Review: BEAUTIFUL Explores the Ugly Depths of Desire

By Pierce Conran

Beauty and obsession go under the knife in Juhn Jai-hong’s debut Beautiful (2008), a clinical observation of desire that was both produced by Kim Ki-duk and based on his original story. Lensed with a scopophilic yet detached gaze, it is more than a little reminiscent of the controversial auteur’s body of work.

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Review: THE DEAL, A Serviceable But Generic Korean Revenge Thriller

By Pierce Conran

Korea delivers yet another serviceable revenge thriller with The Deal, a well-oiled but overly familiar addition to the longstanding local genre staple. With young women violently murdered during downpours and Kim Sang-kyung once again playing a hapless detective at his wit's end, the film immediately calls to mind modern classic Memories of Murder, an inevitable comparison but a tough act to live up to.

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Review: THE HANDMAIDEN, Park Chan-wook's Deeply Engrossing and Highly Sexual Tale of Female Sexuality

By Pierce Conran

Following his Hollywood foray Stoker, Park Chan-wook returns to (mostly) home soil for his sumptuous and sensual adaptation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith. Transposing the novel's setting from Victorian England to 1930s Korea and Japan, when the former was a colony of the latter, The Handmaiden is a deeply engrossing, highly sexual and at times darkly humorous tale of female sexuality brought to life in spectacular fashion.

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News: Kim Han-min to Follow ROARING CURRENTS with Manchuria-Set War Pic

By Pierce Conran

In the wake of the record-breaking success of last summer's Roaring Currents, Kim Han-min is opting to remain in the period war genre as he is busy preparing a new film called Bongoh Town Battle (working title), about a two-day skirmish between independent Korean forces and the Japanese army in Manchuria in 1920.

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Korean Box Office: British Invasion Shuts Out Local Films (2015 WK 9)

By Pierce Conran

Following the busy Lunar New Year holiday, admissions fell to 1.97 admissions over the weekend but the main victims were local films, which saw their market share plummet to 18.5%. In a surprise turn of events, it was the United Kingdom that powered the box office with a 47.5% market share from the top two films, both holdovers.

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Review: WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL Is a Surreal Anti-War Drama

By Chris Horn

There is perhaps no region better suited to make a unique anti-war film than Korea, a country itself split and in a constant state of escalated threats of renewed warfare. Not quite content to make a film weighed down by excessive melodrama, new director Park Kwang-hyun made a splash in 2005 with his quirky, surreal adaptation of Jang Jin’s well-regarded play Welcome to Dongmakgol. Though imperfect, this feature film debut ultimately proves more memorable than most other anti-war films that pile on the misery.

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Korean Box Office: Detectives and Spies Lead Lunar New Year Weekend (2015 WK 8)

By Pierce Conran

Business shot up 70% over last week, as 3.88 million holiday spectators flooded the theaters, however that figure was over a million lower than last year's Lunar New Year weekend. Granted it's not exactly as fair comparison as LNY itself fell on Friday in 2014 and fell just before the weekend this year. Against stiff competition from British films and foreign animation, local films barely maintained their market share with 50.2%.

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Review: WAIKIKI BROTHERS, A True Korean Classic

By Pierce Conran

Yim Soonrye could lay claim to being the first female director to forge a lasting career in the Korean film industry. Indeed, she has one of the most varied filmographies among current filmmakers, yet ironically, or perhaps necessarily, she rose to prominence by making a pair of films that explored Korean masculinity far more successfully than the majority of her male contemporaries. 14 years on, her second feature Waikiki Brothers (2001) stands up as one of the best works of contemporary Korean cinema. Though the movement is generally considered to have ended with Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy in 1999, it’s also a film that could easily be included among the best of the Korean New Wave. 

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Review: THE KING AND THE CLOWN is a Bawdy, Heartfelt Period Classic

By Chris Horn

There’s no question that Korean period films have continued to increase in popularity in recent years as three of the top ten grossing Korean films by ticket admissions are set during the Joseon dynasty. As Korean studios allocate increasing resources to the next big period films they would do well to study Lee Joon-ik’s masterful The King and the Clown. Not only does Lee capture a thematically interesting story rounded out by compelling performances, but The King and the Clown is brilliant in its sympathetic look at all levels of Joseon society.

