Spa Night (2016)

Director
Andrew Ahn

Main cast
Joe Seo; Haerry Kim; Janice Pak; Youn Ho Cho; Tae Song

Genres
Drama

Description
A young Korean-American man works to reconcile his obligations to his struggling immigrant family with his burgeoning sexual desires in the underground world of gay hookups at Korean spas in Los Angeles.


Similar movies

In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. But the 11 bullets found in the bodies, together with the 5 remaining bullets in the assassin's magazine clip, amount to 16 bullets for a gun that should normally hold 15 bullets. The investigating Swiss/Swedish team from the neutral countries overseeing the DMZ suspects that another, unknown party was involved - all of which points to some sort of cover up. The truth is much simpler and much more tragic.
The world is deprived of sleep. In Sona Spa you can buy sleep for yourself. Here, women (Sleep Workers) sleep for you, not with you.
In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.
North Korea's 8th Special Forces hijacks a shipment of CTX, a potent new liquid explosive, and threatens South Korea as part of a plot to re-unify the two countries.Ryu and Lee, special agents of O.P., South Korea's secret intelligence service, attempt to track down the terrorists and find the CTX. Meanwhile Hee, the 8th's ultra-bad female sniper, resurfaces to wreak havoc and haunt Ryu.
American GI's must retake a barren hill in Korea that has been overrun by Red Chinese troops. The ensuing battle becomes a meat grinder for American and Chinese alike.
Inspired by a true story. Jun Shik works for Tatsuo's grandfather's farm while Korea is colonized by Japan, but he has a dream to participate in Tokyo Olympics as a marathon runner. Tatsuo also aims to become a marathon runner, so the two are in rivalry. But war breaks out and they both are forced to enlist in the army. Tatsuo becomes the head of defense in Jun Shik's unit and he devises a scheme but fails. Jun Shik and Tatsuo are captured by the Soviets. They run away but soon are captured by Germans and forced to separate. In 1944, they meet again at the shores of Normandy.
One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, MASH focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.
The story follows a Roman architect named Lucius, who is having trouble coming up with ideas. One day, he discovers a hidden tunnel underneath a spa that leads him to a modern Japanese bath house. Inspired by the innovations found there, he creates his own spa, Roma Thermae, bringing in the modern ideas to his time.
JUNG Jin-soo, a South Korean intelligence agent, comes across an unidentifiable operative, a 'ghost,' while surveilling a North Korean weapons deal in Berlin. The mystery figure is a North Korean secret agent, PYO Jong-seong, whose information cannot be found on any intelligence database. Jung quickly goes after Pyo to unveil his identity and gets himself embroiled in a vast international conspiracy. In the meanwhile, another North Korean operative, DONG Myung-soo, is dispatched to Berlin with a secret agenda to purge Pyo and take control of the North Korean embassy. Dong sets a trap to frame Pyo's wife, RYUN Jung-hee, for treason and tightens the noose around Pyo's neck. Pyo surveils his wife with hopes of clearing accusation against her but he plunges into deeper confusion when he discovers her secret.
Pinky is an awkward young teen who starts work at a spa in the CA. Desert. She becomes overly attached to fellow spa attendant, Millie when she becomes Millie's roommate. Mille is a lonely outcast who desperately tries to win attention with constant upbeat chatter. They hang out at a bar owned by a strange pregnant artist and her has-been cowboy husband. After each of 2 emotional crises, the three woman steal and trade each other's personalities until they settle into a new family unit that seems to give each woman what she was searching for.
There are breakpoints in the history, the result of a single event may change the whole course. In 1909, an assassination attempt of a Japanese governor fails. Now, in 2009, Korea is just another state of Japan's Empire & Seoul has become a major city. A Korean resistance group fights for liberty, independence & the restoration of true history. Two cops, Japanese & Korean, investigate the group.
In real life, mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in December 1926. To this day, no one knows the details of what she did during that time. The film gives a fictional account of Christie's time away, showing her as a woman fleeing her own life after the death of her mother and the announcement from her husband that he is leaving her. She flees to a spa in Harrogate. With the whole country looking for her, an American reporter finds her and ultimately tries to help her.
Sung-geun is an untalented actor who makes a living playing minor roles. He happens to land on the role as Kim Il-sung, the former leader of North Korea, for the rehearsal of the South-North Korea Summit. Sung-geun becomes passionately immersed in his role, motivated by his son who looks up to him. However, the summit is not realized, and Sung-geun ends up lost in the delusion that he really is Kim Il-sung.
Burning Secret is a 1988 drama film, based on the short story Brennendes Geheimnis by Stefan Zweig, about an American diplomat's son who befriends a mysterious baron while staying at an Austrian spa during the 1920s. The film was written and directed by Andrew Birkin.
