The best Jo Deok-jae’s drama movies

1986 Gyunggi Province. The body of a young woman is found brutally raped and murdered. Two months later, a series of rapes and murders commences under similar circumstances. And in a country that had never known such crimes, the dark whispers about a serial murderer grow louder. A special task force is set up in the area, with two local detectives Park Doo-Man and Jo Young-Goo joined by a detective from Seoul who requested to be assigned to the case.

Joong-ho is a dirty detective turned pimp in financial trouble as several of his girls have recently disappeared without clearing their debts. While trying to track them down, he finds a clue that the vanished girls were all called up by the same client whom one of his girls is meeting with right now.

Sang-hyun, a respected priest, volunteers for an experimental procedure that may lead to a cure for a deadly virus. He gets infected and dies, but a blood transfusion of unknown origin brings him back to life as a vampire. Now, Sang-hyun is torn between faith and bloodlust, and has a newfound desire for Tae-ju, the wife of his childhood friend.

A woman subject to mental, physical, and sexual abuse on a remote island seeks a way out.

A disgruntled henchman teams up with an ambitious prosecutor to bring down a leading presidential candidate and the news editor behind him who is truly pulling the strings.

26 years ago, state troops were ordered to open fire on civilians in the city of Gwangju who were demonstrating as apart of a democratic movement. Thousands of civilians were killed. Now, a shooter from the national team, a gang member, a policeman, CEO from a large company and director of a private security outfit get involved in a plan to convict the person responsible for the massacre.

The film is based on a true yet unsolved murder case from the early 1990s that is known among Koreans as the "disappearance of the frog children." In 1991, five elementary school students told their parents that they were going to hang out on a nearby mountain to catch frogs, and then they go missing.

A fishing-boat crew takes on a dangerous commission to smuggle a group of illegal immigrants from China to Korea.

A young assassin is sent to kill a retired mob boss. But things get complicated when she begins to like him.

Wanee, 26-year-old animator with 6 years career in her field. Junah, 27-year-old screen playwright, who is working on his debut project. Wanee and Junah are living in the same house. Their love stays mutual but seems tainted with a hint of loneliness. The news of Young-min’s return, who is Wanee’s step-brother and her unattainable first love, leads Wanee back to the fading memories, driving Junah into a state of dilemma as he sees his loved one in such confusion. By the visit of So-yang, who was always together with Young-min and Wanee during the high school days, Junah becomes aware of Wanee’s wound and Young-min’s being. Finally, the development of their love in the past and the present with all its trials and tribulations comes alive in some fantastic animation.

A deadbeat teacher helps an angry, aimless teenager find direction in life during his final year of high school.

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.