Review: ASSASSINATION Shoots Up a Storm With Stuffed to the Gills Spy Yarn

By Pierce Conran

After what had been a slow year Korean cinema received a huge shot of adrenaline with Assassination, the latest from Choi Dong-hoon, which ushered in the high season at the 2015 box office. A considerable chunk of the country's biggest stars throw themselves into the director's high octane Colonial Era action-thriller that swaps out his usual caper shenanigans for an operatic espionage yarn.

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Review: HERSTORY Foregrounds Sensational Cast in Best Comfort Women Tale Yet (by a Margin)

By Pierce Conran

One of the most sensitive issues in Korean society over the past few years has the been the acknowledgement of the plight of the Korean comfort women that were forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese military during World War II. Naturally, stories of these women have quickly found their way to the big screen, but while they've experienced widespread success, the films themselves have for the most part been terribly manipulative. Min Kyu-dong's Herstory is the latest addition to the genre, but unlike last year's calculating but enormously popular I Can Speak, this powerful tale proves to the most affecting and sincere of the bunch, by a country mile.

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Review: THE TIGER, A Gory, Gorgeous Battle To The Death

By Pierce Conran

Following the record-breaking success of Roaring Currents, Choi Min-sik returns to screens in another big-budget period epic, this time hunting down the last Korean tiger (as opposed to the last tiger in Korea, because this feline clearly has a national identity) in Park Hoon-jung's end-of-year release The Tiger.

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Review: THE AGE OF SHADOWS, Kim Jee-woon's Dazzling Period Spy Thriller

By Pierce Conran

Korean theatres have become inundated with films set during the Japanese Colonial period over the last few years but all are put to shame by The Age of Shadows, Kim Jee-woon's mesmerising return to home soil after directing Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand. The film also marks a strong start for Warner Brothers in the market, financing a Korean production for the first time.

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Review: ANARCHIST FROM COLONY Gets Lost on the Way Home

By Rex Baylon

Lee Joon-ik’s latest film Anarchist from Colony is a continuation of the director’s fascination with the grand events of Korean history. From King and Clown, a film about the relationship between a Joseon dynasty king and a troupe of street performers, to Blades of Blood, about a Zatoichi-esque character during the early days of the Imjin War, Lee has focused on the perspective of the marginalized. This continues with the story of Park Yeol, a Korean anarchist who had grand designs on killing the Japanese emperor Hirohito, all in the hopes of freeing Korea from Japanese control, but was arrested and tried for treason before he could put his plan into action.

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Review: DONGJU: THE PORTRAIT OF A POET Offers Sober and Compelling Look at Korean History

By Pierce Conran

During the last year, the floodgates have opened for the Japanese Occupation Period in mainstream Korean cinema, yet The King and the Clown (2005) helmer Lee Joon-ik, arguably Korea's top purveyor of commercial period fare, has opted to tackle the period with his first ever indie film, and shot in black and white no less. A sober account of a difficult time in modern Korean history, Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet combines a young cast with a literary script, delivering one of the most unique Korean period films of recent memory.

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