Third Window Films Adds 3 More Korean Films

Dapper dresser and Third Window Films founder Adam Torel is an important figure for English speaking Asian cinema fans. His company has been responsible for bringing many important contemporary Asian titles to the West. Filmmakers like Sion Sono, Shinya Tsukamoto, Lee Chang-dong, and many more have had their films released by Torel’s company, a brand that has carefully curated a catalogue of future classics and the occasional curio. Of course with all that said it has been a long while since Third Window had any Korean films on their release slate.

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WKR: Masquerade and Bounty of Recent Releases (09/15-09/21, 2012)

Lee Byung-Hyun's smash hit period pic Masquerade gets a number of reviews this week while a wide selection of recent Korean films gets covered all around the world, from DVD and cinema releases to TIFF, Zipangu and Yeonghwa: Korean Cinema Today coverage.

CURRENT FILMS

Masquerade

(Modern Korean Cinema, September 17, 2012)

(Seongyong's Private Place, September 14, 2012)

(The Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2012)

Pieta

(Film School Rejects, September 20, 2012)

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KOFFIA 2012: Bleak Night (파수꾼, Pa-soo-ggoon) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

It’s amazing to witness what can be done with little resources and in 2011, a year filled with high-falutin, hollow, and very disappointing blockbusters, there were many films that did just that. One in particular managed to do the most with the least. The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has been training some of the peninsula’s best talent since the 1980s, including Bong Joon-ho, Im Sang-soo, and Kim Tae-gyun, and these days, as it produces four feature-length projects per year, it looks set to develop an even larger pool of talent. Not long ago I discussed the importance of Korean film schools in a piece on the Korean National University of Arts (K’Arts) short Metamorpheses. The technical competence of Korean films is due in no small part to the high quality film academies in the country and this becomes only more evident now that the student-produced shorts and features from these institutions gain wider exposure.

Bleak Night is one of KAFA’s student features and going into the film it’s hard to say that knowing this didn’t completely change the way I looked at it. I’m generally not a fan of student films and not just because of low production values and a lack of experience.  Oftentimes they are pretentious, lazy, and/or cocky and rather than being diamonds in the rough, they are frequently vanity projects from people who either don’t have what it takes or have no intention of trying to make a career out of filmmaking. Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, this is the purpose that film societies at college universities serve and the world is all the better for it, however I would rather not subject myself to these less than enticing offerings. I also speak from experience, as I too was one of these cocky student filmmakers in my Dublin salad days.

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Weekly Review Round-up (03/05-03/09, 2012)

Due to the brilliant Korean Cinema Blogthon, this edition of the Weekly Review Round-up is the biggest we've ever had.

Enjoy!

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Helpless

(Scene in Korea, March 4, 2012)

(The Korea Times, March 8, 2012)

RECENT RELEASES

71: Into the Fire

(Unseen Films, March 5, 2012)

Always

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 5, 2012)

Bleak Night

(Elegiacomo, March 5, 2012)

(Podcast Without Honor and Humanity, March 5, 2012)

(We Eat Lemon, March 5, 2012)

Champ

(VCinema, March 6, 2012)

Children...

(Unseen Films, March 7, 2012)

Chocked

(Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog, March 8, 2012)

Come Rain, Come Shine

(Flying Guillotine, March 5, 2012)

Countdown

(VCinema, March 5, 2012)

Cyrano Agency

(Unseen Films, March 8, 2012)

Drifting Away

(koreanindie.com, March 6, 2012)

Eighteen

(We Eat Lemon, March 7, 2012)

HaHaHa

(Rainy Day Movies, March 5, 2012)

Hello Ghost

(RebZombie Reviews, March 6, 2012)

Little Black Dress

(RedZombie Reviews, March 7, 2012)

Love On-Air

(Film Business Asia, March 5, 2012)

My Way

(The Jeju Weekly, March 4, 2012)

Penny Pinchers

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 8, 2012)

