Weekly Review Round-up (06/23-06/29, 2012)

Lots of reviews of recent and past films this week including many for Korean doc Planet of Snail which is currently playing in the UK and many films that will be screening at the 11th New York Asian Film Fesitval which is kicking off today and will be covered here on MKC.

RECENT FILMS

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Café Noir (카페 느와르, Kape Neuwareu) 2009

The burden of expectation can sometimes be a heavy weight to bear and after a little too much of it, many films simply crumble.  In 2009, an indie Korean film clocking in at three and a half hours began to make the rounds of the festival circuit and attracted some very positive attention.  After a full year screening at various events it was finally accorded a domestic release in late December 2010 but, like the vast majority of independent features, it failed to find an audience in Korea.  A number of people (myself included) patiently awaited its DVD release but it never came… until now.  After premiering at the Busan Film Festival in October 2009, Café Noir was finally released on DVD in June 2012.

While I can’t say exactly why the wait for the disc was so long, I can, to some extent, understand it.  Here is a film with an enormous running time, some heavy source texts (Goethe and Dostoyevsky), painfully long takes and a fairly significant dollop of pretension; it is also the debut film of a long-standing film critic.  Just one of these elements is dangerous enough to ward off all but the most adventurous film viewers but taken together it’s true that this film could only ever appeal to a very select crowd.

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Weekly Review Round-up (10/15-10/21, 2011)

This week we have a section dedicated to reviews from the recently wrapped Festival franco-coréen du film in Paris.  All of these are in French (my second language) and special thanks to Kim-Bong-Park, Made in Asie and asiafilm.fr for their hard work!  Also a number of The Yellow Sea reviews as it opens in the UK & Ireland.

Enjoy!

FFCF (Festival franco-coréen du film)

Anti Gas Skin

(asiafilm.fr, October 16, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 16, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 17, 2011)

Bleak Night

(asiafilm.fr, October 16, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 13, 2011)

Café Noir

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 18, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 19, 2011)

Castaway on the Moon, 2009

(asiafilm.fr, October 14, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 13, 2011)

Cheonggyecheon Medley

(asiafilm.fr, October 15, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 16, 2011)

Come, Closer

(asiafilm.fr, October 14, 2011)

End of Animal

(asiafilm.fr, October 13, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 15, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 15, 2011)

Grandmother's Flower

(asiafilm.fr, October 13, 2011)

Hello Ghost

(Made in Asie, October 17, 2011)

Invasion of Alien Bikini

(asiafilm.fr, October 18, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 17, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 17, 2011)

Late Autumn

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 17, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 18, 2011)

Late Autumn, 1981

(Made in Asie, October 18, 2011)

Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild

(asiafilm.fr, October 19, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 20, 2011)

Miracle on Jongno Street

(Made in Asie, October 13, 2011)

Possessed

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 14, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 19, 2011)

Sunny

(asiafilm.fr, October 19, 2011)

(Kim-Bong-Park, October 12, 2011)

The Code of a Duel

(asiafilm.fr, October 17, 2011)

(Made in Asie, October 17, 2011)

The Day He Arrives

(asiafilm.fr, October 15, 2011)

RECENT RELEASES

Countdown

(Film Business Asia, October 19, 2011)

From Seoul to Varanasi

(Twitch, October 16, 2011)

(Variety, October 16, 2011 - Subscription Required)

Head

(Modern Korean Cinema, October 20, 2011)

Hindsight

(Variety, October 17, 2011 - Subscription Required)

Little Black Dress

(Modern Korean Cinema, October 18, 2011)

Memories of Murder

(subtitledonline, October 20, 2011)

Pink

(The Korea Times, October 20, 2011)

(Twitch, October 16, 2011)

Poetry

(straight.com, October 20, 2011)

Poongsan

(Film Business Asia, October 18, 2011)

Red Vacance, Black Wedding

(Twitch, October 16, 2011)

Silenced

(Film Business Asia, October 120 2011)

The Yellow Sea

(Empire, October 2011)

(entertainment.ie, October 17, 2011)

(Hangul Celluloid, October 17, 2011)

(metro.co.uk, October 21, 2011)

(Mini Mini Movie, October 13, 2011)

PAST FILMS

Possessed, 2009

(Kim Bong Park, October 14, 2011)

Treeless Montain, 2008

(Mmegionline, October 18, 2011)

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. 

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