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Reel Talk: The Thriving, Yet Embattled Korean Indie Scene

Every Friday I appear on a segment called Reel Talk for Arirang TV on the 2 o'clock news, mostly covering Korean cinema.

There's plenty to celebrate in Korea's contemporary indie scene, with fascinating new works appearing year-round and across the world's biggest festivals, yet few viewers in Korea are getting a chance to see them. In the most recent Reel Talk I preview a few of the films that will get limited runs in Korea soon as well as the challenges the industry faces.

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Korean Box Office: DETECTIVE K 2 Opens Over Original (2015 WK 7)

By Pierce Conran

2.25 million spectators shuffled into theaters during the weekend before the Lunar New Year holiday, which was better than last week but still far behind the comparable weekend last year, when Frozen and Miss Granny led the market. Local films maintained a slim majority with a 50.7% screening share.

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News: Golden Bear for Korean Short HOSANNA

By Pierce Conran

For the second time in five years, a Korean film has walked away with the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear for Short Film. Na Young-kil trumphed with Hosanna four years after brothers Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-kyong took home the same award for Night Fishing.

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News: Bae Doo-na Boards Omnibus THE ROMANTIC

By Pierce Conran

Bae Doo-na is close to signing on to what would be her first commercial Korean film since 2012's As One. The film in question is The Romantic, an omnibus drama in the same mould as Love Actually (2003).

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Review: Im Sang-soo's THE OLD GARDEN, A Heady Cocktail of Art, Ambition and History

By Pierce Conran

Ambition, artistry and Korea’s painful recent past combine to fascinating results in The Old Garden (2006), an impressive yet flawed work from director Im Sang-soo which frames the trauma of a nation through a brief, yet passionate romance.

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News: Choi Dong-hoon's Period-Thriller ASSASSINATION Wraps

By Pierce Conran

Choi Dong-hoon's much anticipated period action-thriller Assassination wrapped its shoot on January 31st in Paju, Korea, after having begun in Shanghai back on August 27th last year.

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Review: C'EST SI BON Trades Rich 60s Music Setting for Dull Romance

By Pierce Conran

A terrific period setting is squandered in the disappointing C'est si bon, a twee and lethargic romance masquerading as a dynamic folk music biopic. Programmed as one of this year's two major Lunar New Year holiday releases (the other being period action-comedy sequel Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island), Kim Hyun-seok's sixth film seeks to expand on the director's proven credentials in the rom-com field (Cyrano Agency, 2010) by enticing older viewers with music and period detail designed to evoked their youth.

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Top 10 Korean Contenders for Cannes 2015

By Pierce Conran

Guessing what films might go to Cannes is a bit of a fool's errand, but as those go, it can be a fun one. Korea doesn't always get features selected (though it has its fair share of award wins) yet, in the months leading up to the fest, people in the local industry often like to speculate about what might make the lineup.

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Review - DETECTIVE K: SECRET OF THE LOST ISLAND, Another Underwhelming Korean Period Action Comedy

By Pierce Conran

Detective Kim is back with his trusty sidekick Seo-pil in the follow up to 2011’s hit period action-comedy Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow. A hodgepodge of genres delivered at breakneck speed, this new instalment, subtitled Secret of the Lost Island, comes on the heels of a raft of period successes, and will again open during the busy Lunar New Year period.

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Review: THE CONTACT Provides a Glimpse of Romance at the Speed of the ‘90s

By Chris Horn

The romance genre is always teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice: an original plot and strong chemistry between the leads are the essential yet often elusive elements of successful romance. In 1997, Jang Yoon-hyeon struck gold, courting both viewer and critical approval with his hit romance The Contact. While it has its share of self-indulgence, it ultimately deserves its reputation as a refreshing genre film.

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Korean Box Office: Soft Opening for C'EST SI BON Ahead of Lunar New Year (2015 WK 6)

By Pierce Conran

In the warm up to holidays, 1.81 million people visited theaters as a Korean film reclaimed the top of the charts. Local films were dominant with 62% of the market.

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