Punch

(Life as Fiction, March 7, 2012)

Quick

(VCinema, March 8, 2012)

Romance Joe

(Film Business Asia, March 4, 2012)

Sunny

(We Eat Lemon, March 6, 2012)

The Day He Arrives

(Rainy Day Movies, March 5, 2012)

The Front Line

(Far East Films, March 6, 2012)

(Little White Lies, March 5, 2012)

The Man From Nowhere

(KOFFIA Blog, March 6, 2012)

The Showdown

(Unseen Films, March 6, 2012)

War of the Arrows

(Far East Films, March 6, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Man Who Was Superman, 2007

(Unseen Films, March 7, 2012)

Antique, 2008

(We Eat Lemon, March 8, 2012)

A Tale of Two Sisters, 2003

(VCinema, March 5, 2012)

Bichunmoo, 2000

(Robot x Robot, March 6, 2012)

Blood Rain, 2005

(Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee, March 8, 2012)

Camel(s), 2002

(VCinema, March 8, 2012)

Chilsu and Mansu, 1988

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 7, 2012)

Crossroads of Youth, 1934

(Otherwhere, March 6, 2012)

Crying Fist, 2005

(Rainy Day Movies, March 6, 2012)

Death Bell, 2008

(Far East Films, March 6, 2012)

Dream, 2008

(VCinema, March 7, 2012)

Green Fish, 1997

(VCinema, March 6, 2012)

Handphone, 2009

(Kimchi Soul, March 7, 2012)

Hi Dharma 2, 2004

(Unseen Films, March 8, 2012)

I'm a Cyborg But That's Okay, 2006

(cineAWESOME!, March 5, 2012)

Jealousy Is My Middle Name, 2003

(VCinema, March 8, 2012)

Miss, Please Be Patient, 1981

(Planet Chocko Zine, March 6, 2012)

Natural City, 2003

(cineAWESOME!, March 7, 2012)

No Blood No Tears, 2002

(Rainy Day Movies, March 6, 2012)

Oasis, 2002

(cineAWESOME!, March 7, 2012)

Phone, 2002

(VCinema, March 6, 2012)

Pulgasari, 1985

(VCinema, March 5, 2012)

Saving My Hubby, 2002

(VCinema, March 7, 2012)

Spring Bears Love, 2003

(YAM Magazine, March 5, 2012)

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, 2002

(KOFFIA Blog, March 5, 2012)

Take Care of My Cat, 2001

(YAM Magazine, March 6, 2012)

Tale of Cinema, 2005

(AsianCineFest, March 8, 2012)

(Not a Film Critic, March 7, 2012)

The Armless Swordsmen, 1969

(Planet Chocko Zine, March 7, 2012)

The Chaser, 2008

(cineAWESOME!, March 7, 2012)

The City of Violence, 2006

(Rainy Day Movies, March 6, 2012)

The Good, the Bad and the Weird, 2008

(cineAWESOME!, March 5, 2012)

The Isle, 2000

(Oriental Film House March 5, 2012)

The Quiet Family, 1998

(Genkinahito's Blog, March 8, 2012)

Treeless Mountain, 2008

(Otherwhere, March 7, 2012)

Woman is the Future of Man, 2004

(Rainy Day Movies, March 5, 2012)

Woochi, 2009

(Orion's Ramblings, March 7, 2012)

Yongasari, 1967

(VCinema, March 5, 2012)

The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office Update. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Top 10 Korean Films of 2011

All in all 2011 was a bit of a disappointing year for Korean cinema, at least as far as commercial cinema was concerned.  On the other hand, independent films continued to build on their success of the last few years.  However, I'm not overly worried about the state of the industry because at the end of the day it doesn't produce a huge amount of films and is more susceptible to the ebbs and flows of projects than a larger filmmaking centre like Hollywood.  In any case, 2012 looks to be a much stronger year for Korean film.

