Top 10 Korean Films of 2013

The time has come once again for me to sit down and think about all the new Korean films I had the opportunity to see in 2013 and come up with my favorites. This year, I had a lot to choose from for this ritual as I've seen about 120 local films, so the task proved more difficult than usual.

With 127 million tickets sold and a remarkable nine Korean films featuring in the yearly top ten at the box office, 2013 was a huge year for Korean cinema. Prosperity does not always mean quality and the last few years have been disappointing as far as commercial Korean films have been concerned. Thankfully, in 2013 the industry succeeded in both attracting viewers to multiplexes and putting out high quality fare. That said, I still find myself more partial to the more fertile grounds of independent cinema, as seven low budget films made the list this year. While two films truly blew me away over the last 12 months today's industry still isn't putting out quite the same amount of gems as it was around ten years ago.

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