More than 200 classics of South Korean cinema are streaming for free on YouTube

Last month, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, Okja) was awarded the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his new film Parasite, once again bringing international attention to the ever-growing South Korean film industry. If you’re intrigued with the country’s rich history of cinema, you can now explore at your leisure, for free, on YouTube.

Over the past seven years, the Korean Film Archive’s YouTube page has been slowly growing their catalogue of classic Korean films, and currently hostS over 200 titles primarily from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. It’s unlikely American cinephiles will have heard of most of these films, so we’d recommend either doing a little research or just selecting one at random and seeing how it goes. For example, you could check out Whale Hunting, director Bae Chang-ho’s heartwarming 1984 road trip movie, or dig into Hong Sang-soo’s 1996 debut The Day A Pig Fell Into The Well. You could also take it all the way back to 1959 with the whimsically titled A Dry-Bones And A Fatty Go To The Nonsan Training Station. What have you got to lose? It’s free!

“There’s a lot of Korean talent that could win the Palme,” Joon-ho said during his post-win Cannes press conference. “I would like to do more retrospectives around the world featuring great Korean directors…It is an opportunity for people to learn more about Korean cinema around the world.”

[via The Guardian]

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