2012 Year in Review: My Top 10

And now as is the annual tradition, here is my Top 10 Films of 2012. While a number of my favourite films of the year weren't actually new releases, I've gone along with the tradition of only including films released in 2012. 

Some films that I was really looking forward to that were solid but just missed the cut included Kim So-young's For Ellen, Chung Ji-young's National Security and Pen-ek's Headshot. I also saw a good number of excellent docos (as you can see by the top 10), some of my favs included Planet of Snail, The Reason Why I Step, Arirang and Buck. A few surprises that impressed me were Kim Ki-duk's Amen, the Canadian comedy Starbuck, the Korean indie hit Dangerously Excited, the Andy Lau starring A Simple Life and the quasi-doco The Imposter. My guilty pleasure of the year has to go to Spy Kids 4.

My favourite performances of the year have to go to Choi Min-sik in Nameless Gangster. Yoo Jun-sang in In Another Country and Ryoo Seung-ryong in All About My Wife, while I developed big crushes on Choi Yoon-yeong (As One), Kim Byul (Dangerously Excited) and Kang Soo-yeon (Hanji).

My biggest disappointment of the year has to go to The Thieves, not because of the hype but because I thought all the amazing cast were completely wasted. I also thought Yoo Ji-tae's foray into directing was an absolute disaster with the horrible Mai Ratima, a huge disappointment as I love any film about Korea-Thai relations. Maybe I just couldn't get over the fact he cast a Korean as the Thai immigrant. Other honorable mentions for being terrible films include Perfect Number, Miss Conspirator and Prometheus (may as well chuck it in too).

Read on below for mini reviews of my top 10. Agree, Disagree, comment below.

The 120 Korean Films I Watched in 2012

Other Articles
2010 Year in Review: Film Log, Year in Review: At the Cinema, Year in Review: Top 10 

2011 Year in Review: Film Log, Year in Review: At the Cinema, Year in Review: Top 10

2012 Year in Review: Film Log, Year in Review: Korean Cinema, Year in Review: Top 10

Below is a list of all the Korean films I watched in 2012, some new, some old. Films here refers to feature films only, and while I did manage to see a good amount of shorts I haven't included them here. 

This year I managed to balance work with watching films like I used to a few years ago, so I managed to get in a few more films this year. I will be doing a list of my top 10 shortly, so stay tuned for that. I already have a huge stack of Korean films to watch in the New Year, so here's to more Korean film in 2013! 

Yearly Film Stats
2012: 184 films watched, 120 of which were Korean films (representing 65%)
2011: 125 films watched, 73 of which were Korean films (representing 58%)
2010: 125 films watched, 22 of which were Korean films (representing 18%)

The 120 Korean Feature Films I Watched in 2012

Korean Film Log: December

Well the year is over and so here is my final film log for 2012. Well not quite, this will be the final monthly entry, but I will shortly post a full year round-up, which will also include some top tens and any interesting statistics. Look out for it shortly.

I will aim to continue this in 2013 and hopefully even have time to expand up it by writing mini reviews of the films rather than just posting ratings. Anyway for now check out the final 11 films I watched in 2012.

December

110. Friend (친구)


111. Family Ties (가족의 탄생)