Modern Korean Cinema: late autumn

Showing posts with label late autumn. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Korean Cinema News (03/22-03/28, 2012)

Not a huge amount of news this week though my tie to go digging for it is also a bit limited as I'm on site covering the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival.

KOREAN CINEMA NEWS

Certain Seoul Movie Theatres to Add Chinese Subtitles
After English and Japanese, Chinese subtitles will be added to Korean movies in theatres as soon as the latter half of this year. A spokesperson from the city said that "Due to the increasing number of Chinese tourists we are going to have major theatres begin service with Chinese subtitles so that they will be able to easily watch Korean movies." (Page F30, March 22, 2012)

Festival to Bring Films on Women’s Experiences
The Seoul-based women’s film festival is back, with its line-up ever so conscious of the world’s turbulent modern history. From the breast cancer campaign to contemporary racism to women’s sexuality, this year’s IWFFIS (International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul) is filled with diverse themes and socially conscious issues that have been affecting the lives of women worldwide. (The Korea Herald, March 22, 2012)

6 of the Most Distinguished and Extraordinary Movies to Be Expected in 2012
Art theater Cinecube has carefully selected movies that are to be expected this year in 2012 and is presenting fans with a mega-exhibition called "Cinecubes Choice: Movies To Be Expected In 2012". This mega-exhibition will open on the 22nd until the 29th for 8 days with 6 movies that will brightly decorate 2012 with their significant qualities and shocking topics. (hancinema.net, March 22, 2012)

What's South Korean Cinema Got?

Korea's presence on the world's silver screen has boomed in the last decade, forming the cinematic crest to the cultural phenomena know as the 'Korean Wave'. Along with Korean cuisine and the increasingly popular world of K-pop, Korean cinema and local dramas have managed to capture the international community's interest and imagination. The mysterious force behind this drive is riddled in Korea's unique ability to dramatize conflict in a manner that, not only surprises and delights, but directly challenges, or presentsalternatives to, the audiences' expectations and sensibilities. (hancinema.net, March 24, 2012)

Planet of Snail Invited to Canadian Film Fest
Director Yi Seung-jun’s award-winning documentary Planet of Snail has been invited to yet another major documentary festival overseas, following its invitation to the 11th Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month, according to the movie’s production house. An everyday portrayal of a hearing and visually impaired man and his wife, the film will be featured in the competition section of Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival held annually in Toronto, Canada. (The Korea Herald, March 25, 2012)

Song Kang-ho's First Historical Fortune
Song Kang-ho is attempting at his first historical movie. According to an official, Song Kang-ho will start making the movie Fortune in July or August after the movie Snow Piercer. Director Han Jae-rim is in charge of this movie and he worked with Song Kang-ho in the 2007 movie The Show Must Go On. To be released in 2013. (hancinema.net, March 26, 2012)

Late Autumn Has Indian Summer
Kim Tae-yong's Late Autumn (2010) was second-placed at the China box office at the weekend, securing bigger numbers for the cross-national romance than on its original South Korean release in Feb 2011. Set in the US, the film stars Tang Wei as a female prisoner, originally from China, who is given 72 hours parole to visit her family in Seattle. On the train, she befriends a man on-the-run, played by South Korea's Hyun Bin. (Film Business Asia, March 27, 2012)

INTERVIEW

With Wit and Wisdom, Rebel Architect Lends His Shine to the Cinema
Director Jeong Jae-eun, who made a grand debut in the local movie scene more than a decade ago with the feature film Take Care of My Cat (2001), comes back with her first documentary, Talking Architect. The 95-minute film follows maverick Korean architect Chung Guyon (1943-2011) during the last year of his life, while he was suffering from colorectal cancer. As with any kind of change, the director admitted the transition from features to documentaries was awkward and nerve-wracking at first. (Joong Ang Daily, March 23, 2012)

TRAILER

All About My Wife

POSTER

All About My Wife

As One

BOX OFFICE

Architecture 101 Finds Its Way to Number 1

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 25, 2012)

Korean Cinema News is a weekly feature which provides wide-ranging news coverage on Korean cinema, including but not limited to: features; festival news; interviews; industry news; trailers; posters; and box office. It appears every Wednesday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update and the Weekly Review Round-up. 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.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Fribourg International Film Festival - Day III Report

Ongoing reports on the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival which Modern Korean Cinema will be covering all week.

