The South Korean film industry - not unlike much of the wider global industry – is dominated by male figures. Indeed, Korea’s leading auteurs are male, while narratives in Korean cinema are also frequently male-led. However, female filmmakers in Korea have made an indelible impact and continue to do so. Last year, three of the films that broke-even Citizen of a Kind (2024), Pilot (2024), Following (2024) were helmed by women.

Some of the changes that occurred in the film industry in the 1990s have played a role in helping female directors get the opportunities they deserve. Perhaps one of the most significant was in the sector of education with film schools like KAFA (Korean Academy of Film Arts)) that have not only trained female directors but have also given opportunities for filmmakers to make shorts and features. Technology too – not least the transition to digital in the late 2000s and early 2010s – has made filmmaking less prohibitive for young aspiring directors.

Equally important are Korea’s major festivals: Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) in screening many of the works by Korea’s richly talented filmmakers. Yim Soon-rye’s Waikiki Brothers (2001) opened JIFF in 2001, while Kim Bora’s award-winning House of Hummingbird (2018) along with Yoon Danbi’s Moving On (2019) and Kim Se-in’s The Apartment with Two Women (2021) premiered at BIFF before securing invites to other festivals.

It's not just in the realm of directing, of course, where female talent is evident - it’s across all the different professions within the film industry with figures like producer Shim Jae-myung (JSA), production designer Ryu Seong-hee (Memories of Murder) and translator Sharon Choi.

This week we will profile some of the significant works by female filmmakers beginning with the first film to be directed by a woman, The Widow (1955) by Park Nam-ok. It will then turn to range of independent and commercial films including Byun Young-joo’s The Murmuring (1995), Jeong Jae-eun’s Take Care of My Cat (2001), Yim Soon-rye’s Forever the Moment (2001) and E. Oni’s Love in the Big City (2024).

The Widow (1955)

Park Nam-ok’s The Widow is in the history books for being Korea’s first film by a female director, but it was a challenging journey bringing it to the big screen. The director was prevented from entering the sound recording studios after shooting was finished because she was a woman, and she was photographed with a baby strapped to her back while on set. The film was even pulled from screens after its theatrical release making it emblematic of the immense difficulties female directors experienced as the industry was entering its golden age. Park Nam-ok sadly would make just one film.

The film’s narrative centers around a widow, Shin-ja (Lee Min-ja) who is struggling to make ends meet raising her daughter. She gets help from a friend of her late husband who is married, while she also becomes attracted to another man who is single. It’s a film that captures the tensions between what society expects of a widow, and the personal desires of this female protagonist. 

The film was largely forgotten until it was screened at the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival in 1997 underscoring the importance of festivals in showcasing the work of these directors. It also formed part of the 50/50 Celebrating 50 Years of Korean Preservation at the Far East Film Festival, Udine in 2024.

The Murmuring (1995)

Also highly significant was Byun Young-joo’s documentary The Murmuring (1995), which documents six survivors of forced sexual slavery (known as “comfort women”) during the Second World War when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese Colonial Rule (1910-1945). The women who live in a home called “House of Sharing” in Seoul are demanding a formal apology and compensation from the Japanese government.

Having met with the subjects regularly a year before shooting the documentary, Byun cleverly delves into their stories and traumas shedding light on the horrors experienced by these women. The Murmuring is the first installment of Byun’s “Comfort Women” trilogy that also consists of Habitual Sadness (1997) and My Own Breathing (1999). The Murmuring was the first 16mm documentary to secure a theatrical release in Korea.

Byun Young-joo, a founding member of the feminist filmmaking collective called Bariteo would go on to make several films spanning different genres including the melodrama Ardor (2002) and the psychological thriller Helpless (2012) featuring Kim Min-hee.

Take Care of my Cat (2001)

Considered by many Korean cinema experts and researchers as one of the great Korean films of the early 2000s, Take Care of My Cat (2001) by Jeong Jae-eun attracted critical acclaim for how it captures the difficulties of a group of young women who are making the transition from high school into adulthood as Korean society is rapidly evolving.

Featuring Bae Doona, Lee Yo-won, Ok Ji-young, Lee Eun-shil and Lee Eun-jo as friends living in the port city of Incheon, Jeong’s layered coming-of-age film chronicles them as cracks in their friendships appear.  With a keen interest in architecture that is evident in Jeong’s later documentaries such as City: Hall (2013), she uses her lens to capture Korea’s sea of concrete buildings in Incheon, and also as the characters make their way into Seoul on a meetup.

The film was invited to an array of film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival and it also was theatrically released in the UK making it one of the first Korean films to do so – ahead of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) and Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder (2003).

Forever the Moment (2008) & The Point Men (2023)

While developments in financing and Korea’s studio system in the 1990s and 2000s led to blockbusters and higher budget films, this mostly benefited male directors. This is illustrated by the fact that female directors during this period were largely working in the independent sector or making commercial titles with lower budgets. In the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, Korea’s blockbusters were mostly made by men.

One director who became commercially successful was Yim Soon-rye whose Forever the Moment (2008) turned into a box office hit accruing 4 million admissions. It’s based on the true story of the South Korean handball team that competed in the finals of the Athens Olympics in 2004. The female-led film stars Moon So-ri, Kim Jung-eun, Kim Ji-young as the players, and Uhm Tae-woong as a coach.

