18 Films & TV Shows Set In South Korea During The 1980s
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Miracle: Letters to the President
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sDreaming of making a way station for his sister and the villagers who have no choice but to commute along the dangerous train tracks every day, Joon-kyung sends many letters to the President, but with no reply. Ra-hee, who has a crush on Joon-kyung, does everything she can to help him meet the President.
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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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A Taxi Driver
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sBased on true events, an untold story of a taxi driver. — May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.
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1987: When the Day Comes
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sIn 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.
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Foxcatcher
Pennsylvania District of Columbia Florida 🇫🇷 France 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s The 1990sBased on the shocking true story — The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul - a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
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Hot Young Bloods
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sTotally Energized — A comedy romance movie about the last generation of youths and their passionate romance based in Hongseong, Chungcheong Namdo in the 1980s.
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Nameless Gangster
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s The 1990s The 2010sPower Cannot Be Taken Alone — A corrupt customs official joins forces with a vicious gangster to form the most powerful crime partnership in Busan.
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26 Years
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s26 years ago, state troops were ordered to open fire on civilians in the city of Gwangju who were demonstrating as apart of a democratic movement. Thousands of civilians were killed. Now, a shooter from the national team, a gang member, a policeman, CEO from a large company and director of a private security outfit get involved in a plan to convict the person responsible for the massacre.
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National Security
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sOn September 4, 1984, democracy movement leader Kim Jong Tae (Park Won Sang) is arrested and taken to an infamous interrogation facility in Namyeong-dong. For the next 22 days, he would be cruelly and continuously tortured in all manners by interrogators intent on forcing him to confess to communist collaboration.
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Sector 7
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s The 2010sIn Sector 7, an underwater oil field located south of Jeju Island, Hae-jun is working as a marine equipment manager on an oil prospecting ship called Eclipse. Joining the crew later is Jeong-man, a former colleague of Hae-jun's father, assigned to Eclipse as captain. Though his job is to oversee the withdrawal of the ship, he suggests conducting some drilling one last time.
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May 18
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sThe citizens of Gwangju lead a relatively peaceful life, until one day the military takes over the city, accusing the residents of conspiracy and claiming that they are communist sympathisers preparing a revolution against the current government. Seeing as the soldiers beat defenceless people, mainly students, to death, the citizens are in for retaliation and form a militia.
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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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Oldboy
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980s The 2000sLaugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone. — With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate businessman seeks revenge on his captors.
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Memories of Murder
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sThe worst of them will stay with you... forever — 1986 Gyunggi Province. The body of a young woman is found brutally raped and murdered. Two months later, a series of rapes and murders commences under similar circumstances. And in a country that had never known such crimes, the dark whispers about a serial murderer grow louder. A special task force is set up in the area, with two local detectives Park Doo-Man and Jo Young-Goo joined by a detective from Seoul who requested to be assigned to the case.
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Bungee Jumping of Their Own
🇰🇷 South Korea 🇳🇿 New Zealand The 1980s The 2000sA male teacher starts to suspect that one of his male students is the reincarnation of his first love.
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A Petal
🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sA young girl is caught up in the 1980 Gwangju massacre, where Korean soldiers killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters who opposed the country's takeover by the military the year before. Flashbacks show the girl seeing her mother shot to death in the massacre. The film spurred the Korean public to demand the truth behind the incident, and their government eventually opened previously classified files on the massacre.
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Pentathlon
California Georgia 🇩🇪 Germany 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1970s The 1980s The 1990sJust do it... or die! — When East German Eric Brogar wins a gold medal in the pentathlon, he escapes to freedom in the west with the help of a beautiful American athlete. But his demanding coach, Heinrich Mueller vows revenge and Eric's best friend and his father pay the ultimate price for his freedom when they are killed by the Secret Police. In Los Angeles, Eric starts to train for the gold again. But when Mueller comes to America, Eric must win the most deadly game of all… the fight for his life.
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Mayumi: Virgin Terrorist
🇧🇭 Bahrain 🇮🇶 Iraq 🇰🇵 North Korea (DPRK) 🇰🇷 South Korea The 1980sTwo North Korean terrorists posing as Japanese tourists under the names of Shin Icho and Ma Yumi, blow up a Korean Airline flight enroute to Baghdad. When investigators catch up with the two in Bahrain, they take suicide pills but Ma Yumi is revived and forced to stand trial for her crimes.