Cuchera

(Philippines, 2011)

Dir: Joseph Israel Laban

This was the midnight screening during the opening day but I opted to miss it in favour of attending the opening party, a decision that led to my missing the first film of the next day but I’m all caught up now! Cuchera is only the second Filipino film I’ve seen, after the impressive The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveiros (2005) which I caught some years ago at the Dublin International Film Festival.

There’s no doubting why this was part of the midnight film section: Laban’s depiction of drug muling in the Philippines is gruesome, all the more so considering its intimate focus. The film’s protagonist is a middle-aged woman who is making a transition from being a prostitute and drug mule to setting up her own drug muling enterprise.

Laban’s film casts a cold and disquieting eye over the secret world of vice of the daily struggle of those engaged in its operation, often against their will or at least forced by circumstance. The film takes a interesting look at a character who was no doubt part of the oppressed but after years of being a victim and a certain hardening in her character is now quite ready to make the leap to being the oppressor. Her scruples are still visible, if only slightly, but it is clear that they are a nuisance that are easily cast aside as she is trying to become an underworld businesswoman.

Cuchera will likely put any viewer in a state of extreme discomfort and while its attempt to be a scorching commentary on the world it depicts is admirable it also comes off as exploitative. I believe that the events as they happen on screen have some basis in reality but Laban tends to opt for the worst case scenario at every turn. Subtlety certainly has no place in such a work but in order to have been properly elucidated, the themes might have played better in the hands of a more accomplished director.

The film is a debut effort but it has to be said that it is an ugly film. This could be excusable, given the morbid and gritty subject matter, but the poor film technique is off-putting because of its quality, not just its content, and this becomes the undoing of the film.

The Last Christeros

(Mexico, 2011)

Dir: Matias Meier

Another entry in the international competition, The Last Christeros is a languid look at a small group of Christian rebels in the mid-1930s. Rather than focus on battles and the action of the confrontations that surround them, Meier chooses instead to delve into the small and quiet moments of introspection that exists between them. While in theory an interesting idea for me this was a missed opportunity and its philosophical temperament resulted in a drab film that did not present enough interesting ideas to keep me interested.

There were a handful of wonderful scenes, including a great sing-a-long near the end but the long takes were borderline excruciating and went well past any acceptable boundary of artistic expression or some cinematic form of philosophical rumination. I also quickly grew bored of the Christ imagery, which of course fit the proceedings but were somewhat akin to flogging a dead fish.

In some ways the imagery turned this into a dull counterpart to another film playing at the festival, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s seminal and surrealist midnight pic El Topo (1970). Though whenever I was reminded of that film I grew frustrated as I wished I could have been watching it instead!

However the film certainly wasn’t awful and though I wasn’t on board with some its major artistic choices, it did demonstrate a commanding and poetic style that made it cohesive, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. But at the end of the day I felt I wasn’t rewarded for my patience, perhaps I missed something.

Late Autumn

(South Korea, USA; 2010)

Dir: Kim Tae-yong

Now here’s a film I’ve been dying to see for a while. It won the public prize at last year’s FIFF edition and so wasn’t a part of this year’s but as I noticed it in the press video library, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see a film from one of South Korea’s best directors that still isn’t available even though it was released two years ago.

Kim Tae-yong’s first film was Memento Mori which he co-directed in 1999 and it is still one of my favorite K-horrors. Seven years later he came back with Family Ties, easily one of the best Korean films of 2006 and one that deserve wider recognition. Late Autumn is a co-production with the United States and stars Tang Wei, a big Chinese star. She shares the screen with Hyun Bin, one of the poster boys of contemporary Korean entertainment who stole a lot of hearts alongside Ha Ji-won in the phenomenally successful K-drama Secret Garden (2010).

