Han Gong-juMovies like Han Gong-ju
- Key Features:
- Trauma, Social isolation, Coming-of-age, Domestic abuse, Teenage drama, Guilt, Bullying, Redemption, Violence-moderate, Character study, Emotional resilience
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Fans of Korean cinema, Viewers interested in social issues, Fans of character-driven dramas, Viewers interested in stories of resilience
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Dread → Despair
Han Gong-ju

After being involved in a traumatic incident, 17-year-old Gong-ju is forced to change schools. Uncared for by her parents, her previous teacher arranges for her to hide away at his mother's place. It takes time for her past to catch up with her, but when it does the revelation is devastating.
Han Gong-ju
A model student transfers to the notorious Jungmoon High School known for its severe corporal punishment by teachers and power struggles between school gangs.

After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

A bullied girl becomes friends with a new kid during a break, but when classes start up again, their new friendship is nearly ruined when the bullying continues.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

A female detective investigates the cause of a high school girl’s death and uncovers a disturbing truth.

The ghost of a lesbian high-school girl takes revenge on the people who used to bully her. And another young girl finds her old diary detailing her love and rejection when she was alive.

A sickly girl Ju-ran transfers to a new sanitorium boarding school to regain health. But she discovers that students are disappearing and notices abnormal changes happening to her body. She suspects the school for what's happening and tries to discover what secret is hidden.

The ghost of a student who died at a Korean school comes back to seek vengeance and protect her friends.

When a school girl disappears, suicide is suspected, and one of her classmates is suspected of having goaded her into it.

Follows the life of a young woman who has become reserved and indifferent to the world as a result of her chronic illness deformed hand and quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between mother and daughter as well as the development of Min-ah as she is befriended by the high spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae who moves into their apartment complex.

Sent from Seoul to serve in a remote coastal village, a policewoman gets involved in the life of a mysterious teenage girl who is abused by both her father and her grandmother.

After discovering a disturbing video from a night she doesn’t remember, sixteen-year-old Mandy must try to figure out what happened and how to navigate the escalating fallout.

Mi-so and Ha-eun meet in elementary school and quickly become best friends. In high school, Ha-eun meets Jin-woo and starts to have feelings for him, but he starts to have feelings for Mi-so. When they all meet again as adults, they are very different people, but they try to remember what friendship is really about.

A disillusioned Seoul woman visits a remote island to reconnect with a childhood friend, only to find her trapped in an oppressive cycle of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. As tensions escalate, the situation spirals into a harrowing tale of survival and retribution.

A deadbeat teacher helps an angry, aimless teenager find direction in life during his final year of high school.

A girl who lost her father to a serial killer, a detective and a killer are intertwined in a chaotic relationship and are met with an unprecedented series of events.

Oki, a film student, gets involved in two relationships as she navigates the advances of a fellow student and grapples with her feelings for her much older professor.

While practicing after hours in her high school, an aspiring singer is mysteriously killed and her body vanishes. Her invisible ghost is trapped in the school, but her best friend is able to hear her voice.

A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.

In the wake of a school tragedy, Vada, Mia and Quinton form a unique and dynamic bond as they navigate the never linear, often confusing journey to heal in a world that feels forever changed.

A lovestruck teen plans to win the school heartthrob by going from curly to straight hair — until a new transfer student changes everything.

Despite their different family backgrounds, four friends grew up together in the wearisome years of the 70s. But as time goes by, each of them takes a different life path.

Yoon-young, a 19-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a civil servant, is framed as a murderer and imprisoned in a women's prison.

The suicide of a former high-school bully puts the boy's father on a quest for answers.

Mi-ja, who has been taking care of a retired teacher, Ms. Park, invites several of her former students to her house 16 years after their graduation. Since the end of her teaching career, Park has been residing in the countryside, suffering from an illness while an ex-student, the kind and pretty Mi-ja cares for her.

A South Korean woman in her sixties enrolls in a poetry class as she grapples with her faltering memory and her grandson's appalling wrongdoing.

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

A reclusive elderly poet feels the fire of his youth when gamine schoolgirl Eun-gyo enters his life, to the chagrin of the old man's assistant.

Young Jin-hee is taken by her father to an orphanage near Seoul. He leaves her there never to return, and she struggles to come to grips with her fate. Jin-hee desperately believes her father will come back for her and take her on a trip.

At 2 Ela lost her ability of seeing and hearing because of a severe illness. And then she became a total disappointment of her family due to her untamed behaviors. But everything changed after an unorthodox teacher stepped into their lives to educate Ela while healing himself.

