The best Son Byung-ho’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Son Byung-ho’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Son Byung-ho.
Empire Of Lust
6/10
Set in 1398. Kim Min-Jae (Shin Ha-Kyun) is the supreme commander of the Joseon Dynasty. He falls in love for the first time and for that woman he takes risks. Yi Bang-Won (Jang Hyuk) is the King’s son. He helped his father setup the Joseon Dynasty era, but he was not picked as the Crown Prince. He still holds ambitions of becoming the King one day. Jin (Kang Ha-Neul) is Kim Min-Jae’s son and the King’s son-in-law. Due to his position as the King's son-in-law, he is unable to take part in politics and only seeks out pleasure.
Night in Paradise
6.8/10
An assassin named Tae-goo is offered a chance to switch sides with his rival Bukseong gang, headed by Chairman Doh. Tae-goo rejects the offer that results in the murder of his sister and niece. In revenge, Tae-goo brutally kills Chairman Doh and his men and flees to Jeju Island where he meets Jae-yeon, a terminally ill woman. Though, the henchman of the Bukseong gang, Executive Ma is mercilessly hunting Tae-goo to take revenge.
Oasis
7.8/10
Oasis is a love story of two young people abandoned by families. A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving. There he meets her daughter, wheelchair bound with cerebral palsy. Will these two lost people find a way to make their relationship work?
Failan
7.5/10
After losing both her parents, Failan emmigrates to Korea to seek her only remaining relatives. Once she reaches Korea, she finds out that her relatives have moved to Canada well over a year ago. Desperate to stay and make a living in Korea, Failan is forced to have an arranged marriage through a match-making agency.
The Magician
5.9/10
A Princess in the Joseon Dynasty travels to the Qing Dynasty to marry. On the way to there, she meets a young magician and falls in love with him.
Red Family
6.5/10
Based on a screenplay by the prolific Kim Ki-duk. Two families live next door to each other in identical suburban white houses with green lawns. One family is from South Korea, the other is a fake family assembled from North Korean spies. The North Koreans must strictly obey every order from their regime, who holds their real families hostage. The problem is that the families affect each other and after a while, the political rift in the North Korean house becomes apparent. Naturally, there also occurs cross-border romantic entanglements between old and young alike.
The President's Barber
6.9/10
A well-meaning but politically naive barber gets pulled into the inner circle of the South Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee, with rather baleful consequences for his hapless family. This sharp political satire covers roughly twenty years in South Korean political history, from the viewpoint of the barber's son.
May 18
6.9/10
The citizens of Gwangju lead a relatively peaceful life, until one day the military takes over the city, accusing the residents of conspiracy and claiming that they are communist sympathisers preparing a revolution against the current government. Seeing as the soldiers beat defenceless people, mainly students, to death, the citizens are in for retaliation and form a militia.
Ardor
5.7/10
In revenge for her husband's infidelity, a young beautiful housewife, Mi-heun, starts an affair with an attractive young doctor, In-gyu. Despite her husband's efforts to regain her love and the disapproval by the conservative little town, Mi-huen gradually finds happiness and satisfaction in the affair and decides to turn her back on her quiet life.
Perfect Game
6.9/10
The Lotte Giants' Choi Dong-won and the Haitai Tigers' Seon Dong-ryeol are rival pitchers in 1980s baseball. The film reenacts the legendary match of May 16, 1987, which baseball fans today still recall as "the perfect match," when Choi and Sun compete as pitchers for the last time.
Excavator
6.6/10
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.
Fly, Penguin
Seung-yun is stressed out because he is sent to several private academies after school. His mother reproves him for not living up to her expectations. His father takes pity on him for being nagged on by his mother all the time... Ju-hun, a new employee at a company, is a vegetarian and cannot drink alcohol at all. Chang-su thinks Ju-hun is eccentric and is displeased with him... Su-hyeong sent his son and daughter with his wife to study abroad, but he grows tired of staying alone in his empty house... SONG has lived with her authoritarian husband without any serious problems, but she does not want to stay with him anymore. GWON, an old man, pretends to be calm in the face of his wife’s request for divorce. But actually he can’t do anything by himself... These are not unfamiliar fictional events but rather they reflect the lives of ordinary people in Korea at the present time. Through their stories, shows us how a society imposes normalcy on its people in their daily lives.
Flower Island
6.4/10
The film is in three parts. The first introduces three women who are separately suffering from their own psychological injuries. In the second part, the three women encounter each other and other people as they are each on a journey to an island reputed to have healing powers. The last third of the film deals with the characters on a boat headed to the island.
I Am a Father
6.2/10
Corrupt detective Han Jong-sik (Kim Seung-woo) takes care of a gang and gets kickbacks to save his daughter. One day he gets news from the organ transplant coordinator that they have found a heart for his daughter (kim Sae-ron). However, he finds out the donor is magician Na Sang-man (Son Byeong-ho) who he put false charges over and was in jail. Sang-man lost his young daughter and wife and became a vegetative state himself. Jong-sik guesses he wouldn’t allow the transplant so he plans a way to get rid of him. Just as Sang-man is about to go over in the hands of a gang and get surgery, he realizes the plan and disappears with Jong-sik’s daughter.
Don't Go Too Far
5.9/10
Ahead of their father’s death, four siblings gather at the oldest brother’s house. The will is announced in a notary’s presence and complaints burst forth. Suddenly a phone call comes in from a kidnapper claiming to have the oldest brother’s son.
Miss Staff Sergeant
5/10
Yu-mi applies to a marine outfit to become their first female member. Finding out about their NO woman-policy, she pushes herself to the extreme and fils a petition. After overcoming many obstacles, she is finally accepted for her outstanding performance. However, conflicts never cease between sergeants and Yu-mi, who’s new to the tradition and culture of the marines. Following the sudden death of a trainee, Sergeant HA, she is appointed to the head of the team. Highly motivated Yu-mi loses her troupe's trust after losing IBS. The team is in danger of dissolution due to the loss of a magazine.
Indian Summer
6.3/10
A woman stands trial for her life with a lawyer who is determined to save her despite her refusal to be saved.
A Smile
5.6/10
This debut feature from female Korean director Park Kyung-hee tells the story of a photographer whose life is changed indelibly when she discovers she has a rare disease which causes tunnel vision and possible eventual blindness. Divided into four sections, it depicts the break-up of her relationship with her boyfriend, her problems with her old-fashioned family, her attempts to deal with her disease through her art and, finally, her desire to fly an airplane before she loses her sight entirely.
Total Messed Family
6/10
Violent, stubborn, and nasty Won-man is the worst father and husband. Being sick of his father, Won-man’s son, Tae-bong ran away from home 6 years ago. One day Tae-bong comes back home with his pregnant wife. No longer a feeble boy like old days, Tae-bong tries to pay back his father for what he had in the past.
Thirsty, Thirsty
GU Chang-sik is a debt collector working day and night to reform Korea’s fiscal order and dreaming of becoming the ‘King of debt collecting’, so that he can earn a tremendous salary. Unfortunately, he is the last man in the race for three months in a row. One day he meets three debtors, which leads to the comedy of the film: KWAK Seon-ju, a young debtor who is struggling hard to raise a child alone; CHO Eul-sang, who goes bankrupt after his company collapsed but tries to keep his house for his soon-to-be-married daughter; and SHIM Su-gyo, who fails to get a job after graduating from a local university and falls into the private loan business.
