Queer Korean Cinema: An Introduction

South Korea has yet to sanction gay marriage. But you wouldn't know that necessarily from watching their movies. Repeatedly as an American fan of this country's cinema, I've been startled by how often queer characters are portrayed sympathetically. Gay, lesbian, and trans alike. Don't believe me? Below is a list of a dozen films that I've watched which reveal a spirit of inclusion. Some have won major awards (The King and the Clown, A Frozen Flower, The Handmaiden); others date back over 50 years (Seashore Village, Starting Point). All are worth watching. And in case you think I'm scraping the barrel, I promise you there's plenty more beside the ones listed below. I just figured you've gotta start somewhere.

1. Seashore Village (1965): A pair of cohabitating lesbians in a fishing village may not be the focus of Kim Soo-yong's black-and-white classic but their acceptance by the larger community defies expectations of Korean culture of the day. The real scandal -- and cause of shame -- is adultery.
2. Starting Point (1969): The homoerotic tensions between a Japanese officer and his Korean subordinates are so perverse. Which isn't to say Lee Man-hee's strange war pic condemns the gays. It's highlighting how homophobia twists familial and military relationships. Box office sensation Shin Seong-il stars.
3. Like a Virgin (2006): In this enchanting dramedy, Madonna serves as a secular icon for a trans youth struggling to maintain their dignity while pursuing a sex change operation. (Not sure how well it's aged since I first saw it over a decade ago but I liked it then.)
4. Voice (2005): The fourth installment in the famed Whispering Corridor series of horror flicks more than hints at a lesbian romance. And that's not what makes it scary!
5. The King and the Clown (2005): A tragic romance involving queer clowns sounds absurd, I know, but I promise you Lee Joon-ik's Chosun Dynasty drama will have you weeping real tears.
6. A Frozen Flower (2008): Whether the sex scene involves the king and his male lover or the queen and that same side piece, the action is hot as hell. How many movies make that claim that while decked out in period garb? Bisexuals unite!
7. Two Weddings and a Funeral (2012): Prefer a romcom? Part fluff, part fire, this one features a marriage of convenience between a gay man and a lesbian, while addressing the political realities of oppression.
8. White Night (2012): Can you have a list of queer movies that doesn't include this classic trope: Two cute guys -- one moneyed; one working class. E. M. Forster did his own spin with Maurice, in case you forgot.
9. Man on High Heels (2014): Admittedly, this one if over the top but there's pleasure to be found in Cha Seung-won's turn as a trans cop who'd like to retire so he can fully transition.
10. A Distant Place (2020): Park Kun-young's quiet, melancholic indie flick concerns a gay, small-town romance that starts out strong then falters. It's a slow burn with honest heat.
11. Pumpkin Time (2021): An overeager fairy turns a young boy into a young girl proving that love is love is love, regardless of gender. This movie is full of surprises!
12. The Handmaiden (2016): Park Chan-wook has consistently delivered complex female characters so don't skip this lesbian erotic thriller based on Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith.

Brave Citizen: Meow Meow

I fell hard for Brave Citizen pretty quickly. Once director Park Jin-Pyo and screenwriter Yeo Ji-na had established this action movie is all about a failed female boxer who's going to combat high school bullying by donning a cat mask then punching the perpetrators, I was completely in. (I was one of those teens who reveled in WWE storylines and Brave Citizen is basically the bargain basement version of a superhero origination story without special effects or delusions of grandeur.) As the central pugilist-turned-teacher So Si-min, Shin Hye-sun does a terrific job at being both downtrodden and determined. You know she deserves better than this secondrate job at a high school where the overaged senior Han Soo-kang (Lee Jun-young) is making life miserable for faculty and students alike because he's rich, sadistic, and has connections in the police force. And you can see how she'd naturally make strong aliances with experienced educator Lee Jae-kyeong (Cha Cheong-hwa) and boyfriend cop Lee Kwon-joong (Lee Chan-Hyeong).

Then once you meet her goofy dad (Park Hyuk-kwon), you just know that she's unlikely to take the safe path to job security if it means overlooking the horrendous hazing being directed at Jin-hyeong (Park Jung-woo) who happens to be the grandson of the sweet old lady (Son Sook) who street-vends the best kimbap in her neighborhood. Is Brave Citizen predictable? Very much so. Farfetched? Oh, hell yes. But I liked watching a cat-masked Si-min overcome obstacles while executing fabulous taekwondo moves, whether the man getting kicked in the face is in the ring or on the sidewalk. This one's a knockout. Sequel please.