For a while I was getting very worried about what my top 10 for the year would like, a month ago I'd only seen four of the films listed here.  Thankfully a number of more recent releases became available and things suddenly started to look a lot better.  That being said, I've seen about 45 films from last year but there's a lot that I haven't had a chance to see yet so this list will likely look quite different six month down the line, and if I feel so inclined perhaps I'll change it!

In the below links are my top 10 Korean films for 2011, followed by honourable mentions and my bottom 5.  The only criteria I go by to consider a film from 2011 is if it was released in Korea during that calendar year.

Intro - 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 - Best of the Rest

Top 10 Lists

Year  2020 - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016
2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010

2010s (Top 50) - All Time (Top 25)

Genre

Gangster - Horror - Revenge

How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists

Top 10 or end-of-year lists are one of my great guilty pleasures.  I know that ultimately they don't really mean very much and are guaranteed to be subjective, arbitrary, and divisive.  Yet I am always eager to discover other people's lists come year's end.  To see how my favorites films fared, to discover some things I may have missed and to generally scrutinize the palaver of this enduring critic's ritual.

I thought it would be fun to see how Korean films did on 2011's lists, if only to see what and how many Korean films generated international attention.  So I went ahead and tracked down every list I could find which featured a Korean film.  I found 70, including 7 which only considered Korean cinema, a pretty solid number which is spread over an impressive array of worldwide broadsheets, film websites, and a panoply of blogs.  I was also surprised to see over 30 films make it onto these diverse lists, a reflection of the depth of Korean cinema, from thrillers, horrors, and action films, all the way to melodramas and a large selection of low-budget indies.

The results of this ranking are in no way supposed to reflect some sort of objective standpoint of the best Korean films of last year.  For one thing, only a handful of films got any decent kind of exposure in the west and they were by and large 2010 releases.  Some of 2011's best films were only featured on a smattering of lists as they have not really been seen outside of Korea.  As I've said this is just a little bit of fun!

The system used for the below ranking is very simple.  1 point for making it onto a top 10 list (or the odd top 11), 2 points for a top 5 finish, and 3 points for taking first place.  The lists are available below, divided into Korean-only and international lists.  If you are aware of anything I've missed by all means let me know either here, on twitter, or by e-mailing me at pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com.

How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists

1. Poetry (53)

2. I Saw the Devil (34)

3. The Yellow Sea (17)

4. Sunny (12)
5. The Day He Arrives (10)

6. The Journals of Musan (9)

7. Bleak Night (8)

8. Silenced (5)
9. Night Fishing (5)

10. Arirang (4)

10. King of Pigs (4)
10. Re-encounter (4)

13. Poongsan (3)

13. Punch (3)

15. Bedevilled (2)

15. Come Rain, Come Shine (2)

15. Dangerously Excited (2)

15. Pong Ddol (2)

15. Quick (2)

15. The Front Line (2)

21. Animal Town (1)

21. Barbie (1)

21. Blind (1)

21. Dooman River (1)

21. Haunters (1)

21. Invasion of Alien Bikini (1)

21. Late Autumn (1)

21. Late Blossom (2)

21. Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild (1)
21. Moby Dick (1)

