Korean film ratings, and which ones are actually checked
Five ratings, administered by a government board, printed on every ticket. What each one permits, which one requires your passport, and what the rating does not tell you.
Updated
The five ratings
Every film released in Korea is classified by the Korea Media Rating Board into one of five categories, and the rating appears on the poster, the listing and the ticket.
전체관람가 is all ages. 12세이상관람가 and 15세이상관람가 admit viewers of twelve and fifteen and over respectively. 청소년관람불가 — literally 'youth admission prohibited' — is eighteen and over. 제한상영가 is a restricted classification that limits a film to specially licensed venues, and in practice is close to a commercial ban; you will not encounter it at a multiplex.
The age categories are hard floors rather than guidance. There is no equivalent of accompanied admission for an under-age viewer at a 15세 screening.
The eighteen rating is the one that is enforced
For 청소년관람불가 films, cinemas check identification, and they check it at the door rather than at the point of sale. This is not a formality that lapses for adults who obviously look adult — staff are legally exposed if they get it wrong.
As a foreign visitor this means carrying your passport, or a residence card if you have one. A foreign driving licence is not reliably accepted.
The lower ratings are not policed the same way in practice, but the eighteen rating consistently is.
The rating is a legal category, not a content warning
A Korean rating tells you the minimum age and nothing else. There is no equivalent of the content descriptors that accompany ratings in some countries — no line explaining that a film was rated for violence rather than for language.
The board publishes its reasoning separately, in Korean, on a per-film basis. It is not part of the listing you see when booking.
So the rating is a poor proxy for what a film contains. A 15세 Korean thriller and a 15세 American comedy can be a long way apart, and the rating will not warn you.
Ratings can change, and re-releases carry new ones
A film can be rated more than once over its life — for a re-release, for a director's cut, or after a successful appeal against the original classification. Each of those is a separate classification with its own certificate number.
This is why an older film sometimes carries a rating that looks out of step with its reputation: the rating in force is the most recent one, which may date from a re-release decades after the premiere.
The film pages on this site show the rating currently in force alongside its Korean original, because the Korean is what appears on the cinema signage and on the ticket you are handed.