Move Over, Hollywood, South Korea Is Eating Your Lunch
Squid Game
I have my issues with South Korean entertainment. For one thing, I can’t get used to the acting style. It sometimes feels that when gentle weeping is called for, the actor will bawl and wail to the heavens. When yelling is in the script, the actor screams loud enough to be heard in North Korea. Perhaps that’s not overacting, but just a cultural thing.
In any case, there is no output from a foreign country that I’ve enjoyed more than South Korea’s. Unlike recent American TV and movies, Korean shows usually feature characters I like. The country’s dramas and comedies have the power to make me do something Hollywood products do not: feel something.
Here are abridged reviews of 14 South Korean shows I’ve praised over the past 14 years. I gave all of them at least a “B” rating. Search the titles for my full reviews.
Squid Game
Squid Game has always been a flawed show. The villainous “V.I.P.s” are cartoonish. Some subplots feel like filler to justify three seasons of the series. But when the show is good, it is very, very good — better, methinks, than any other show I’ve watched in 2025.
Here’s what distinguishes Squid from its thematic forebears: Enough thought has been put into the characters so that, as a viewer, you will care about who wins and who loses. And each of the six deadly children’s games the participants are asked to endure is tense and exciting.
Grade: A-
*
You Are My Spring
You Are My Spring
Maybe it’s because at heart I am a teenage girl, partial to bubble-gum rock and cheesy horror movies, but I liked the show. There’s no question that at times Spring veers into sappiness. The romantic leads, playing characters who are in their 30s, often behave as though they are 13-year-olds in the throes of puppy love. These scenes are sometimes cute, sometimes silly. Yet when the genre-blending series concentrates on its central romance — and even on some secondary romances involving supporting characters — it is sweet and often funny. Grade: A-
*
Parasite
I enjoyed Parasite, in which a rich family is infiltrated by a clan of con artists — think Al Bundy and his goofball brood from Married … with Children, but with Korean faces and street smarts. The movie’s elaborate con and the ensuing carnage are all amusing enough but … is it one of the “best films of the century”? Nope. Not even close. Grade: B
*
#Alive
#Alive
I was attracted to the premise of #Alive, a zombie flick from Korea in which a young man wakes up to discover that the world outside his upper-floor apartment is overrun by snarling brain-eaters. This isn’t as good as the similar-themed I Am Legend, or Korea’s manic Train to Busan, but it will do on a boring Saturday night. Grade: B
*
Burning
Burning
Until its ending, which I thought was unnecessarily ambiguous, Burning felt like a Korean version of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. A young man (Ah-in Yoo) falls in love with a free-spirited girl (Jong-seo Jun) in the first half of the film and then, after the girl vanishes, he spends the second half engaged in an obsessive search that leads to some very dark places. But until that abrupt and unsatisfying ending, the movie is compelling and filled with haunting images. Grade: B+
*
Train to Busan
Train to Busan
It’s refreshing to find a snark-free, sarcasm-free story — like time traveling back to 1950s Hollywood for wholesome, goofy fun but with modern special effects. Busan is non-stop entertaining, with heroes who are clearly good and villains who do all but wear black hats when passengers on a high-speed train do battle with zombies. Grade: B+
*
The Wailing
The Wailing
Locals begin committing bizarre crimes after a mysterious Japanese man moves to their South Korean village, and it’s up to some unsophisticated cops to investigate. The good news: The movie is well-shot, and the final half-hour is both scary and surprising. (Think you’ve figured out the twist? Think again.) The bad news: You do have to sit through two hours of standard-issue horror to reach that entertaining wrap-up. Grade: B
*
Flu
Here’s a big, dumb, special-effects-heavy disaster pic from Korea, inspired by big, dumb, special-effects-heavy disaster pics from Hollywood, but featuring that peculiar Korean mash-up of 1950s wholesomeness and modern sensibilities (the heroine is a single-mother virologist). Grade: B-
*
Oldboy
Korean director Park Chan-wook’s trippy revenge-mystery doesn’t always make sense, and it’s a tad too long, but it’s hard to take your eyes off the screen. And a twist near the end is a real whopper. Grade: B+
*
The Host
The Host, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s homage to 1950s monster-from-hell B movies, is a strange brew of slapstick comedy and serious, environmental commentary. But I also thought that the story, in which a polluted river gives birth to an ill-tempered beast, was consistently entertaining. Grade: B+
*
The Housemaid
The Housemaid
This erotic thriller promises to deliver the mother of all Korean catfights. It doesn’t quite come through, but watching the four female leads as they lie, scheme, and shift loyalties makes for some ticklish good fun in director Im Sang-soo’s remake of a 1960 Korean classic. Grade: B
*
The Good, the Bad, the Weird
The Good, the Bad, the Weird
Although the film is a bit on the long side (130 minutes), The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a screwball Western for people (like me) who think they burned out on Westerns a long time ago. Grade: B+
*
Mother
This isn’t Hitchcock-level material, but Mother does contain some nice surprises, a colorful cast, and a fascinating glimpse at one segment of Korean society. Grade: B
*
Money Heist
Korea’s remake of a hit Spanish show. I enjoyed both versions. I gave the edge to Korea’s version because I thought the actresses were hotter. Sue me. Grade: B
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