THE BUTCHER (SOUTH KOREA/2007/KIM JIN-WON)

One of the more unsettling trends in modern cinema is the pseudo-snuff film, designed to trick the viewer into believing they are witnessing an actual murder. This trend is manifest in Hollywood’s brief obsession with torture porn, but few prominent films have chosen to combine the gore with another contemporary trend, the handheld first-person horror. Enter Korea’s The Butcher, a low-budget independent feature just over an hour in length. The titular character is the pig-masked leader of a group of snuff filmmakers, who keep a selection of victims tied up in a basement in preparation for their films. In between torturing their captives into terrified silence, the group discusses the best ways to profit from their horrific scheme.

Clearly inspired by visceral B-movies and Japanese V-cinema, there is nothing new in The Butcher that hasn’t already been achieved, and one wonders what, if anything, director Kim Jin-Won is trying to say. The film switches between the views of two cameras, one held by a member of the Butcher’s group, the other attached to a female victim. One could be generous and suggest that Kim is making a statement about the sort of viewer who indulges voyeuristically in the genre, but there is too much fantasy in the film’s construction for the director to be excused. To his credit, there are moments where it is easy to forget that this is a fiction film, the low production values adding to the realism, but for the most part, The Butcher deserves no attention.

THE HOUSEMAID (SOUTH KOREA/2010/IM SANG-SOO)

In the first five minutes of Im Sang-Soo’s remake of the home invasion classic The Housemaid, a young woman throws herself off a tall building while much of the city goes about its duties unperturbed. With this shocking opener, it feels as if Im is showing he is prepared to match the bravado of Kim Ki-Young’s original, but rather than just recontextualising the story, he shifts the elements around to make a completely new film. Euny takes on a job assisting an older housemaid working for an extremely rich family, but as she is quickly made aware of her inferior class status, she finds herself vulnerable to the advances of the patriarch, Hoon. What he had anticipated to be a casual affair goes terribly awry when Euny falls pregnant, and the family suffers under a mêlée of secrets and lies.

Im has turned the power structure of the original on its head, perhaps in order to reflect a similar change in Korea’s class divide. Whereas the maid of the earlier film exerts predatorial tendencies over the family, Euny is a tabula rasa for her employers to spoil. Im’s parody of upper-class lifestyles is somewhat overwrought, to the exclusion of much-needed characterisation, but the carefully designed household provides many opportunities for clever theatrical camerawork, often emphasising the hierarchy amongst the characters. Unfortunately, the film soon loses its grip on the viewer as the drama grows more intense, particularly as there is very little of the titular character to grasp onto emotionally.

THE HOUSEMAID (SOUTH KOREA/1960/KIM KI-YOUNG)

Frequently named as one of the best Korean films of all time, Kim Ki-Young’s The Housemaid tells a tempestuous story of family values, betrayal and repressed sexuality. An earnest composer and choirmaster, seeing his wife exhausted by her work as a seamstress, asks one of his students to arrange for a housemaid to come round occasionally. Mere moments after her entrance, the young maid raises more than a few eyebrows with her dotty behaviour, and suspicions are soon confirmed when she blackmails the composer into sex. After discovering she is pregnant by him, her behaviour becomes increasingly sinister, manipulating the entire family into pandering to her twisted desires until each member completely breaks down.

While it’s not the most uplifting experience, The Housemaid is an exceptional find, simultaneously applying Hitchcock’s Freudian undercurrents, Douglas Sirk’s woozy melodrama and Yasuzo Masumura’s breathy sensuality. Perhaps it is too over-stimulated by its cinematic successors, but it nonetheless feels new, even watching it almost fifty years after its release (the West’s first exposure to the film was in the late nineties). The character of the maid is one of film history’s best and most effective female villains, a precocious femme fatale well versed in the callous practice of sexual blackmail, a woman with absolutely no compassion. Her first seduction of the composer is an unforgettable scene, her body easily overpowering his despite her comparative daintiness. Some may grimace at the breaking of the fourth wall, but this does nothing to hamper the film’s disturbing impact.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (SOUTH KOREA/2008/KIM JI-WOON)

Embodying all the idiosyncrasies that the paradoxical designation “Oriental western” could conjure up, The Good, The Bad, The Weird opens on a train as three men chase each other to obtain a treasure map. The mayhem develops when the trio disembark the train and continue their hunt on foot, competing with bandits and Japanese soldiers who have come to hear of the map. As tensions rise, the men come to realise that the map itself is of little importance, and a lot is at stake. Budding star Lee Byung-hun, soon to be seen in I Come With The Rain and G.I. Joe, portrays The Bad, a steadfast hitman, while the ursine Song Kang-Ho plays The Weird, a naïve but self-assured thief. Jung Woo-Sung completes the main cast as bounty hunter The Good.

When taken in the context of Kim Ji-Woon’s apparently flawless track record (The Quiet Family, A Tale Of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life), or even in light of other recent Korean success stories, The Good, The Bad, The Weird does look pretty disposable. Admittedly, the director’s trademark plot contrivances are scrapped in favour of straightforward entertainment, and the characters are little more than a Sergio Leone pastiche – but that’s not to say he has grown lazy. Photographically, the film is an incredible feat, the camera almost as well-choreographed as the stuntmen, and it is near impossible not to explode with laughter at some of the more slapstick moments. By no means a classic, but a thoroughly entertaining watch.

CROCODILE (SOUTH KOREA/1996/KIM KI-DUK)

I often cite Kim Ki-Duk as one of my favourite contemporary directors, partly because of his prolificacy, and his remarkable command of extreme emotions. While I absolutely adore the "new-wave" Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...And Spring, The Bow), I also thoroughly enjoy his earlier, grittier films (The Isle, Address Unknown). This film, his debut, is possibly the best and grittiest of the early films.

In a setting that stands somewhere between urban and rural, and filled with Kim Ki-Duk's beloved water motif, we see three misfits (a boy, the title character Crocodile and an elderly man) inexplicably living together on a platform under a bridge. Crocodile is an aggressive character with the shortest of fuses, and who storms around as if the world owes him something. But there's another side to him – intercuts show him diving in the nearby river for respite. When a young woman is seen drowning in the river, Crocodile rushes to her aid, only to expect a lot in return. Horrified by her treatment, she nonetheless returns frequently to bond with the old man and the young boy who remains uninfluenced by Crocodile's irascible nature. Soon she becomes a fixture and it all looks to be coming together for the group, until the gripping climax which changes the lives of all four characters forever.

The photography may be a little crude for some viewers, and the behaviour of Crocodile too brutal, but overall the film is a striking work, and one not easily forgotten.