With projects such as Parasite, Squid Game and Train to Busan, South Korea has announced its arrival on the global cinematic stage. It’s not by luck or sheer chance that the country has ascended to the top of the film food chain; rather, it can be attributed to a combination of craft and technique.
Despite K-dramas being the dominant genre often associated with the country, South Korean thrillers and slow-burn narratives are steadily gaining popularity around the globe. The Koreans have solidified their capacity to build tension without conforming to genre-based gimmicks, providing a story that gradually builds up to its culmination, and manages to keep the viewer hooked right until the end. Here are some great examples of slow-burn Korean films that are bound to keep you glued to the screen.
10 The Chaser (2008)
Marking Na Hong-jin’s debut, The Chaser is a hybrid film that works as a thriller for the first half before transforming into a police procedural. Displaying his mastery, Hong-jin doesn’t get caught up in the slow-moving drama of a procedural and spices it up with a high stakes cat-and-mouse game between a psychopath and an ex-cop-turned-pimp. Often touted as the poster child for serial killer movies from Korea, The Chaser burns slowly before enveloping itself in flames.
9 Thirst (2009)
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When it comes to horror, Park Chan-wook is one of Korea’s finest directors, who has been there and done that. With Thirst, Park Chan-wook lends a lot of stylistic oeuvre to a somewhat gimmicky vampire genre by making the protagonist a priest who dies after a science experiment gone wrong, only to be resurrected as a vampire and come face-to-face with his thirst for carnality and blood.
8 Broker (2022)
Hirokazu Koreeda’s Broker was one of the most underrated films of 2022, starring South Korean superstars, Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-Won, and Bae Doona. Originating from an absurd, yet endearing plot, the film revolves around two men who steal babies from a church, only to sell them on the black market. Things take a turn for the worse when a mother who left her baby at the church comes back to claim it, and then decides to go on a road trip with the two men to meet the prospective future parents of the baby.
Despite a heavy and somewhat morose premise, Broker is a film full of endearment and heartfelt emotions.
7 The Wailing (2016)
The Wailing is another masterclass in horror and tension-building from Na Hong-jin. The quintessential example of a slow-burn thriller, The Wailing positions itself right in the center of a clash between occult practices and the everyday way of life.
The film starts out with an air of mystery when a mysterious stranger arrives in a small Korean town, coinciding with a series of brutal killings. As dimwitted detective Jong-Goo tries to untangle the mystery behind the case, he comes face-to-face with the unfathomable demonic realities.
6 Mother (2009)
A masterpiece that belongs in the same room with the likes of Oldboy and Memories of Murder, Mother has a lot of characters that have their own set of rights and wrongs along with an aptitude for depth.
Operating on a strange yet, straightforward premise, the film revolves around a man of marginal intelligence who's accused of murder. Unable to defend himself, his dynamo mother takes matters into her own hands to clear her son and truly get to the bottom of things.
5 Oldboy (2003)
Oldboy is violent, visual poetry that’s propelled by a feeling of vengeance. Considered by many to be one of Korea’s most influential films of all time, Park Chan-wook’s tale of revenge justified its violent streak by creating a backstory that's as shocking as it is amusing. More than a film, Oldboy is a quest, that unites the viewer with the protagonist, Dae-su Oh, as he’s released from captivity after years and is on the lookout for answers and revenge.
4 Lady Vengeance (2005)
Completing Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy, Lady Vengeance features similar motifs of blood-curling violence and grisly action sequences. Despite not being as intense and scarring as Oldboy, Lady Vengeance builds up to an intense climax that makes average violent movies seem like PG-13 entertainment. Chan-Wook caps off his trilogy by furthering the ethos of revenge with a stylistic pedigree that’s unmatched by any filmmaker, in Korea or beyond.
3 Burning (2018)
A complex and taut psychological thriller, Burning centers on a deliveryman who makes the acquaintance of a girl who once lived in his neighborhood, only to be sucked into a whirlpool of chaos involving his friend and a mysteriously wealthy man named Ben. A film that’s charged with a lot of metaphors that force the audience to think and question a lot of life’s realities, Burning goes to show that thrillers need not entirely rely on violence to get things moving.
2 Parasite (2019)
Upon its release, Parasite created history by becoming the first non-English language film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while also winning the Palme d’Or. Known for its satirical commentary on class divide, Parasite follows a struggling family that slowly penetrates a rich household and manipulates them to suit their needs. Despite having a straightforward premise, Bong Joon-ho’s film is full of shades of gray, as it skillfully dissects its characters and throws light on how people can go to despicable lengths in order to survive.
1 Memories of Murder (2003)
Arguably one of the greatest thrillers to have ever been made, Memories of Murder is the gold standard of slow-burn cinema. Set in 1986, the film is loosely based on South Korea’s first confirmed serial murders and follows two detectives as they attempt to solve a string of murders involving young women.
What makes Memories of Murder a horrifying film to watch isn’t its excessive use of violence or epic display of gore, it’s the fact that Bong Joon-ho doesn’t end the film with a sense of poetic justice, making it live in the bylines of our memories forever.
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