Tang plays a woman who murdered her husband and currently resides in jail but she is given a 72 hours furlough when her mother dies in order to attend her funeral. On her way to Seattle she meets a suave Korean man, a gigolo who is on the run from the husband of one of his clients.

Kim's film explores people who are caught in situations that they do not have the power to control and our two immigrant protagonists kill time by sharing the road together on the classic American vehicle of escape, the Greyhound bus. There is an element of fantasy in how they conduct themselves as they lie about their current situations to other people and play out the imaginary conversation of a man and woman who are talking in the distance. This reluctance to be truthful could be a coping mechanism for two individuals who are not only immigrants but live on the fringe of their own minority communities. Tang's character confesses her story and crime to her temporary road partner but does so in Mandarin while Hyun answers after each sentence with the only two words he knows; good and bad.

Late Autumn, originally a Korean film from 1966 has been remade many times and I am not familiar with its previous renditions but Kim's version transfixed me. It was lyrical and full longing while at the same time filled with an easy going charm. I really hope that Kim gets to make another film soon, all his works up until this point have been exceptional.

Lucky

(South Africa, 2011)

Dir: Avie Luthra

My fourth international competition film was a full-length version of a short that was previously made by the same director in 2005. It is a coming of age story about a young boy in a village whose mother dies. He makes his way to the city to stay with his uncle but this does not work out as planned and soon he comes to befriend an elderly Indian woman who lives across the atrium of the apartment complex.

Luthra's film deals with quite a lot of themes but they are nestled together well within a tale that is often heart-warming. Never have I seen a boy so hellbent on going to school and it is devastating to see him turned away or learning that his uncle has swilled away all the money left by his mother for that purpose. The boy, Lucky, has no obvious place in society, he is an orphan with no trustworthy family to rely on and the state offers him no safety net.

Racism is also keenly dealt with as at first the Indian woman is mistrustful of Lucky and she soon makes it clear that she does not trust blacks full stop. The boy only speaks Zulu while the senior knows Hindi and English, this further complicates their relationship but also gives them an opportunity to build a bond on the strength of their actions rather words and perception.

I really enjoyed Lucky but I felt at times that it was a little too self-assured. It's a real crowd-pleaser though and may well walk away with the top prize.

Monpura

(Bangladesh, 2009)

Dir: Selim Gias Uddin

My second Bangladeshi film after the previous night's Runway has the distinction of being the most popular indigenous film in decades. However, this also means that it is a very different kind of film. Monpura is populist fluff and yet it very good populist fluff that nonetheless engages with some interesting questions as characters are placed in tricky liminal environments.

The film announces itself very quickly as a genre film. An opulent home at night is the scene of a murder, a servant informs the master. It is his mentally handicapped son who has committed the deed as he was released from his shackles. Now the servant, Shonai, is to take the blame for the murder and is sent off to Monpura, a remote island on the Ganges, to hide away from the authorities. It is here that he meets Pori, the beautiful daughter of a nearby fisherman. They fall in love but fate has other plans for them.

Monpura was quite well made and though it was 140 minutes long I was engaged throughout. I'm a sucker for a good genre film and as Hollywood has consistently disappointed me with its romance films I seek them out elsewhere, notable South Korea. Uddin's film is an epic tale of love that takes a relatively simple story and imbues it with notions of duty, social class, sacrifice, family and love.

It is not an extraordinary film and certainly lacks some substance though I shouldn't think it matters too much as its charming elements add up to a very pleasant viewing experience. It is easy to see why this became such a hit in its native Bangladesh.

FIFF Preview

Day I Report

Day II Report
Day IV Report
Day V Report
Day VI Report
Day VII Report
Day VIII Report
Final Thoughts, Top 10 and Awards
Huh Jong-ho Interview

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.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Fest Preview: New York Korean Film Festival 2012

(by Peter Gutiérrez)

It’s probably a testament to the output and quality of the Korean film industry that here in New York we’re gearing up for NYKFF 2012 a scant five months after the similar Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today series, also a project of The Korea Society.

