Korean cinema’s most notable phenomenon in 2010 was various tests experimented on genre films. Significant changes had occurred to popular genres and genre film directors too showed certain change in their way of thinking. If genre is where desires collide and interact in excuse of public expectations, such change has quite an implication on dynamics of future genres. In the midst of overall market recession, preferring genre films has become more evident leading to diversification and experiments of genres.

The holiday season at the end of year is a big ticket season for Korea as much as summer season, so the blockbusters are held and opened in this season. The movie Warrior’s Way opened at the holiday season with a huge welcoming buzz that JANG Dong-gun made his Hollywood debut. However, the box office turned out a bit disappointing at the opening week, following movies like The Petty Love and Finding Mr. Destiny that appealed to the young audience for their familiar romantic comedy genre.

‘Cultural discount’ is a concept used as an index for calculating the possibility of cultural exchange between regions. It is believed to indicate the rate of acceptance of a cultural product from a particular region by others. For example, pansori, a traditional Korean folk performance, has a high rate of cultural discount, which means that it is not easily translated or accepted in non-Korean territories.

It will be talked about forever. The story of a man pushed into a corner and risking his own life to save a young girl. Sharp and delicate action scenes are inlaid throughout the story. As the tale unfolds, as the fury and despair Tae-sik feels fluctuate, the sentiments behind the action show such amazing amplitude. In the post-The Man from Nowhere era, Korean filmmakers will always be looking back at this precedent and thinking of action director PARK Jung-ryul who took charge of these brilliant action scenes that drive the film.

WON Bin and Ajeossi (Korean title of the film). Until now, no one would ever put these two in the same category. Ever since WON Bin made his existence known to the public, an image of Adonis has always stayed with him as a feature of his own. A word like ‘ajeossi’ generally used as a term for ‘adult male’ in Korean society was impossible to pair with his image. Yet WON Bin has become an ajeossi. One thing for sure is that because of WON Bin, now the word has a new image attached to it. Here is a transformation into an awesome ajeossi.

Chuseok is the biggest holiday in Korea and also the busiest season of the year for box-office. Along with New Year’s holiday, Chuseok season traditionally saw the increasing preference of the audience on Korean films, thus had always been a target point of the Korean film industry. Especially with this year’s Chuseok being longer than usual, the competition among Korean films for box-office became tougher than ever.

One of main features identifying Korean films in 2010 would be the change in ways to deal with the issue of “violence” in movies. It is nothing new that Korean movies have conventionalized and generalized ‘violence’ as a subject matter in movies. The movie series of My Wife Is a Gangster, which was released first in 2001, is the relevant example that violence in movies became popular through comic action genres.

WON Bin had always played a younger brother or a son who stirs up one's protective instinct in Korean movies. His family in the film often got into trouble or caused conflicts to protect and defend him. Brother JANG Dong-kun in Tae-gukki became a war hero to save his younger brother WON Bin, and mother KIM Hae-ja from Mother had to fight to prove her son's innocence.