The region where the borders of North Korea, China, and Russia come together, forms a sort of modern day wild west, where more than half of the population relies on illegal activity in order to survive. In Yanbian, on the Chinese side of the border, Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo) wiles away his days driving a cab, and spends his nights getting drunk and gambling, and losing horribly. In fact he’s so bad at mahjong that he has built up a sizeable debt to some small-scale hoods. His wife went to Seoul to work and send back money, but it’s been months since he has heard from her, and he’s tortured by visions of her wild, passionate, imagined affairs. So he’s broke and crazy and unraveling at the seams. When local crime lord Myun (Kim Yun-seok) offers to erase Gu-nam’s debt in exchange for a contract killing in Seoul, Gu-nam, at the end of his rope, reluctantly accepts.
Based on the long running play by Jang Jin, the story is set in Korea during the Korean War in 1950. Soldiers from both the North and South, as well as an American pilot, find themselves in a secluded and naively idealistic village, its residents unaware of the outside world, including the war.
A childless middle-aged couple faces a marital crisis of sorts.
A blind man has an operation to regain his sight at the urging of his girlfriend and must deal with the changes to his life.
Four sisters try to stop the wedding of their younger brother and in doing so, all discover resentments among each other.
In this first film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike, we are told the story of the Lone Wolf and Cub's origin. Ogami Itto, the official Shogunate executioner, has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.
Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits his guilt and Edwards' superiors are impatiently pushing Edwards to move this case to court martial, Edwards becomes convinced of Cargill's innocence.
Amid the chaos of refugees fleeing the Korean War in December 1950, a young boy, Duk-soo, sees his fate change in the blink of an eye when he loses track of his younger sister and he leaves his father behind to find her. Settling at Gukje Market in Busan, Duk-soo devotes himself to his remaining family, working all manner of odd jobs to support them in place of his father. His dedication leads him first to the deadly coal mines of Germany, where he meets his first love, Youngja, and then to war-torn Vietnam in this powerful generational epic about one man’s personal sacrifices.
On 31 January 1968, 31 North Korean commandos infiltrated South Korea in a failed mission to assassinate President Park Chung-hee. In revenge, the South Korean military assembled a team of 31 criminals on the island of Silmido to kill Kim Il-sung for a suicide mission to redeem their honor, but was cancelled, leaving them frustrated. It is loosely based on a military uprising in the 1970s.
A naval aviator is assigned to bomb a group of heavily defended bridges during the Korean War.
In the early 1980s, South Korea is torn by student protests over the lack of representation in the government. Song Woo-Seok is a successful attorney in Busan specializing in tax law. His views regarding civil liberties are changed by student activist Park Jin-woo. When Jin-Woo is brutally tortured and put on trial for his activism, Woo-seok decides to defend Jin-woo as his client.
Aboard a ship early in the 20th-century, a middle-aged Italian tells his story of love to a Russian. In a series of flashbacks filmed almost entirely in creams, whites, and ochers, the clownish and superfluous Romano Patroni leaves his wife's opulent home to visit a spa where he falls in love with a Russian woman whose marriage is a horror. He pursues her into the Russian heartland and returns to Italy resolved to leave his wife and marry his love. His amazed and appreciative Russian listener then narrates a shorter story.
Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country. Three forlorn teenagers, Chank-guk, Jihum and Eunok are figures in the landscape of this story, which highlights the global implications of a very Korean reality. None of them is able to escape the withering pull of tragedy. All desperate pleas for love and redemption are returned stamped in red with "Address Unknown".
Set towards the end of the 19th century, when coffee was first introduced to Korea, Russian sharpshooter Illichi and Joseon's first barista Danya are manipulated by Japanese officer Sadako into an elaborate plan to assassinate King Gojong.
A woman named Seo Ji-Woo (Im Soo-Jung) traveled to India and met her first true love Kim Jong-Ok. Since that time Ji-Woo can't forget her first love. She then turns the company "첫사랑 찾기 주식회사" - which means literally "Finding Your First True Love Company" to help track down Kim Jong-Ok. Han Gi-Joon (Gong Yoo) started "Finding Your First True Love Company" and he takes on Seo Ji-Woo is the company's first client. The pair travel all over Korea to find Seo Ji-Woo's first love and & in the process Han Gi-Joon falls in love with his first client ...
Assassination is set in Korea and Shanghai in the 1930's during the Japanese occupation. The government resistance assigns a secret commando group with killing collaborators.
