12 Films & TV Shows Set In South Korea During The 1940s
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Superman: Red Son
🇩🇪 Germany 🇷🇺 Russia 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940sSet in the thick of the Cold War, Red Son introduces us to a Superman who landed in the USSR during the 1950s and grows up to become a Soviet symbol that fights for the preservation of Stalin’s brand of communism.
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Love, Lies
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940sA tragedy of jealousy and desires — Two best friends, So-yool and Yeon-hee, dream of becoming the top artists in Seoul together. But their friendship doesn't last long as Yoon-woo, So-yool's first love and songwriter, falls in love with Yeon-hee and her voice. So-yool's feeling of jealousy and inferiority towards Yeon-hee grows by the day, and she eventually makes a drastic decision to bring the two lovers down.
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Assassination
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940s The 1930s The 1910sThe country falls. The operation begins. — In Japanese-occupied Korea, three freedom fighters are assigned a mission to assassinate a genocidal military leader and his top collaborator. But the plan goes completely awry amidst double-crossings, counter-assassinations, and a shocking revelation about one of the assassins' past.
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Jiseul
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940s1948, One Island, One Giant Grave — The populace of a South Korean island rebels against police brutality. The protesters are labeled as communists, and the army is dispatched.
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The Good, the Bad, the Weird
🇰🇷 South Korea Jilin Province Liaoning Province The 1930s The 1940sA Fistful of Fun! — The story of three Korean outlaws in 1930s Manchuria and their dealings with the Japanese army and Chinese and Russian bandits. The Good (a Bounty hunter), the Bad (a hitman), and the Weird (a thief) battle the army and the bandits in a race to use a treasure map to uncover the riches of legend.
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Dachimawa Lee
🇰🇷 South Korea Jilin Province New Jersey The 1940sUnder Japanese imperialism, Korean national treasure Golden Buddha is stolen. More important to national security, the statue contains vital information concerning Korean freedom fighters and their whereabouts as well as their true identities. The interim Korean government appoints legendary Korean spy Agent Dachimawa Lee to recover the fabled statue and reveal the dark plot behind the theft.
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Once Upon a Time
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940sThe film is a heist comedy set in 1940s Korea, and stars Park Yong-woo and Lee Bo-young as a con artist and jazz singer who each plot to steal a valuable diamond from the Japanese authorities.
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Epitaph
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1970s The 1940sLove is the kiss of death. — Dr. Jung Nam finds a photo album dating back to his days as an intern at the Ansaeng Hospital. This triggers memories of his life. In 1942, as a young medical intern, Jung-Nam's arranged marriage ended when his fiancée, whom he had never met, committed suicide. Later he was assigned to monitor the morgue late at night. There he fell in love with a corpse, which is later revealed as the body of his deceased fiancée. Soon other mysterious events take place in the hospital, involving a young girl haunted by ghosts and a serial killer targeting Japanese soldiers.
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Big Fish
Alabama 🇫🇷 France 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1940s The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980sAn adventure as big as life itself. — Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.
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MacArthur
🇯🇵 Japan 🇵🇭 Philippines 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1950s The 1940sThe film portrays MacArthur's (Gregory Peck) life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, the time after he had been removed from his Korean War command by President Truman (Ed Flanders) for insubordination, and is recounted in flashback as he visits West Point.
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Hapkido
🇰🇷 South Korea 🇨🇳 China The 1930s The 1940sHere Comes the Unbreakable China Doll Who Gives You the Licking of Your Life! — Korea, 1934. During the Japanese occupation, there is open warfare between rival martial arts schools. There is a fight in the marketplace, and three Chinese students can't stand the unfair way of students that side up with the invasors, when they gang assault one of the fighting men. Between the three, they send the aggressors away. Retaliation is heavy: their school is destroyed, and they are banished. They return to China, and start their own school, and set out on good-will visits to the other martial arts schools, only to find that everybody in their neighbourhood is already dominated by the Japanese. They have many kung fu fights to win, before they eventually manage to establish peace.
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Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
🇭🇰 Hong Kong 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1950s The 1940sThe price they pay when they come out of their secret garden and face the world in modern-day Hong Kong - makes this one of the screen's unforgettable experiences! — A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.