21. Mother Is a Whore (2)

21. Out of the Cave (1)
21. Romantic Heaven (1)
21. War of the Arrows (1)

21. White: The Melody of the Curse (1)

Lists of Korean Films

Asia Pacific Arts - Rowena Santos Aquino

Complex - Jaeki Cho

koreanfilm.org - Darcy Paquet
Modern Korean Cinema - Pierce Conran

Seen in Jeonju - Tom Giammarco

Seoul Beats

Lists Featuring Korean Films

Boston Globe - Wesley Morris

Boxing Uwe Boll

Chicago Reader - Ben Sachs

Chicago Tribune - Michael Phillips

Cineawesome! - Jeff

Cinema Salem - Kereth

Cinema Salem - Peter

Cinetology - Luke

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Clint O'Connor

CNN - Tom Charity

College Times - Aaron Tavena

Culture Mob - Matthew Wayt

Dad's Big Plan - Mr. Sparkles

Film Freak Central - Angelo Muredda

Film Freak Central - Walter Chaw

Film School Rejects - Brian Salisbury

Film School Rejects - Luke Mullen

Film School Rejects - Rob Hunter

Film Threat - Don Lewis

Film Threat - John Wildman

Film Threat - Mark Bell

Film Threat - Noah Lee

firstshowing.net - Jeremy Kirk

Front Room Cinema - Tom Bielby

Hollywood Hubbub - Frantic Monkey

Hydra Mag - Jose-Luis Moctezuma

indieWire - Anne Thompson

insidepulse - Robert Sutton

Left Field Cinema - M. Dawson

Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan

Living in Cinema - Michael Phillips

Miami Herald - Rene Rodriguez

Mile High Cinema - Jason Cangialosi

Movie Reviews by Tom Clift - Tom Clift

MSN Movies - Sean Axmaker

NOW Magazine - Radheyan Simonpillai

Palo Alto Online - Susan Tavernetti

playbackstl.com - Pete Timmermann

playbackstl.com - Sean Lass

Rich on Film - Rich

Salon - Andrew O'Hehir

Shock Till You Drop - Jeff Alard

Slant - Diego Costa

Slant - Nick Schager

Sounds Like Cinema - Greg Bennett

southcoasttoday.com - Alexis Hauk

St. Louis Today - Joe Williams

The Austin Chronicle - Marc Savlov

The Cinema Snob

The Daily Texan - Alex Williams

the-dispatch.com - Matthew Lucas

The Globe and Mail - Liam Lacey and Rick Groen

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw

The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy

The Montreal Gazette - T'cha Dunlevy

The New York Times - Manohla Dargis

The Screening Room - Mark Humphreys

The Suffolk Voice

Time Out New York - Keith Uhlich

Total Film - Sam Ashurst

Twitch - James Marsh

Twitch - Kwenton Bellette

Wildgrounds - Ki Mun

Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Weekly Review Round-up (01/07-01/13, 2012)

A pair of reviews for last year's breakout debut Bleak Night and a number of writeups for various independent and classic Korean film to boot.

RECENT RELEASES

Bleak Night

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 8, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 8, 2012)

Fighting Spirit

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 10, 2012)

Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild

(hancinema.net, January 7, 2012)

Moss

(Flickering Myth, January 9, 2012)

Passerby #3

(Rainy Day Movies, January 9, 2012)

Quick

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 12, 2012)

Re-encounter

(Hangul Celluloid, January 9, 2012)

Sector 7

(Beyond Hollywood, January 10, 2012)

Sunny

(Rainy Day Movies, January 11, 2011)

The Servant

(Asian Movie Web, January 9, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Brand New Life, 2009

(Rainy Day Movies, January 10, 2012)

A Day Off, 1968

(Init_Scenes, January 11, 2012)

Black Hair, 1964

(Init_Scenes, January 9, 2012)

Memories of Murder, 2003

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 11, 2011)

Night and Day, 2008

(DVD Talk, January 8, 2012)

Romantic Warriors, 2003

(New Korean Cinema, January 12, 2012)

Secret Sunshine, 2007

(BloggersBase, January 8, 2012)

The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office Update. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Bleak Night (파수꾼, Pa-soo-ggoon) 2011

It’s amazing to witness what can be done with little resources and in 2011, a year filled with high-falutin, hollow, and very disappointing blockbusters, there were many films that did just that. One in particular managed to do the most with the least. The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has been training some of the peninsula’s best talent since the 1980s, including Bong Joon-ho, Im Sang-soo, and Kim Tae-gyun, and these days, as it produces four feature-length projects per year, it looks set to develop an even larger pool of talent. Not long ago I discussed the importance of Korean film schools in a piece on the Korean National University of Arts (K’Arts) short Metamorpheses. The technical competence of Korean films is due in no small part to the high quality film academies in the country and this becomes only more evident now that the student-produced shorts and features from these institutions gain wider exposure.

