Starting this weekend, Sept 1st through Sept 17th, 2023, ‘Film at Lincoln Center’ and ‘Subway Cinema’ present a new series, “Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade: The 1960s”. All films will screen at the Walter Reade Theater in New York with each film receiving multiple screenings over the slightly more than 2-week period, many of those screenings coming via archival 35mm prints. The series of 24 films aims to be one of the most comprehensive programs on Korean Cinema to be screened outside of Korea itself and features lauded films that were helped with curation by the Korean Film Archive.

The series opens strong with The Housemaid, Special Agent x-7, Aimless Bullet, and more all garnering initial screenings on the opening weekend. The Housemaid, generally considered one of the first true classics of Korean cinema, features a story of love and obsession that predates Hollywood takes like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct by decades, and while the film never gets as lurid of those two films, it was still considered exceptionally provocative for its day. Special Agent X-7 is a unique inclusion as director Chung Chang-wha, or Chang-hwa Joeong as he is better known, would leave Korea and find immense success in the Shaw Brothers studio directing films like the immortal classic King Boxer aka Five Fingers of Death. This is a rare opportunity to see an early project from such a heralded action director. Aimless Bullet was once banned across Korea for taking a seditious look at the postwar reconstruction of Korea that took the government and more to task. Now considered a classic in Korea, Aimless Bullet offers a unique look at a director bucking the system and telling his own truth.

But those who know us here at In The Seats know we love a gold old-fashioned Kaiju film and the series delivers one of the goofiest of the entire genre with The Great Monster Yonggary, more commonly known as Yongary, Monster from the Deep. Coming out in 1967, long after Godzilla himself had transitioned from the menace of the 1954 original film into the more kid-friendly version of 1967’s Son of Godzilla, Yongary is much more in tune with the campiness of the latter. Complete with annoying kid sidekick Icho, Yongary comes off like the malformed, mentally challenged distant cousin of Godzilla, from his mother’s side. Unlike Godzilla, Yongary appears to be a prehistoric creature, not born of atomic testing, that is consumed with fossil fuels. But the insanely limited budget and poor effects only play into the goofy charm of this film overall.  Is this a classic of the genre? Hell no, but it’s a lot of fun if you just let yourself be enveloped by it. Plus the fact that this film is screening on the very last copy of 35mm film print known in existence should make this a must-see, well that and the infamous kaiju dance party scene.

Director Kim Ki-Duk (not THAT Kim Ki-Duk) would become a prolific director in Korea, having directed 66 projects before his passing, and another one of his films, The Burning Youth, also plays in this series. But there’s also plenty more to discover here including an example of early Korean horror with A Bloodthirsty Killer, another Chung Chang-wha actioner with A Swordsman in the Twilight, 2 of the earliest examples of Korean Animation from director Shin Dong-hun with The Story of Hong Gil-dong and Hopi and Chadol-Bawi, both from 1967.

For more information on the series, including scheduling and ticket information, visit https://www.subwaycinema.com/.