These are 8 women-focused movies coming out of Korea every should see.

My love affair with Korean cinema back when I was eighteen. I had just returned from studying abroad in South Korea, and I enrolled in a Contemporary Korean Cinema course at the college I was beginning. I was the only first semester student in the class, as I had AP credits that enabled me to be in there, and I remember being awed by all of the movies I was seeing on the screen.

I ended up going to see the US premiere of Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, and from there I started running with the kinds of Korean movies I was picking up on streaming platforms and through my university. I ended up becoming a film critic after that and watching so many more Korean movies and chatting with the actors.

I’ve lived in Korea twice, in Anyang and Busan. I was studying Korean at local universities (Ewha and Pusan National University) both times I went to Korea, and I would say that I can speak a decent amount of Korean. It was through my experiences in Korea and consuming so many Korean movies that I ended up doing my master’s thesis on colonial Korean women’s literature and its implications of broader history during that period.

This blog has become a way to document everything I’ve been reading and watching throughout the years. I worked professionally as a film critic, but I ended up leaving that position behind when I knew it was time to depart and do my own thing. While it might not have been the best financial decision in the end, I’m much happier because I can watch the movies I want to see and talk about.

Hence the emphasis on Asian cinema. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that I focus a lot on the voices that aren’t being discussed in mainstream American conversations, which, in some ways, makes sense, but as we see Hallyu being increasingly pushed, I find a lot of people don’t know about Korean cinema and how it reflects Korean society as a whole.

Women’s stories have also been a core focus of mine, so I want to make this blog post to spotlight eight women-focused movies that I’ve watched throughout the years that are incredibly. This is in no way a comprehensive list, otherwise we would be here all day, but these are some of my personal favorites.

Let’s get into the list!

House of Hummingbird / 벌새, directed by Kim Bo-ra

In House of Hummingbird, we’re transported to Korea in 1994. Our main character is Eun-hee, a young girl who’s just about to enter high school and experiencing tremendous change in her life. She has a secret boyfriend, she goes out and hangs with her new friend during the day, and she attends Chinese lessons with a new beloved teacher.

But when a lump is discovered behind her ear and she needs surgery, that seems to be the beginning of the end for her bliss. Everything comes apart and suddenly Eun-hee’s coming-of-age is much more difficult than she ever expected, especially when tragedy strikes the Seoul area.

Next Sohee / 다음 소희, directed by Jung Ju-ri

Next Sohee is a movie where its main focus is the titular character: Sohee. However, for the vast majority of the movie’s plots and motivation, Sohee is no longer alive. She was a high schooler looking to make some money, so she found a job at a call center.

However, that job at the call center turns out to be much more stress than she could have ever expected, especially for a high school girl. She should have never worked there, but the movie’s plot hurtles forward when we learn that she died in a mysterious way while working there.

We then pivot to the female detective on the case who’s passionate and dedicated to finding out what happened to Sohee, even if it means uncovering some dark truths.

Aloners / 혼자 사는 사람들, directed Hong Sung-eun

The main character of Aloners is indicative of the generation living and working in developed countries across the world. Her name is Jina, and she’s the top worker at a call center. She eats lunch alone every day with her headphones in, goes home to her small apartment where she lives by herself, and spends so much time not interacting with people outside of her job.

It doesn’t help that she’s struggling with the aftermath of her mother’s passing and the fact her father doesn’t seem to care about what happened. In order to cope, Jina always has her headphones in and watches YouTube mukbangs and dramas in order to feel a little less alone. When she has encounters with a neighbor and a new coworker, she’s going to have to confront the reality of her situation.

Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 / 82년생 김지영, directed by Kim Do-young

Fans of Korean literature are going to recognize the name Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, as the novel was incredibly popular in South Korea when it came out because of how it depicted the conditions of its female protagonist. The film adaptation is fairly faithful to the book. Its main character is Kim Ji-young, a thirty-something housewife who left behind a thriving career in order to raise her child because that was expected of her as a woman.

While her husband goes to work and provides for the family, Ji-young falls into a deep depression where she starts to doubt her life and everything she’s doing. When her mental health status starts to bleed even more into her interactions with others, her husband becomes concerned and wants to find solutions for his wife.

Poetry / 시, directed by Lee Chang-dong

Lee Chang-dong is one of the most acclaimed directors in modern Korean history, but before he was a director, he was a literature teacher and a writer. That background shows in a film like Poetry, which is about Mi-ja, an elderly woman who takes in her grandson, who’s being investigated for potentially raping a classmate, and struggles with the beginning symptoms of dementia.

Mi-ja enrolls in a poetry class in order to keep her mind sharp, which proves useful as she finds herself forgetting basic words like apple. She then becomes obsessed with the girl her grandson violated, as the girl kills herself in a river after the trauma of what happened to her.

Our Love Story / 연애담, directed by Lee Hyun-ju

It would seem crass to make this list without an LGBTQ+ entry to me, so I had to include one—although we could debate that House of Hummingbird has a subtle LGBTQ+ slant. Released in 2016, Our Love Story is actually a film about two women falling in love, which is interesting considered its release date and country (this was around the same time as when The Handmaiden came out).

In this movie, the main characters are Yoon-ju and Ji-soo. Yoon-ju, an art student who’s a bit shy and not comfortable in her skin, meets Ji-soo while trying to find the right materials for a piece of art she’s working on. While Yoon-ju immediately starts having a crush on her, she realizes in the past she’s only had relationships with men. That’s about to change throughout the course of the film.

Kill Boksoon / 길복순, directed by Byun Sung-hyun

When deciding between The Villainess (which is also another great women-focused movie) and Kill Boksoon, I decided to go with Kill Boksoon for this list because of how it implements humor. Its protagonist is Gil Bok-soon (hence the title being a pun), a contract killer who wants to slowly leave behind this life to take care of her teenage daughter.

However, just as she’s ready to leave it all behind, she gets one last contract that’s going to change everything. Bok-soon is in an incredibly amount of danger, and suddenly everyone and everything she knows and trust will being taken away from her as she has to make a critical decision.

Microhabitat / 소공녀, directed by Jeon Go-woon

Released in 2017, Microhabitat might be one of the hardest movies to find on this list, but it’s certainly worth the adventure of finding it. I watched it on TUBI, but at the time of writing this, it seems like it is no longer on that platform.

Anyways, this movie is about a thirty something named Mi-so, who drifts through life in a not-so-ambitious way. Her priorities include smoking, drinking, and her boyfriend, and she’s going to do what it takes in order to protect the peace she has going on right now.

However, when things get more expensive in her life, she’s unable to afford basic necessities like rent. She decides to abandon paying rent and requests her old bandmates accommodate her temporarily, which makes her situation deteriorate even further.

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