Bleak Night is one of KAFA’s student features and going into the film it’s hard to say that knowing this didn’t completely change the way I looked at it. I’m generally not a fan of student films and not just because of low production values and a lack of experience.  Oftentimes they are pretentious, lazy, and/or cocky and rather than being diamonds in the rough, they are frequently vanity projects from people who either don’t have what it takes or have no intention of trying to make a career out of filmmaking. Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, this is the purpose that film societies at college universities serve and the world is all the better for it, however I would rather not subject myself to these less than enticing offerings. I also speak from experience, as I too was one of these cocky student filmmakers in my Dublin salad days.

There have been more technically proficient student films out of Korea, the aforementioned Metamorpheses is an excellent example of poly-generic adroitness but Bleak Night has what few films possess, no matter how experienced or talented the makers are. It is an extremely mature work: the characters are few, the plot is simple, and the setting is familiar but they belie a complex and devastating character study with reminded me of the eye-opening and cathartic realism I experienced when I saw The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005).

Lazarescu was the first Romanian film I saw and still stands as my favorite European film made after the turn of the millennium. The films that came out of Romania at that time achieved something that I had never experienced before. A friend and I, after being blindsided by Lazarescu following a random screening selection at the 2006 Dublin International Film Festival, hailed it as ‘the death of postmodernism!’ We were over-excited film students who tended to roll our eyes at the mere mention of ‘postmodernism’ or other woefully over-loaded academia terms like the ‘Lacanian mirror stage’.  Lazarescu, and the films that followed it like 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), came as a breath of fresh air as they seemed honest, straightforward, and devoid of intellectualism yet they were still exceptionally complex.

The biggest liberty that Bleak Night takes in its film style is its fragmented chronology which jumps to and fro without warning. Titles and exposition can seem contrived but unsignalled time jumps can be far more dangerous if the audience can’t figure out what’s going on. Thankfully the young filmmakers give us just enough information to keep our footing and more importantly respect us enough to allow us to figure some things out for ourselves. In fact a great deal of the film’s success derives from this risky trait.  We are never told what has happened and we are required to trust ourselves to understand what is going on during moments we don’t see and to decipher unuttered thoughts in the protagonists’ minds.

I don’t want to say too much about the film as I think it is better to let it reveal itself to you but essentially there are three friends, some bullying, and a suicide which serves as the starting point of the narrative but not of the story.  Lee Je-hoon, as the bully Gi-tae, has won numerous newcomer awards this year for his lead role in Bleak Night and his supporting turn in war pic The Front Line (2011). Sure enough his performance is nothing short of a revelation. In his role he is completely grounded and never falls into the easy trap of overacting. He says so much with his few words and even more with his silences, he reveals the truth about his character little by little, always taking you by surprise but never forsaking credibility. He reminds me of a younger and more subtle Ryoo Seung-beom (The Unjust, 2010; Suicide Forecast, 2011), an actor whom I like very much, and I can only see great things in his future.

Friendship lies at the heart of Bleak Night or at least what defines the bond between friends. At different points in the narrative, the three friends fight and betray each other, they move through different circles, one going so far as to transfer out of school, yet at times they are also extremely loyal and share their free time together, throwing an old baseball around at an abandoned train station, itself a foreboding metaphor for their youthful, transient relationships. There are other boys in the school who are part of the group during school hours in the classroom and the trio also have families, though Gi-tae has no mother and seems to fend for himself, but Bleak Night never dwells on the characters’ lives outside of the group, a rare and welcome change from the melodramatic tendencies of Korean cinema.