Leopold Kohák married a rich widow a long time ago and now has nothing to do compared to his energetic wife. He's growing old and troubled by the fact that he betrayed his first love Emča and his beloved river Sázava where he spent his childhood and youth. A visit from an old friend Lebeda brings it all back to him. After a nervous breakdown Leopold secretly visits his home instead of going to the spa. A wandering tramp suggest Leopold should bathe in the magical waters of the Sázava, and slowly his youth returns to him.
Julian, a middle-aged single doctor, meets his childhood friend Pablo again. The latter is back from Africa and has just married a beautiful young blonde, Elena. Julian falls in love with her and tries to seduce her, but she mockingly pushes him away from her. He then finds that Ana, his nurse, bears a troubling resemblance to Elena. He decides to gradually transform Ana into Elena...
Min-Seo, a 17-year old rebellious high school Korean girl, lives in a small apartment with her mother and her mother’s penniless lover. She hates her mother’s lover and doesn’t understand both of them. Karim, a 29-year old Muslim migrant worker from Bangladesh has to leave Korea in a month. Before departing, he is desperately searching for his ex-boss to get his unpaid salary. One day, as Min-Seo’s summer vacation begins, Karim encounters Min-Seo on a bus, and together they set out on an emotional journey.
Vittorio De Sica's A Brief Vacation (Una Breva Vacanza) stars Florinda Bolkan as a downtrodden working woman. Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, Bolkan contracts tuberculosis. She is granted a brief vacation at a health spa, where a whole new world--and potential new life--is opened up to her.
Young Park Seol-Hee is eagerly planning her wedding to a young anti-Communist activist when the North Koreans invade. Her fiancé is forced to flee, leaving her behind with her family in their tiny, rural South Korean village. Rather than resist the North Korean regiment that comes to occupy the area, the townspeople (to Seol-Hee's dismay) decide to cooperate with them in order to ensure their own survival. The North Koreans, however, turn out not to be all that Seol-Hee expected. She soon realizes that there is a history between her family and that of the regiment's leader, Lieutenant Kim Jeong-woong. In between the hilarious day to day antics of Seol-Hee's eccentric family and the hard realities of war, the attachment between Seol-Hee and Jeong-woong grows. As the occupation continues, Jeong-woong becomes torn between trying to follow the increasingly harsh orders from his general and protecting the people that he has come to love and care for so much.
A romantic tragedy about two turn-of-the-century couples - one American, one British - who regularly vacation together at a spa in Germany.
Acclaimed director Hong Sang-soo goes abroad to make this film about a Korean man escaping a jail sentence by flying to Paris, where he tries to think of his wife as he falls in love with other girls and Paris itself.
The Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov, accompanied by guide and translator Eugenia, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th-century Russian composer. In an ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had imprisoned his own family in his house for seven years to save them from the evils of the world. Seeing some deep truth in Domenico's act, Andrei becomes drawn to him. In a series of dreams, the poet's nostalgia for his homeland and his longing for his wife, his ambivalent feelings for Eugenia and Italy, and his sense of kinship with Domenico become intertwined.
Take Off (2009) - Five men go for the gold as members of Korea national ski jumping team.
A lawyer, wanting to give meaning to his life, transforms an amusement park into an out-of-season health spa.
Yong-soo is an ex-soccer player who lives in a small coal-mine village in North Korea with his wife and young son, Joon. Although living in extreme poverty like many other families in North Korea, the family is happy just to be with each other. Then one day, Yong-soo's pregnant wife becomes critically ill. Let alone medicine, Yong-soo can't even find food for her in North Korea. So he decides to secretly cross the border to China hoping to find the medicine for his wife.
Franklin Roosevelt, left a paraplegic from polio at 39 years of age, seeks out a miracle cure in the backwoods of Georgia.
Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher's efforts are threatened when the Korean "police action" breaks out in 1950. Battle Hymn was one of several collaborations between Rock Hudson and director Douglas Sirk--though Sirk felt that Robert Stack would have been better suited to the role of Rev. Hess.
The son of a North Korean spy decides to follow in his father's footsteps to protect his little sister. After his father’s botched espionage mission, North Korean Myung-hoon and his young sister Hye-in are sent to a labor prison camp. In order to save his sister’s life, Myung-hoon volunteers to become a spy and infiltrates the South as a teenage defector. While attending high school in the South, he meets another girl named Hye-in, and rescues her when she comes under attack. South Korean Intelligence soon discover Myung-hoon’s activities and begin tracking him, all the while his own government sends a vicious assassin to eliminate him.
Young women in a small Japanese town look to revive their home's declining fortunes by building a Hawaiian village tourist attraction.
