The properties of the deposited film depend on the deposition condition and these, in turn depend critically on the morphology and crystal orientation of the films. Therefore, it is important to clarify the nucleation occurrence and growth stage of the morphology and orientation of the film affected by deposition parameters, e.g. the gas pressure and bias voltage etc. In this work, magnesium thin flims were prepared on cold-rolled steel substrates by a thermo-eletron activation ion plating technique. The influence of nitrogen gas pressure and substrate bias voltage on their crystal orientation and morphology of the coated films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction, respectively. The diffraction peaks of magnesium film became less sharp and broadened with the increase of nitrogen gas pressure. With an increase in nitrogen gas pressure, flim morphology changed from colum nar to granular structure, and surface crystal grain-size decreased. The morphology of films depended not only on gas pressure but also on bias voltage, i.e., the effect of increasing bias voltage was similar to that of decreasing gas pressure. The effect of crystal orientation and morphology of magnesium films on corrosion behaviors was estimated by measuring anodic polarization curves in deaerated 3%NaCl solution. Magnesium, in general, has not a good corrosion resistance in all environments. However, these magnesium films prepared by changing nitrogen gas pressure showed good corrosion resistance. Among the films, magnesium films which exhibited granular structure had the highest corrosion resistance. The above phenomena can be explained by applying the effects of adsorption, occlusion and ion sputter of nitrogen gas.