Yu-jin and her blind mother move to a small village from Seoul. On her first day at the new school, Yu-jin gets picked on by her classmates. Along with other victims of hatred, Yu-jin puts a curse on the four girls tormenting them through a Ouija Board. On her second day at school, one of the spellbound bursts into flames and dies just as she sits down where Yu-jin used the board. Next day, another victim burns to death, and now the school is enclosed by horror.

Seven girls become good friends in high school, then events pull them apart for 25 years. When one of the friends lies dying in a hospital, she wishes to see each of them one last time.

26 years ago, state troops were ordered to open fire on civilians in the city of Gwangju who were demonstrating as apart of a democratic movement. Thousands of civilians were killed. Now, a shooter from the national team, a gang member, a policeman, CEO from a large company and director of a private security outfit get involved in a plan to convict the person responsible for the massacre.

Jae-Young is an amateur prostitute who sleeps with men while her best friend Yeo-Jin "manages" her, fixing dates, taking care of the money, and making sure the coast is clear. When Jae-Young falls in love with one of those men, she suppresses her feelings towards him in respect of her friend who's jealous.

Ja-yoon is a high school student who struggles with memory loss after she endured some unknown trauma during her childhood. While trying to uncover the truth, she is unwittingly dragged into a world of crime and finds herself on a journey that will awaken many secrets hidden deep within.

After being kidnapped as a small child and raised by the five men who abducted him, a teenage boy is now forced to join their life in crime.

A woman's child is kidnapped and killed after paying the ransom. 15 years later, a mysterious figure is seen visiting the site of killing and another kidnapping occurs using the same methods. The woman teams up with a detective to catch the killer once and for all.

Young-seok, who feels overwhelmed and lonely in what should be his glorious youth, meets a woman who introduces herself as Josée, and they share a once-in-a-lifetime romance.

For 15 days, a politician and his wife navigate a scandal after their daughter goes missing on the eve of the national elections.

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.

Kim Ji-young, an ordinary woman in her 30s, suddenly shows signs of being inhabited by other women from her life, past and present.

Seoul, South Korea, 1997. When the young but extremely anxious student Jin-seok, his parents and his successful older brother Yoo-seok move to a new home, mysterious and frightening events begin to happen around them, unexplained events that threaten to ruin their seemingly happy lives. Unable to understand what is happening, Jin-seok wonders if he is losing his mind.

An expelled boxing champion, who now is a high-school teacher, witnesses intolerable violence and throws her first punch to build justice against it, while putting on a mask.

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

Two high school students form an intense connection as they navigate the challenges of discovering and expressing their truest selves.

A seasoned actor and a pop star are cast as leads in a gay romantic play. As the actor teaches the pop star method acting, the line between fiction and reality is blurred and they become drawn to each other.

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.

Min Ji-Won suffers from amnesia caused by an accident almost a year ago. After the accident, Min Ji-Won is a shy person. Prior to the accident, Min Ji-Won was the leader of a gang of four girl bullies. Through pictures, Min Ji-Won learns about the three other members and she wants to learn what happened to them. While Min Ji-Won attempts to unravel the mystery, her former friends are killed one by one.

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

Kyung-min lives alone in a one-room apartment. One day, she finds traces of a stranger breaking into her room and soon a mysterious murder case begins to unravel.

After moving into a new house, a young girl begins displaying strange and disturbing behavior until, one day, she disappears behind a closet. While the devastated father is left with no clue about his daughter's disappearance, an exorcist shows up to help.

Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.

A rebellious high school student sees his life take a strange turn when he goes to the grocery store and someone leaves a baby in his shopping cart, along with a note claiming he's the father.

A touching story of two completely different students from two completely different worlds. One is a rich male repeating his third year of high school and the other a poor girl in her second year of university struggling to make ends meet.

A girl who went missing after an accident returns 10 years later and reunites with her grandmother.

Soo-jin, who lost her memories due to a horrible incident, starts suspecting her husband. She is confused between reality and illusion, truth and lies.

Jasna, a beautiful teenager, leads a crude life in post-war Serbia. She goes on a spree of sex, drugs and partying until she finds love and tenderness in a harsh environment.

Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.

A high school teacher whose wife is about to give birth finds himself tangled in temptation and obsession when a student falls for him.

Returning home and finding his town drastically changed, a former soldier falls in with gangsters.

While everyone thinks that Momo is a wild party girl, the reality is that she is shy and lonely. Can Momo confess her love to her classmate, Toji, or will her best friend Sae steal him away? It's a bittersweet drama of growing up and fitting in.

In one of the poorest areas of Paris, a school counselor devotes herself to working with disadvantaged students, while facing challenges of her own.

