For context, the Gwangju Uprising is probably the most important event in South Korea’s democratization. A Taxi Driver is not only entertaining, but also highly important to Korean society and history.Ī Taxi Driver is based on the true story of a taxi driver who drove a German reporter through a military blockade to cover the 1987 Gwangju Uprising. However, this isn’t just some thoughtless Transformers-like blockbuster.

Our top Korean movie of 2017 is A Taxi Driver - which also happens to be the highest grossing movie in South Korea for the year. Korean title: 택시운전사 (Taeksi Unjeonsa) | Starring: Song Kang-ho, Thomas Kretschmann, Yoo Hae-jin I can’t emphasize the action enough… there’s a LOT of fighting. You not only learn about an important part of Korean history, but also see a huge amount of action. As WWII winds down, the Koreans on the island must band together and escape from their Japanese captors.īattleship Island came in fourth at the 2017 Korean Box Office, and it’s easy to see why.

The 2017 movie Battleship Islandis a highly dramatized account of Korean life on the real-life Battleship Island. Hwang Jung-min (from Ode to My Father) stars as the main character, a musician who’s forced to work on the island.

This is something that still causes Japan-Korea tensions to this day. During WWII, the Japanese forced thousands of Koreans to work on the island under appalling conditions. Remember that creepy island in the James Bond movie Skyfall? Well, it’s actually a real place called Battleship Island, off the coast of Nagasaki. Korean title: 군함도 (Gunhamdo)| Starring: Hwang Jung-min, So Ji-sub, Song Joong-ki, Lee Jung-hyun

Best movies 2017 list