29-year old writer and director Yoon Sung-hyun excels with his debut feature, demonstrating a subtle but commanding grasp of his characters. His (justified) confidence as a filmmaker allows him to strip out any flourishes leaving a bare bones mise-en-scene which eschews music and ostentatious cinematography in favor of intimate character framing, well-timed silences, and an austere, dark, but also gorgeous color palette which creeps under your skin. A superb film from emerging talents which is not to be missed.

★★★★☆

Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

32nd Blue Dragon Film Awards

A little over two hours ago the proceedings for the 32nd 'Blue Dragon Awards' show wrapped up at the KBS Hall in Seoul.  Along with the 'Daejong (or Grand Bell) Film Awards', the 48th Edition of which was held last month, this is one of South Korea's most prestigious Film Awards ceremonies.  Unlike 'Daejong', the 'Blue Dragon Awards' has been privately funded since it was launched in 1963 by The Chosun Ilbo, a national newspaper.  It was discontinued in the 1970s but then revived by the Sports Chosun in 1990 and has occurred on a yearly basis since.

When I covered the 'Daejong' awards last month my analysis was somewhat impaired by the fact that I hadn't seen many of the main contenders.  Thankfully, in the time since, I have managed to catch up.  Out of the films that scored three or more nominations, I have only War of the Arrows and Silenced left to see, both of which I am looking forward to.

There was not a great deal of difference between the nominations for both events.  The Front Line led both with the same amount (12).  Silenced was the main difference as it scored 7 nominations, it received none at Daejong as it it was not eligible, having been released too late.  The Yellow Sea wound up with half the nominations it garnered at last month's event (5 vs. 9), and Hindsight was almost completely shut out (1 vs. 5).  Besides that, the main change was a slightly less even distribution outside of the top six or seven contenders.

This year, the most nominated films were (wins in parentheses):

The Front Line - 12 (2)

War of the Arrows - 8 (5)

Sunny - 8 (0)

Silenced - 7 (1)

The Unjust - 6 (3)

The Yellow Sea - 5 (1)

Blind - 4 (1)

Petty Romance - 4 (0)

Bleak Night - 3 (2)

Detective K - 2 (0)

Hello Ghost - 2 (0)

Late Autumn - 2 (0)

The Journals of Musan - 2 (0)

As I mentioned in last month's analysis, this year's roster of films duking it out for the major awards has been poorer than usual.  It has by no means been a bad year for Korean cinema as there have been numerous strong mid-level entries but, without a great many offerings from marquee names like Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon, Im Sang-soo, or Lee Chang-dong, there have been relatively few breakout films that have made big impressions on critics.  In terms of audiences though 2011 looks to be the best year since the peak of 2006.  Both Sunny and War of the Arrows played long in theaters and attracted over 7 million admissions, well over what was expected of them.  Similarly, the controversial Silenced and the enjoyable but unambitious Detective K both nearly broke the 5 million admissions mark.  Punch, which came out too late to be considered for either of this year's awards looks set to cruise past that mark and may reach further milestones as it shows no signs of abating just yet at the Korean box office.

Jang Hoon's The Front Line came in as a heavy favorite, with 12 nominations and having already bagged the top prizes at the Daejong Awards and the Critics' Film Awards, as well being selected to represent Korea at the Oscars.  In the end it lost out in all of the major categories and only picked up two technical awards, for Best Art Design, which it wasn't even nominated for at 'Daejong', and for Best Cinematography, which it also won last month.  Personally I don't think it deserved that last award as I belive many films featured stronger cinematography this year, including some that weren't even nominated such as Late Blossom and Moby Dick.

The surprise big winner tonight, to my delight, was Ryoo Seung-wan's excellent The Unjust which deservedly took the awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.  In the Best Film category it routed some stiff competition from the heavily favored The Front Line and from the immensely popular Sunny, which, despite being loved by critics and audiences alike, has failed to score many accolades (save for Best Director at the 'Daejong Awards') this awards season, and War of the Arrows.  