With this tenth edition of the fest, the programmers have, as in years past, done a terrific job of showing off Korea’s startling range of populist cinema. The lineup itself may not be vast, with only seven titles screening over three days, but the accessible mix of genres and styles makes the event perfect for both newbies and veteran fans who want to catch some rare big-screen presentations of several recent hits. Here’s a quick rundown of all that lies in store…

Sunny

Forget about the "chick flick" vibe as reflected in the poster, title, and maybe any plot summary you've read of this film – or maybe don't forget about it but instead allow any preconceived notions about the themes and tone of your typical chick flick simply to melt away. Yes, the maudlin, cancer-patient set-up is not promising, but fortunately most of the runtime is devoted to extended flashbacks of a very winning group of young actresses... and mostly they're just involved in a series of engaging confrontations with a rival pack of school girls. One of these occurs against a backdrop of a full-scale political riot, and soon becomes exhilarating in the way that only the best set pieces can. Consistently humorous, Sunny is pure, unaffected fun; so good and so refreshing that it made me recall why I love Korean cinema in the first place.

The Servant

At first it may seem a bit odd to showcase a 2010 film that’s been readily available to North American audiences via Netflix Instant since last year, but such an opinion would ignore the chief reason to see Kim Dae-woo’s grand romance: its overwhelming, practically swoon-inducing, visual beauty. Indeed, the combined efforts of art direction, cinematography, and costume design to achieve unforgettably vivid images projected in a larger-than-life format should provide sufficient motivation to travel to Brooklyn – or anywhere else. For better or worse, though, its sheer gorgeousness may be The Servant’s main virtue despite its many moments of disarming comedy and a few effective shocks. Retelling “The Tale of Chunhyang” with a mix of period intrigue and modern-day bluntness, especially when it comes to matters sexual, certainly increases the potential audience for such a film but the uneasy meshing of tones and sensibilities didn’t always work for me. More importantly, the film only partly strikes the air of high tragedy it’s aiming for – although it could be that I’m judging it a bit unfairly by comparing it to similar Korean films of the past decade: in my experience Hollywood romances are seldom this ambitious and thoughtful.

Moss

With a delicious air of slow-building menace and mystery, punctuated with sudden jolts of violence, Moss consistently delivers in the chills-and-thrills department. Ultimately, however, its climax (after two and half hours) lacks the majestic, perhaps mind-bending, revelations we’ve been expecting, whether spiritual in nature per the film’s themes or simply on the order of a deeply satisfying plot twist. Still, there are ample pleasures to be had here. Jeong Jae-young memorably plays the same character in both a young, abrasive, and corrupt version and as an older, still corrupt, but vastly smoother incarnation that recalls John Huston in Chinatown (1974)… except Huston wasn’t acting 30 years beyond his actual age. All in all, though, I much prefer the following film, made by pretty much the same creative team, in terms of providing a rewarding cinematic experience.

GLove

I'm not big on feel-good movies, to put it mildly, and sports flicks have an annoying tendency to be formulaic, but this one really stands out from the crowd. Jeong Jae-young, one of my favorite Korean actors, nails the lead role as a disgraced ballplayer but to his credit does not overshadow the fine supporting cast. Kudos to director Kang Woo-suk for pulling this off as well as all the tonal shifts that a dramedy of this type demands – that Kang is at the same time showing off his own impressive versatility after the dark, usually urban films that have earned him so much box office success probably goes without saying. Rhymes with: the 2011 Oscar-nominated American documentary Undefeated.

