedly encounter a mysterious young painter and some criminal hunters.
Anticipation of Love has settled in the heart of a young lady. The boundaries between dream and passion are very elusive. Life is full of physical deprivations and, of course, sensual pleasures, and the deep meaning of that all is Love. The deeper the feeling, the more intense the emotions. Each girl dreams about meeting her love one day. An experienced man helps her discover the world of passion and senses, and brings her to ‘heaven’s gate’ where the two of them will prevail. One can only imagine how many hearts were broken along the way to master the science of love. But passion blinds and soon the man becomes slave to the young woman’s sensual body. The carnal knowledge makes the girl try to subdue her love object. This is what the last film by Kim Ki-duk, shot in summer 2019 in Kyrgyzstan, is all about. The film was finished by Kim’s friends and colleagues after he unexpectedly passed away in December 2020.
Documentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.