An Unattached Unit: United They Stood, Together They Fought

Injured soldiers and local civilians band together to fight the enemy — yankees and South Koreans, natch — in the stock North Korean war pic, An Unattached Unit. The time is the Korean war; the message, as current as ever. Everything, and I mean everything, must be sacrificed to protect the motherland. For the cheery Scout (Chang Gol Hyon), that means a longshot chance to marry the commander's pretty sister. For the skittish Bookkeeper (Kim Chol Hyon), a newly repaired, portable phonograph and a stash of buried money. And for the Instructor (Choe Tae-hyon), his eyesight. Even the surgeon knows that she may have to blow herself up to secure a temporary victory on behalf of this makeshift troop of unwavering patriots.

No one flinches at the idea of putting their life on the line. They may not like it when they get shot in the leg or end up with shrapnel in their face but not a single soul is second guessing the fight over flight ethos that guides their actions. This is a film in direct opposition to the feel-good individualism that leads to the "one man saves all" trope of Hollywood. The unit's commander (Choe Pong-sik) is dedicated, fairly clear-headed, and a team-builder. What he isn't is clever, invincible, or a motivational speaker. He's a man of few words in a way that's almost bland. Not that Kang Jung-mo's agit-prop flick is skirting with realism. It's just that the propaganda is completely out of sync with American me-first ideals. Survival is a group concept North of the border.

The Grace Lee Project: She's All That

Nice. Smart. Quiet. These are the most common adjectives used to describe Grace Lee. But which Grace Lee are we talking about? Seemingly all of them. In Grace Lee's giddily entertaining documentary The Grace Lee Project, one Asian American female stereotype gets demonstrated and debunked, upended and celebrated as the movie's intrepid, globehopping narrator interviews a series of women who happen to share her given name. It's oddly fascinating. And impossibly charming. You see, Lee, the filmmaker, can't escape the cliches as she vacilates between searching for points of connection and points of distinction. Instead she abandons the self-reflective, introspective query "Who am I?" for the outward looking question, "Who are you?" Her escalating curiosity is contagious.

Because in some weird way Grace Lee could be anybody: the newscaster in Hawaii; the Detroit social activist fighting the good fight at 88 years old; the preacher's wife; the preacher's kid; the hearing-impaired mother who escapes an abusive household of white, adoptive parents to go on and rescue a friend and that woman's three children from a similar cycle of domestic abuse. There's also — much less visibily — a cruiseship cabaret chanteuse, a panicked teen who sets fire to her high school, and a former lesbian organizer in South Korea who wants to disappear so as not to upset her parents. How much does one's name influences one's identity? And what if our differences somehow draw us together instead of pull us apart? Quirky and spirited, The Grace Lee Project starts off as preposterous but ends up profound.

Hunt: Sadistic Spy Games

I miss the days when gunshots were few and far between in South Korean action pics. I also have a hard time with movies that involve interogations using torture because the violence seems so pointless since people often confess to whatever the accusation is when under extreme physical duress. Which brings me to Hunt, the weapon-heavy, gratuitously battering directorial debut of Squid Games actor Lee Jung-jae. In this spy pic about an attempted presidential assassination, the bullets fly with some regularity but the more effective conflicts are strictly mano a mano...like when two opposing police-like factions meet in a hospital hallway and one of the leaders shouts out "Push through!" Mob meet mob.

As for the two men helming these two rival groups, one heads the foreign arm of the South Korean Agency for National Security Planning; the other, the national branch. Both men are deeply corrupt. (Is it just me or would lead actors Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo-sung make an sensational pairing for a Korean version of Sam Shepard's True West?) That one of them is fighting for peaceful reconciliation between the two Koreas is ludicrous to the extreme. Hat tips to Jeon Hye-jin as a persistent third-in-command, Jeong Man-sik as an eventually-comatose agent, and Hwang Jung-min as a North Korean defector with sass because even overlong movies that don't quite work can come with fine performances.

The Distributors: One Bad Thing After Another

There's something pleasurably voyeuristic about The Distributors, Hong Seok-Ku's crackerjack thriller about a teacher (Park Sung-hoon) whose future plans for marrying rich are sabotaged when he's rufied at a club then filmed nude, barking like a dog for two VIP girls. But you don't feel bad for him. Because he's done the same thing more or less — with his fiance (Kim So-eun), noless — and he's recently given a pass to two students who are pretty much going down the same road. So I, for one, didn't mind seeing his life fall apart. Piece by piece. Plus, he lies so much that, while his motives are plausible, you also know that his character is basically shit. So if he's not the hero, what is this?

Can a movie work if it's the extended comeuppance of a bad guy? Is there anything this shady high school teacher could do that would provide him with redemption? Perhaps. There are two routes available: One would involve him truly owning his misdeeds then making amends; the other would be to show another character who is even more despicable than him, like the guy who videotapes a nerdy male student (Lee Hyun-so) acting like a girl while masturbating then gets that same guy to be his stooge. Lest you think The Distributors is strictly exploitation with its clueless sex-cam workers and remorseless amateur pornographers, let me set you straight. This cautionary tale does a really good job of illustrating how our collective cultural failure to hold people accountable for their actions creates a brutal domino effect as one forgiven bad act begets another.