Ryoo Seung-wan's Best Director win was equally impressive.  While the nominees were identical to the Best Film category, which is quite common, the last time a film has won both awards at a major awards show was Na Hong-jin's The Chaser back in 2008 at Daejong.

Park Hoon-jun walked away with the Best Screenplay prize after the tacky (but enjoyable) Blind had bizarrely picked it up last month.  However, it must be said that in a recent interview with Paul Quinn over at Hangul Celluloid, Ryoo Seung-wan did mention that "I changed the script entirely according to my own style but, in truth, I never actually saw the version that Hoon-jung wrote, and I still haven’t seen it. It had been through the hands of many other writers who had been adapting it and it was only at that point that I saw the script."  Park also wrote last year's popular I Saw the Devil. 

Park Hae-il won Best Actor for War of the Arrows, as he did last month, against heavy competition from Kim Yun-seok (The Yellow Sea) and Ko Soo (The Front Line) but I think many great performance were shut out of this category like Lee Soo-jae in Late Blossom (who was nominated at 'Daejong') or Hwang Jeong-min in both The Unjust and Moby Dick.

Repeating her Daejong success, Kim Na-heul picked up the Best Actress prize for Blind.  Frankly I don't understand this decision at all, her performance is passable but nothing very noteworthy. Kim Hye-soo (Villain and Widow) or Yun So-jeong (Late Blossom), who sadly wasn't nominated, would have been more deserving.

The fantastic veterans Ryoo Seung-ryong (War of the Arrows) and Kim Soo-mi (Late Blossom) were awarded the supporting actor prizes for their roles.  Ryoo in particular had to fend off some strong competition from Yu Hae-jin (The Unjust) and Jo Sung-ha (The Yellow Sea), though I was disappointed that Kim Sang-ho didn't get a nod for his fantastic turn in Moby Dick.

Bleak Night, which has been hoarding numerous awards these past few weeks, once again picked up prizes for Best New Director, for Yoon Sung-hyun, and Best New Actor, for Lee Je-hoon.  Meanwhile Moon Chae-won was awarded Best New Actress for War of the Arrows.

The blockbuster War of the Arrows won the most prizes of the night (5) including the

Audience Choice Award for Most Popular Movie and the 

Best Technical Award for its action sequences.  However its most impressive accomplishment was scoring three acting prizes, no mean feat for an action film!

Despite all of the hullaballoo and its 7 nominations, Silenced only picked up on award, for Best Music.  The Yellow Sea was similarly unsuccessful with only one win for Best Lighting.  Perhaps the biggest shock of the night was that the wonderful Sunny failed to win in any of the 8 categories it was nominated for.

The other awards went to Yanh Hyo-joo who won Best Short Film for Broken Night and Ko Soo, Gong Yoo, Choi Gang-Hee, and Kim Hye-Soo who shared the Popularity Award.

Petty Romance surprised with 4 nods though it didn't pick up any prizes and the huge critical darling The Journals of Musan was also unable to convert either of its nominations into wins at tonight's ceremony.

Just as I was about to write off this year's Korean film industry awards, the Blue Dragon's managed to surprise me by awarding a great film (The Unjust) some richly deserved accolades.  By and large however, the awards show's nominees and winners were often short-sighted, perplexing, and not very evenly distributed.  Though I must confess that I am looking forward to seeing what will be in the mix next year.

Special thanks to Asian Media Wiki, which live-tweeted the results.

