I didn't think much of Bittersweet Life, myself. There was clearly some potential, but mostly nothing compelling enough to really grab me aside from a fair amount of style.
Verboten said:
I have A Tale of Two Sisters, but I haven't watched it yet. Was this directer's story in Three Extremes the one with the shallow wife and the obsessed fan? It's the only one I didn't skip through.
That's Three Extremes' "Cut" you're thinking of; Chan-Wook Park (Oldboy, Mr. Vengeance) did that one. That was my least favorite of the three, so our tastes appear to be heading other directions.
Anyway, jetpacks' recommendation for Memories of Murder is spot on. It's one of the finest movies to come out of Korea in a long time, so definitely check that one out. Also recently watched
The President's Last Bang, which was a pretty solid political drama with some thriller and satirical elements.
Not a Korean film, or particularly recent, but if you're able to find it, Shohei Imamura's
Vengeance Is Mine is stunningly good. I won't directly compare it to Bittersweet Life, but it's similar in theme to Memories of Murder: essentially a chronicle of a laborer-turned-killer loose in Japan. Whereas MoM takes this concept from the detectives' point of view, here we see everything from the killer's perspective, much of it in flashbacks. It's such a complex, fascinating film.
