​By Toshiro Diggs

As we continue our discussion of Korean cinema which we claim to be experiencing a golden age, we need to define the pinnacles.  The peak of a golden age does not necessarily have to be singular, it doesn’t have to be one movie that is the zenith of this golden age of Korean cinema.  It could very well that there are individual peaks to every mountain that towers over all other cinematic titans and talents.  

By Zurab Andronikashvili

Doomsday Book is a 2012 South Korean science-fiction anthology film directed by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung.  It contains three separate and rather unique vignettes about human self-destruction in the modern high-tech era.  However, the film can equally be about stories of humanity come together and coming undone simultaneously.  The film’s Korean name translates to A Report on the Destruction of Mankind, which is remarkably accurate.  

By Ahmed Latif

The Thieves is a 2012 Korean heist film in a year that may have been the greatest in Korean cinema’s illustrious history.  The Thieves is also the single greatest heist film of all-time as far as I am concerned.  Directed by the master of deception and red herring storytelling Choi Dong-hoon, it stars Kim Yoon-seok, the beautifully talented Kim Hye-soo, the masterful Lee Jung-jae, Jun Ji-hyun, Oh Dal-su speaking both Chinese and Korean, newcomer Kim Soo-hyun, and Shin Ha-kyun in a cameo role.  

By Madeleine Caprosz

The Tower, a 2012 Korean disaster film, dramatizes a fire that breaks out in a luxury skyscraper in central Seoul on Christmas Eve.  It’s Die Hard meets a fire disaster movie.  The film is directed by Kim Ji-hoon and stars Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Sang-kyung, and Son Ye-jin.  The film is spine-tingling after an hour of buildup (that instead of boring you gets you to fall in love with the characters after a brief glimpse into their lives).  What follows this romantic build up is what feels like four hours of soul crushing heartbreak, darkness, fire sweats, and a rollercoaster gone wild kind of ride.