Hindsight

I’m rounding my assessment up from a fail to a mere disappointment simply because, for my money, Song Kang-ho is one of the world's great stars and carries several scenes just by waiting a beat and then smiling. To a certain degree one can overlook the empty glossiness of production and equally shallow sentimentalism – those often come with the territory if one is expecting a multi-genre, popcorn-fueled blockbuster. In other words, I would have been very happy with another Secret Reunion (2010). Of course it's fine that here we have a romantic subtext instead of bromantic one, but what's not fine is how undercooked it is and how anemic the action scenes are on top of that. As an example of how neither angle works, I submit this image: an undeniably cute and appealing Shin Se-kyung takes aim with a high-powered rifle but then director Lee Hyun-seung has her gently bite her lower lip in hesitation. If you feel this sort of thing adds extra dimension to female characters or more heft to dramatic tension, knock yourself out, but I found Hindsight hard to take seriously after this point. The same was true following two scenes in which the leads separately endure the kind of physical assault that would land the rest of us in traction but from which they bounce back so quickly that it's as if the characters themselves had stunt doubles.

Quick

Quick is a film that doesn't take itself very seriously and all the ingredients are there for a heady summer cocktail of speed, flash and pyrotechnics but at the end of the day it's just too much. The story is cluttered and there are too many ingredients thrown in to please any and all comers, such as k-pop, gangsters, biker gangs, youth violence, washboard abs, scantily clad women, inefficient police, romance and of course melodrama. However, one you thing you can almost always count on with Korean films is strong production values and true to form director Jo Beom-goo's team is no slouch in the SFX department. At the end of the day this comedy-action film has a little something for everyone but perhaps not enough for anyone. (Pierce Conran)

Late Autumn

A second remake of the classic Lee Man-hui film of 1966, following one from 1981, and not to be confused with Yasujiro Ozu's 1960 film of the same name, Late Autumn is the third feature from the excellent Kim Tae-yong, who previously helmed Memento Mori (1999) and Family Ties (2006). The film stars Chinese beauty Tang Wei as an imprisoned woman on a three-day furlough to attend her mother's funeral in Seattle and Korean heartthrob Hyun Bin as a man on the run. The film kicked off a long series of international film festival engagements in Toronto and has subsequently been featured at Busan, Berlin, Jeonju, London, Hong Kong, and many more. It has also been awarded several times, most notably by the same jury that gave its top prize to Poetry at the Fribourg International Film Festival last March. (Pierce Conran)

Peter Gutiérrez writes for Twitch and School Library Journal, and can be counted on for too-frequent film and pop culture updates on Twitter via @Peter_Gutierrez.

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.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Weekly Review Round-up (11/26-12/02, 2011)

A number of high-profile reviews for Na Hong-jin's sophomore feature The Yellow Sea as it opens in major cities across the US. A number of new of other pieces including on current Korean hits Punch and SIU.

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Amen

(Joong Ang Daily, December 2, 2011)

Punch

(abs-cbnnews.com, November 28, 2011)

S.I.U.

(The Korea Times, December 2, 2011)

RECENT RELEASES

Blind

(hancinema.net, November 26, 2011)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, November 30, 2011)

Clash of the Families

(Modern Korean Cinema, November 29, 2011)

Haunters

(Flight of the Fangirl, November 27, 2011)

Late Autumn

(Anikor, November 28, 2011)

Pained

(Seen in Jeonju, November 30, 2011)

Poetry

(National Post, November 25, 2011)

(Total Film, November 26, 2011)

Red Vacance, Black Wedding

(Film Business Asia, November 27, 2011)

Talking Architect

(Film Business Asia, November 27, 2011)

The Cat

(Asian Movie Pulse, November 27, 2011)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, December 1, 2011)

The Front Line

(hancinema.net, November 26, 2011)

The Yellow Sea

(Film Journal, December 1, 2011)

(LA Weekly, December 1, 2011)

(The Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2011)

(The New York Times, December 1, 2011)

(Time Out New York, November 29, 2011)

PAST FILMS

Going By the Book, 2007

(searchindia.com, November 29, 2011)

Heaven's Postman, 2009

(Otherwhere, November 30, 2011)

Into the White Night, 2009

(iloveasian-movies.blogpsot.com, November 30, 2011)

Secret Sunshine, 2007

(japancinema.net, December 1, 2011)

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring, 2003

(Cine-International, December 1, 2011)

The Fox With Nine Tails, 1994

(Hangul Celluloid, December 2, 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.

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.

Friday, October 21, 2011

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