Movies Similar to Even the Rivers

Permission to Exist(2020)

In just sixty years, South Korea went from being one of the poorest countries on the Asian continent to having the 12th largest economy in the entire world. Every year, it is measured that Korean students have some of the highest test scores and a higher rate of acceptance into Ivy League schools compared to all other nations. But on the flip side, South Korea also has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world, the highest gender pay gap of all developed countries, and the highest plastic surgery rate per capita. Always expected to receive top scores and constantly bombarded by media and messages that seem to demand nothing short of visual “perfection,” how do these individuals come to accept and learn to love themselves as they are?

The Last of the Sea Women(2024)

On the shores of Jeju Island, a fierce group of South Korean divers fight to save their vanishing culture from looming threats.

The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol(2014)

A documentary on the South Korean ferry disaster that claimed the lives of more than 300 passengers in April, 2014.

TXT (TOMORROW X TOGETHER) STILL DREAMING(2021)

Still Dreaming is TXT's first Japanese studio album. It was released on January 20, 2021. It was released with an accompanying DVD with the music video for the Japanese version of 'Blue Hour' and the making of the music video with interviews.

White Jungle(2011)

It is year 2011 and the government still talks of economic growth through medical care under the table. In reality, common people cannot afford to go to a hospital. They are nothing but extra casts in a promotional film for showing. The reality is a white jungle where medical care has become the market of extreme commercialization and doctors and patients are just too familiar with the physiology of jungle life. New rules and regulations must be practiced in this jungle. The film finds a solution by looking at medical care not as a personal means of production but community welfare.

Quo Vadis(2014)

The church is the body of Christ. In Greece, the church embodied a philosophy. Then in Rome, it became an institution. Spreading throughout Europe, it became one with the culture there. Traveling to the US, the church became a business. And when it arrived in Korea, it became a conglomerate. The top five largest churches in the world are located in Korea. However, Christ has long been absent in the nation. So then, what is the church? Who is Jesus Christ? What kind of world do Christians want? If the church is indeed the body of Christ, then we must ask the questions point-blank. Where do we stand in all this? And where exactly are we headed? Korean churches—“Quo Vadis?” Korean society—“Quo Vadis?”

Mis-President(2017)

My father led a coup in 1961. Two years later, I became the president's daughter.

The Rainbow Passage(2020)

Following a year in Cadance and Amanda's gender transition, this intimate documentary charts not only their personal transformation but the building of a life and community together in regional New South Wales.

King of Clones(2023)

From groundbreaking human cloning research to a scandalous downfall, this documentary tells the captivating story of Korea's most notorious scientist.

Two Doors(2012)

The documentary Two Doors traces the Yongsan Tragedy of 2009, which took the lives of five evictees and one police SWAT unit member. Left with no choice but to climb up a steel watchtower in an appeal to the right to live, the evictees were able to come down to the ground a mere 25 hours after they had started to build the watchtower, as cold corpses. And the surviving evictees became lawbreakers. The announcement of the Public Prosecutors’ Office that the cause of the tragedy lay in the illegal and violent demonstration by the evictees, who had climbed up the watchtower with fire bombs, clashed with voices of criticism that an excessive crackdown by government power had turned a crackdown operation into a tragedy.

This is the President(2023)

Why did Moon Jae-in, a human rights lawyer who hated politics, become president? During five years at the Blue House, why didn’t he use his power? Why did he just silently plant flowers while being sworn at by protesters? One by one, those who watched him reveal their hidden stories.

Reach for the SKY(2015)

Can one day shape the rest of your life? A feature documentary on the South-Korean education system.

Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror(2022)

Anonymous and exploitative, a network of online chat rooms ran rampant with sex crimes. The hunt to take down its operators required guts and tenacity.

Propaganda(2013)

An anti-western propaganda film about the influences of American visual and consumption culture on the rest of the world, as told from a North Korean perspective.

Jalpi(2023)

In the Absence(2018)

When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.

Non Fiction Diary(2014)

What happened in Korean society in the 1990s? The film starts with the Jijon-pa (Supreme Gangsters) case. The shocking story is narrated through the discussion by the two detectives who arrested the gangsters, of details of the roundup, data screens, and the death sentence. Nevertheless, Nonfiction Diary’s focus is not on the crime story. Starting from Jijon-pa onwards, the film reflects on the 1990s, when Korea digressed into contemporary history. The Seongsu Bridge and the Sampoong Department Store’s collapses are recalled, followed by the then-government’s punishment of the May 18 Uprising leaders, revealing the Korean legal system’s death penalty status, touching on political and power issues. The audience is reminded that today, 2013, is an extension of that same flow.

Seven Years-Journalism without Journalist(2017)

A total of 17 journalists have been fired since 2008, the beginning of LEE Myung-bak’s presidential term. They fought against the companies that they worked for succumbing to power and are now frustrated at reality where censorship of the press by authority has now become a norm. Can they continue their activities as journalists?

South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning(2024)

FRONTLINE and The Associated Press examine allegations of fraud and abuse in South Korea’s historic foreign adoption boom. The documentary investigates cases of falsified records and identities among the adoptions of 200,000 children to the U.S. and other countries over decades.

Korea: The Never-Ending War(2019)

Shedding new light on a geopolitical hot spot, the film — written and produced by John Maggio and narrated by Korean-American actor John Cho — confronts the myth of the “Forgotten War,” documenting the post-1953 conflict and global consequences.