Korean Movies Find Profit in Lust and Skin
By wchung | 20 Jun, 2026

A Taste of Money by director Lim Sang-soo is a sexy Korean thriller scheduled for release in May, 2012. It will be featured in the main competition at Cannes.

Korean filmmakers are finding that sexy movies work well to fend off Hollywood’s summer blockbusters, accounting for a flood of titillating fare this May, according to Chosun Daily.

This year’s crop of lusty films was kicked off in April by The Scent, featuring actress Park Si-yeon in nude sex scenes. The film has shown some great legs, continuing to pull in moviegoers.

Two weeks later A Muse generated both controversy and box office by depicting sex between a teenage girl and a man in his 70s.

Hitting theaters this week is The Taste of Money which will likely pull in audiences, both for its status as a Cannes invitee and for its steamy sex scenes between actress Yoon Yeo-jeong, 65, and actor Kim Kang-woo, 34.

The Royal Concubine, set for a June release, will likely keep theaters steamy well into the summer.

The sex in these films may be seen as integral to their themes. What is undeniable is that sexy films have done well at the Korean box office, especially when trying to fend off the many Hollywood blockbusters that explode into theaters in May and June.

In May and June of 2010 The Housemaid and The Servant — both featuring steamy sex scenes — pulled in 2.3 million and 3 million moviegoers, respectively, in the face of Hollywood imports. They each also added W2 billion ($1.8 mil.) in DVD and other sales.

The trend toward racier Korean movies was helped by a 2009 court ruling finding unconstitutional a “Restricted” rating introduced in 2002 that restricted films containing nudity and sex to persons over 19, required them to be shown only in specially licensed theaters, and banned them from advertising or releasing them on home video.