Although some female directors have decided to focus on female characters, Yim hasn’t always done so underscored by one of her earlier acclaimed films Waikiki Brothers (2001) and her most recent feature The Point Men (2023). While the former was a low-budget title, The Point Men was on the other end of the scale budgeted at 15 billion won. It was the first time a female director helmed a title costing more than 10 billion won to produce.

Shot overseas and featuring two of the most high-profile stars in Korean cinema - Hyun Bin and Hwang Jung-min - the feature was filmed in Jordan and depicts the 2007 hostage crisis that unfolded when 23 Korean Christians were kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Taking a different approach to the blockbuster formula, it relies less on spectacle-driven set-pieces.  The melodrama is also less pronounced compared to other Korean blockbusters enabling to her leave her mark on tentpole features.

The Truth Beneath (2016)

Lee Kyoung-mi emerged in the 2000s with her acclaimed feature Crush and Blush (2008) that was produced by Park Chan-wook. She continued to collaborate with the auteur on her sophomore feature The Truth Beneath (2016). Park co-wrote the script together with Lee and other screenwriters including Jeong Seo-kyeong who has also frequently worked with Park as a writer on most of his Korean-language projects since Lady Vengeance (2005).

Lee’s The Truth Beneath (2016) tells the story of a woman (Son Ye-jin) whose child has been kidnapped during the election campaign of her husband (Kim Joo-hyuk) who is seeking a seat in Korea’s National Assembly. Political narratives in Korean cinema tend to focus on male characters Inside Men (2015), Asura: The City of Madness (2016)) but The Truth Beneath refreshingly places an emphasis on the female protagonist superbly acted by Son Ye-jin while Lee also injects it with much style and substance echoing some of the work of Park Chan-wook.

Lee has also participated on Park’s next project, No Other Choice (2025) as a co-screenwriter that could premiere at a major festival in the fall.  The film stars Son Ye-jin and Lee Byung-hun.

House of Hummingbird (2018)

Kim Bora’s House of Hummingbird (2018) was a hugely significant debut feature. After Premiering in Busan in New Currents, it would go on to screen at multiple festivals and pick up numerous accolades including the Best International Narrative Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. Along with filmmakers such as Yoon Danbi and Kim Se-in, Kim was part of younger generation of young female directors that were emerging in the 2010s and 2020s.

Set in the 1990s, House of Hummingbird is partly inspired by Kim’s own childhood as it follows a middle school student, Eun-hee (Park Ji-hu) who lives with her parents and older brother and sister. As she tries to make sense of the world around her growing up, she forms a connection with one of her tutors, Young-ji (Kim Sae-byuk).

Important to the chain of events is the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in Seoul that occurred in 1993. Although not a disaster film as it’s more of a coming-of-age independent drama, the film’s backdrop of the 1990s deals with the consequences of a rapidly changing society.  

Park Ji-hu was lauded for her performance as the lead. She then went on to feature in the popular Netflix series All of Us are Dead (2022) as well as Little Women (2022) and Concrete Utopia (2023).

Hommage (2021)

Shin Su-won’s Hommage (2021) highlights the difficulties facing female directors in both the past and present centering on a filmmaker played by Lee Jung-eun (Parasite) who is tasked with restoring the 1962 feature A Woman Judge by Hong Eun-won.

Conditions for female directors have improved since the 1960s illustrated through the generations of directors that have worked in the industry over the past three decades, but they still don’t enjoy the same opportunities as their male counterparts. This reflects the wider gender disparity in society as the film makes reference to in what a charming and engrossing feature.

Shin Su-won, formerly a writer and middle school teacher entered the film industry with her short film Passerby#3 (2010) before directing Circle Line (2012) that won the Canal+ Prize in Cannes Critics’ Week. She made her feature debut with Pluto (2012) and has since made several features.

Hommage premiered in the International Competition section at the Tokyo International Film Festival before screening at Sydney Film Festival, Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, among others. 

Love in the Big City (2024)

Released in 2024 after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, E. Oni’s Love in the Big City is a romantic comedy unlike few other Korean romcoms. Based on Park Sang-young’s novel of the same name, it’s set in Seoul and centers on two protagonists: the fiercely independent Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) and a young gay man Heung-soo (Noh Sang-hyun) as they both navigate love and life in the big city.

Deviating from other films of the genre, at the heart of the film is not a romantic relationship between the pair but rather it’s a story of friendship. Encountering rampant prejudice as a gay man in Seoul, Heung-woo has to harbor a secret unable to fully express himself, while Jae-hee seeks to support him.

With acclaimed performances by both leads – Noh Sang-hyun won the coveted New Actor award at the Blue Dragon Awards – and intelligent direction by E. Oni, it’s a title that is likely to continue to resonate with viewers over the weeks, months and years to come.

The director entered the film scene in the early 2000s working as a script editor Take Care of My Cat (2001) before making her feature debut with ...ing (2003). Her other directing credits include Missing (2016) and The Accidental Detective 2: In Action (2018).

Written by Jason Bechervaise

Editted by kofic