Korean director Yoo Hyeon Mok, who passed away on June 28, 2009 at the age of 83, is one of the most legendary names in Korean Cinema. His debut film, Obaltan, is widely regarded as the best Korean film of all time by local film critics today. Yoo was honored with Best Director prizes at the Daejong Film Awards and Blue Dragon Films Awards throughout the sixties. Much of his films revolve around themes of ideological and religious conflicts. This 4-DVD Yoo Hyeon Mok Collection boxset comes with a booklet and four of his most classic films: Forever With You (1958), Pharmacist Kim's Daughters (1963), The Guests of the Last Train (1967), and Rainy Days (1979).
Forever With You (1958)
Gwang Pil (Lee Ryong), Dal Su (Choi Bong), and Sang Mun (Choi Myung Soo) rob a US army warehouse together, but in the end only Gwang Pil is caught and sent to jail. Ten years later, Gwang Pil is released from prison, and learns that Sang Mun is now a priest and Dal Su, a mob boss married to Gwang Pil's childhood sweetheart Ae Ran (Do Geum Bong). Gwang Pil suspects Ae Ran's daughter is actually his. As misunderstandings arise between the former friends, Gwang Pil gets pulled into Dal Su's underworld conflicts,

Pharmacist Kim's Daughters (1963)
Based on Park Kyung Lee's novel, Pharmacist Kim's Daughters is a poignant drama about a family spiraling toward disintegration during the turbulence of the Japanese occupation. The Kim family hangs in danger when the father closes down his drugstore which helped sustain the family for the last twenty years. His first daughter becomes a loan shark. His second daughter (Um Yang Lan) contemplates giving up school. His third daughter abruptly ends her marriage to an opium dealer due to her husband's impotency. Lastly, his fourth daughter marries a fisherman out of financial necessity. Through the lives of these four daughters, Pharmacist Kim's Daughters addresses the clash between traditional and modern idealism, and the fight for individualism against the rigid social structure.

Guests Who Arrived on the Last Train (1967)
Starring Lee Soon Jae and popular actresses Moon Hee and Seong Hun, Guests Who Arrived on the Last Train revolves around a tormented young man with terminal cancer, and his circle of friends including a runaway rich girl and an heiress who has taken refuge in the mental hospital to get away from the people after her money. Yoo weaves an intricate portrait of loss and redemption through the live and relationships of three individuals struggling to find their place in society.

Rainy Days (1979)
Told through the eyes of a child, Rainy Days is a poignant drama about a family torn apart by the Korean War. Dong Man's uncle on his father's side fights for the North, and his uncle on his mother's side died fighting for the South. The war and ideologies that divide the nation have also divided the household, leading to constant fighting among his grandmothers and other family members. Amid a wave of deaths, the family finds a moment of peace and reconciliation from an unlikely visitor. Starring Hwang Jung Seun, Lee Dae Keun, and Kim Sin Jae.

Long thought to be lost, the 1965 war classic The DMZ was rediscovered in 2005 and through the efforts of the Korean Film Archive, the seminal film now comes to DVD with English subtitles. One of director Park Sang Ho's most representative films, The DMZ looks at the devastation of war through the eyes of two children left in the demilitarized zone after the Korean War.
In the summer of 1953, a young boy and girl find themselves in no man's land after the signing of the Korean War armistice. Encountering everything from landmines to a North Korean spy, they try their hardest to survive in the DMZ, but the war is far from over for these kids with nowhere left to go. Presented in semi-documentary fashion, the film was shot on location in the DMZ 12 years after the armistice, providing an emotionally harrowing and historically noteworthy account of life at the 49th parallel in the aftermath of the Korean War.

This release includes a 45-minute Park Sang Ho documentary and still gallery, plus an English-Korean booklet.

Released by the Korean Film Archive, Romantic Comedy Collection of the 1950s comes with three classic Korean romances: Lee Yong Min's Holiday in Seoul (1956), Lee Byung Il's The Love Marriage (1958), and Han Hyung Mo's A Female Boss (1959). The three-disc boxset includes an English-Korean booklet.
Holiday in Seoul (dir. Lee Yong Min / 1956)
Obstetrician Hee Won (Yang Mi Hee) is planning to go on vacation with her reporter husband Jae Kwan (No Neung Geol), but he gets called away at the last minute to investigate a murder case. After hearing some lies from Jae Kwan's colleagues, Hee Won begins to suspect that her husband is having an affair. She helps out a pregnant mother, who turns out to be the wife of the criminal that Jae Kwan is after.

The Love Marriage (dir. Lee Byung Il / 1958)
Doctor Ko (Choi Nam Hyun) has three daughters. His oldest daughter (Choi Eun Hee) has refused to leave home since her husband left her three years ago. His second daughter (Lee Min Ja) leaves home for a poor tutor that the family disapproves of. His third daughter (Jo Mi Ryeong) chooses to marry an assistant over a successful businessman.

A Female Boss (dir. Han Hyung Mo / 1959)
Joanna (Jo Mi Ryeong) is the boss of a magazine called "The Modern Woman". As chance would have it, Yong Ho (Lee Su Ryeon), who had insulted her in passing before, comes looking for a job. Joanna hires him with the intentions of teaching him a lesson, but ends up falling for him instead. Directed by Han Hyung Mo, A Female Boss is a traditional romance that also offers a telling portrait of the differing views on the role of women in society in the fifties.

One of the best Korean directors in the 1960s, Lee Man Hee made 50 films between 1961 and his death in 1975. Best known for his thrillers and action films, the director's works sadly remains mostly unseen by modern audiences (Prints of his masterpiece Late Autumn is said to no longer exist). Fortunately, several Lee films were presented at the 10th annual Pusan International Film Festival in 2005. Now, the Korean Film Archive is releasing four of the director's best works in remastered form with English subtitles.

Marines Who Never Returned (1963) - During the Korean war, a group of South Korean soldiers save an orphaned young girl during a battle in a ruined city, and they come to serve as her foster father. When one of the soldiers finds his sister among the dead in the city, the young girl tells him that it was a fellow South Korean soldier that killed her. Tensions quickly rise when that soldier joins the platooon.

Black Hair (1964) - A woman is disfigured by her gang boss lover after he discovers her affair with a henchman. With nowhere to turn, the woman becomes a prostitute and meets a kind taxi driver in the process. However, the gang boss still harbor feelings for his former lover and decides to go against the rules of the gang to get her back.

Holiday (1968) - A poor young man finds out his lover is pregnant. With no money to raise a family, the man resorts to stealing his friend's money to pay for his lover's abortion. While she's in the operating room, he goes off to a bar and meets a woman at a bar, starting off a series of bad decisions that sends his life on a downward spiral.

Assassin (1969) - A North Korean assassin is sent to the south on a mission to kill a defected spy. However, when he meets the spy's daughter, the assassin grows a conscience and is unable to fulfill his mission. Instead, he turns himself in to the police and helps them round up other North Korean spies.

This box set also comes with a documentary on Lee Man Hee