32nd Blue Dragon Film Awards Winners and Nominees:

Best Film
Winner: 
The Unjust

Nominees:

The Front Line

Silenced

The Unjust

Sunny

War of the Arrows

Best Director

Winner: 

Ryoo Seung-wan (The Unjust)
Nominees:
Kang Hyung-chul (Sunny)

Kim Han-min (War of the Arrows)

Ryoo Seung-wan (The Unjust)

Jang Hun (The Front Line)

Hwang Dong-hyuk (Silenced)

Best Actor
Winner: 

Park Hae-il (War of the Arrows)
Nominees:
Ko Soo (The Front Line)

Gong Yoo (Silenced)

Kim Yun-seok (The Yellow Sea)

Park Hae-il (War of the Arrows)

Yoon Kye-sang (Poongsan)

Best Actress
Winner: 

Kim Ha-neul (Blind)
Nominees:
Kim Ha-neul (Blind)

Kim Hye-soo (Villain and Widow)

Jung Yu-mi (Silenced)

Choi Gang-hee (Petty Romance)

Wei Tang (Late Autumn)

Best Supporting Actor
Winner: 

Ryoo Seung-ryong (War of the Arrows)
Nominees:
Ko Chang-seok (The Front Line)

Ryoo Seung-ryong (War of the Arrows)

Yu Hae-jin (The Unjust)

Jang Gwang (Silenced)

Jo Sung-ha (The Yellow Sea)

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: 

Kim Soo-mi (Late Blossom)
Nominees:

Kim Soo-mi (Late Blossom)

Ryoo Hyoun-kyoung (Petty Romance)

Yoo Sun (GLove)

Jang Yeong-nam (Hello Ghost)

Cheon Woo-hee (Sunny)

Best New Actor

Winner: 

Lee Je-hoon (Bleak Night)
Nominees:

Park Jung-bum (The Journals of Musan)

Seo Jun-young (Bleak Night)

Song Yoo-ha (Petty Romance)

Lee David (The Front Line)

Lee Je-hoon (Bleak Night)

Best New Actress

Winner: 

Moon Chae-won (War of the Arrows)
Nominees:

Kang So-ra (Sunny)

Moon Chae-won (War of the Arrows)

Baek Jin-hee (Foxy Festival)

Shin Se-kyung (Hindsight)

You Da-in (Re-encounter)

Best New Director

Winner: 

Yoon Sung-hyun (Bleak Night)
Nominees:

Kim Min-suk (Haunters)

Kim Young-tak (Hello Ghost)

Kim Jung-hoon (Petty Romance)

Park Jung-bum (The Journals of Musan)

Yoon Sung-hyun (Bleak Night)

Best Cinematography

Winner: 

Kim Woo-hyung (The Front Line)
Nominees:

Kim Woo-hyung (The Front Line)

Kim Tae-sung (War of the Arrows)

Son Won-ho (Blind)

Lee Sung-jae (The Yellow Sea)

Jung Jung-hoon (The Unjust)

Best Lighting

Winner: 

Hwang Soon-wook (The Yellow Sea)
Nominees:

War of the Arrows

The Front Line

The Unjust

Blind

The Yellow Sea

Best Music

Winner: 

Mogue (Silenced)
Nominees:
Sunny
War of the Arrows

Silenced

The Front Line

Late Autumn

Best Art Design

Winner: 

Ryoo Sung-hee (The Front Line)
Nominees:
The Front Line
Sunny
The Yellow Sea
War of the Arrows
Detective K: Secret Of Virtuous Widow

Best Technical Award

Winner: 

Oh Se-young (War of the Arrows) (action)

Nominees:
Detective K: Secret Of Virtuous Widow (costume)

Sunny (edting)

War of the Arrows (action)

Sector 7 (CG)
The Front Line (fx)

Best Screenplay

Winner: 

Park Hoon-jung (The Unjust)
Nominees:

Kang Hyung-chul (Sunny)

Park Sang-yeon (The Front Line)

Park Hoon-jung (The Unjust)

Choi Min-suk (Blind)

Hwang Dong-hyuk (Silenced)

Best Short Film

Winner: 

Yang Hyo-joo (Broken Night)

Popularity Award
Winners: 

Ko Soo

Gong Yoo

Choi Gang-hee

Kim Hye-soo

Audience Choice Award for Most Popular Movie

Winner: 

War of the Arrows