Review: MEMORIES OF THE SWORD, Remembering Better Sword Fighting Flicks

By Pierce Conran

The wild card in the quartet of major Korean releases released in 2014's high summer season (alongside Assassination, Veteran and The Beauty Inside), the star-driven period spectacle Memories of The Sword proved to be a perplexing experience with jarring tonal shifts and unclear aims. Not even Lee Byung-hun and Jeon Do-yeon, two of Korea's most dependable stars, rise above the material, while newcomer Kim Go-eun is an awkward anchor to the film's emotional heft.

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Review: INSIDE MEN, A Political Thriller That Goes For The Jugular

By Pierce Conran

The year is almost up, the box office has been tallied and the people have spoken. Stories of greedy corporate heirs, crooked clergy, conniving journalists and dirty politicians have risen to the top of the pile, each more acerbic than the last. But 2015 ends with a bang and one of the darkest, most fiercely critical mainstream Korean films of recent memory. Woo Min-ho ably surpasses his previous efforts with third feature Inside Men, which also marks a comeback of sorts for the embattled star Lee Byung-hun, who has spent much of the year in tabloid columns for the wrong reasons.

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Review: THE FORTRESS, Sublime Political Allegory Closes Its Doors to the Uninitiated

By Pierce Conran

One of the most impressive casts of the year lines up in the austere and languid period siege drama The Fortress. Led by Lee Byung-hun, Kim Yun-seok and Park Hae-il, performances are strong all around in this magnificently shot and movingly scored but admittedly unhurried meditation on the nature of duty and hierarchy in Korean society. Heavy on political metaphors, this powerful film has found favor with local critics but may prove difficult for the uninitiated.

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News: Fox Resuscitates A BITTERSWEET LIFE Remake with Michael B. Jordan

By Pierce Conran

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before but a remake of A Bittersweet Life is reportedly coming together at 20th Century Fox with Michael B. Jordan taking on Lee Byung-hun's classic gangster role and former animation director Jennifer Yuh Nelson filling Kim Jee-woon's shoes in what is tipped to be a franchise-starter.

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Review: A SINGLE RIDER Subtly Ponders the Small Regrets of Life

By Pierce Conran

A few months after the explosive period spy thriller The Age of Shadows from genre maestro Kim Jee-woon, Warner Bros is back with its second Korean production A Single Rider. Though both films share star Lee Byung-hun, who appears as an extended cameo in Kim’s work, A Single Rider, from debut filmmaker Lee Zoo-yong, is a far smaller work with only a handful of characters and which is largely concerned the theme of regret.

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News: Lotte Picks up TERMINATOR, Still No Release for MEMORIES OF THE SWORD

By Pierce Conran

In an unusual move, Paramount announced earlier this month that their summer tentpole Terminator: Genisys would not be distributed by their usual partner CJ Entertainment in Korea. That position has now been filled by Lotte Entertainment, which will release the film in July.

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