In 1951 ceasefire is declared, but two remaining armies fought their final battle on the front line Towards the end of the Korean War, a South Korean battalion is fiercely battling over a hill on the front line border against the North in order to capture a strategic point that would determine the new border between two nations. The ownership of this small patch of land would swap multiple times each day. Kang is dispatched to the front line in order to investigate the tacit case that’s been happening there. But he gets spiraled into the war that’s more terrifying than death itself when he meets his friend Kim, who has transformed into a war machine, and his unit. As the countdown for ceasefire begins, both sides become more vicious, resulting in deaths of countless lives until the last man could claim the land.
When an American woman begins a dangerous relationship with an attractive immigrant worker, in order to save her marriage, she finds her true self.
V.K Praksh's Trivandrum Lodge, follows the lives of residents in a lodge and their relationships.
A Soviet nurse (Audrey Totter) helps a U.S. pilot (John Agar), his buddies and a scientist escape from North Korea. American International Pictures originally distributed this film as a double feature with "Suicide Battalion".
As a North Korean sleeper cell agent, Ryu-han infiltrates the South and assumes the role of a village idiot in a rural town. He observes the townsfolk and waits patiently for his mission. One day, after 2 years of playing the role of the village idiot, fellow elite spies Hae-rang, posed as a rock star and Hae-jin, posed as an ordinary student, are dispatched to the same town as Ryu-han. He helps the other two spies settle in and teach them how to adjust in the South. There is a sudden drastic political power shift in the North and all three spies receive an urgent and ultimate mission.
Six years ago a mysterious shooting takes place in Seoul. The after effects of the shooting results in Han-kyu Lee (Song Kang-Ho) losing his job at the NIS (National Intelligence Service). Six years later, Ji-won Song (Kang Dong-Won), an ex North Korean spy. now operates somewhere in the Seoul metropolitan area. As these two men hide their identities and work their particular angles, trouble brews again ....
An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps but soon suspects that the spa's miraculous treatments are not what they seem.
A 15-year-old circus ringmaster Wei-wei is left all alone with gorilla Ling-ling after grandfather passes away. Thanks to her grandfather's love for baseball, Ling-ling was trained to play baseball and has developed remarkable hitting skills. The materialistic sports agent Sung Chung-Su hears of this remarkable gorilla, and signs Ling-ling to play in the professional South Korean baseball league. Dreaming of success, World's first gorilla pinch hitter and his 15-year old trainer begin on their run in the Korean Baseball League.
A fishing-boat crew takes on a dangerous commission to smuggle a group of illegal immigrants from China to Korea.
In 1923, the young Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island (South Korea), to Osaka (Japan). Through the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko (processed seafood products) in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees. He makes a fortune, abuses and destroys the lives of his wife and family, has many mistresses and children and shows no respect to anyone. Later he closes the factory, lending out the money with high interest and becomes a loan shark. His hateful behavior remains unchanged to his last breath, alone in North Korea. The film is told from the perspective of Masao, his legitimate son by his abused and degraded wife, who knows nothing about his father other than to fear him.
A Korean reunification plan is upset by a Japanese invasion plot, revealing a century-old secret between the countries.
Innocent Steps is a romantic Korean tale about a 19 year old girl (Mun Geun-yeong) from China on a dance contract. She is paid to practice and dance with her partner (Park Geon Hyeong) for the upcoming 'KDFA Cup Korea Dancesport Championship'. For the next three months, she trained hard for the competition. Love blossomed, of course. Being professional during the practices, they did not reveal their feelings to each other.
A Korean remake of the John Woo Classic. One brother is a criminal. One brother is a cop. Both will fight to the death.
Jonard (Joash Balejado) is having trouble making ends meet. His mother is suffering from depression, and he and his sister are forced to quit school in order to take care of her. One day, Jonard meets up his friend Rodel (Paolo Serrano), and Rodel introduces him to the world of massage parlors. Rodel teaches him massage, and brings him to Heavenly Touch, a syndicate-run massage parlor that mostly caters to homosexuals. As Jonard grows comfortable with his new life, he finds himself getting closer to Rodel. But when the threat of eviction looms, Jonard is forced to do things he never thought he’d do.
When Aryong, the daughter of a triad boss from Hong Kong is accused of killing the boss of a competing triad, she is goes into hiding in Korea. Upon arriving, she is guided by a nimble but loyal Gi-chul and his motley crew, who are assigned to protect her until her return.

© Valossa 2015–2024