A man is on his way home when the poorly constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped leaving himself for the unexpected whilst emergency services struggle to help.

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.

Sung-soo has everything a man could want: a beautiful wife and children, a comfortable home and luxury car, and plenty of money in the bank. When he learns that his estranged brother, Sung-chul, has gone missing, haunting memories of their troubled past urge him to visit his brother’s apartment in search of answers.

When elementary school teacher Kobayashi investigates the absence of one of his young pupils from the classroom, he finds himself at the doorstep of an anonymous suburban house that harbours a horrible secret, and into which all who enter are doomed.

Two friends, Jung Jong-suk and Hwang Kyung-min, meet after several years and talk about their time in school, which left them scarred.

A blind witness and a runaway help the police find the suspect in a hit and run until the culprit realizes that they are close on his trail. The killer tracks her down and Soo-ah realizes that in order to save Gi-sub she would have to risk her life.

A 13 years old girl is forced to go living with another family for reasons unknown.

A 17-year-old girl uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters.

When 12-year-old Ton transfers to an all-boys boarding school, he's taunted by his peers and terrified by their tales about the ghosts that inhabit the school. Ton is utterly miserable until he befriends a mysterious fellow pupil.

Following a humiliating plagiarism scandal, an author moves to an isolated small-town house with her daughter to write her comeback novel. Desperate for inspiration, she communicates with a mysterious ghostly presence that has befriended her daughter.

Jobless, besieged by creditors, and abandoned by his wife, the once silver medalist Tae-shik has sunk to street hustling, becoming a human punching bag. Meanwhile, young Sang-hwan's delinquent ways land him behind bars. Both men look to boxing to turn around lives gone astray, aiming for the amateur title, ultimately pitting them against each other, but more importantly, against themselves.

Honed from childhood into a merciless killing machine by a criminal organization, assassin Sook-hee is recruited with the promise of freedom after ten years of service. However, secrets from her past destroy everything she’s worked for and now she embarks on a roaring rampage of revenge.

These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.

Song Woo-seok is a lawyer with no clients. When his friend's son is falsely accused of a crime and tortured, he takes up the case and the course of his life changes for good.

A woman seeks to take revenge when her younger sister disappears and she finds out that her sister suffered violence and sexual abuse from school bullies.

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

While in medieval Korea, a young girl sets out to revenge the betrayal and the death of her mother. But therefore she must face one of the most powerful men and warriors of the Goryeo Dynasty.

Tessa Young is a dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart. Entering her first semester of college, Tessa's guarded world opens up when she meets Hardin Scott, a mysterious and brooding rebel who makes her question all she thought she knew about herself -- and what she wants out of life.

Bok-Soon runs a street stall, cares for her younger sister, and is feared by many because of her quick temper. When Tae-Soo murders her sister, rage consumes her completely as she stalks the killer.

A teenager struggles to keep her scandal-ridden past and a big secret from getting out when she strikes up an unlikely romance with the crown prince.

Hong Seol, a student from a poor family, meets a rich Yoo Jung, who is her senior at her university. They both develop a rather inconvenient relationship after knowing each other.

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

When one girl from five close school friends moves to Seoul after school is over, the other four try and deal with the loss of her moving and them drifting apart.

A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

An ordinary guy suddenly finds he has superpowers he can use to help his spirited daughter and the people around them, but he also runs into trouble in the process.

A David's classmate, Jochem, is harassed by three bullies, but nobody does anything at school, not even David, who feels guilty for not pointing out the culprits.

During the 1970s, in Kunchon, there were women divers who were able to dive without equipment, including two best friends Choon-ja and Jin-sook, Jin-sook's brother and Hammer. They always collected seafood under water for living. But, as fewer factories started to be built near the beach, the women divers started to have trouble with what they were doing for living. Without any choice, the ship crews decided to join the smuggling business in the water to seek a way for their living. But the smuggling business in their village got too big for Jin-sook's family to handle and the peaceful village was gradually broken.

The films spans two decades as the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks that begin when Qiyue and Ansheng were just thirteen. The two became inseparable until they met a boy who ended up tearing their lives apart.

An awkward, telekinetic teenage girl is the object of relentless bullying at school and an oppressively religious mother at home.

In 1999, a teen girl keeps close tabs on a boy in school on behalf of her deeply smitten best friend – then she gets swept up in a love story of her own.

Kim is expelled from his eighth school and finds himself at Volcano High where students fight to possess a treasured ancient document. Kim, who must resist from using his Chi, is caught in the middle.

Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.

After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.
