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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A Good Rain Knows (호우시절, Howoo shijeol) 2009

By Rex Baylon

What do you do when a filmmaker you respect and champion begins to make works that you dislike? Do you unabashedly support it and ignore the work’s inherent flaws? Do you ignore the work, pretend to suffer from cinephilic amnesia and hope that the offending film will fall through the cracks of time and be mercifully forgotten? Or do you finally sit down and deal with the fact that people, no less filmmakers, are imperfect artisans and that although our initial response to their work may have been unabashed excitement, it must be tempered and we must attempt to look at each new work free from the distractions of the past.

Having begun life as part of a three-part omnibus film entitled Chengdu, I Love You (2009) with contributions by Chinese filmmaker Cu Jian and Hong Kong auteur Fruit Chan. Hur Jin-ho’s A Good Rain Knows (2009) evolved out of that project and became its own feature. Being a Pan-Asian production Hur cast Korean superstar Jung Woo-sung, fresh off the production of Kim Jee-won’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), to play the poet-turned-businessman Park Dong-ha and Mainland Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan, who worked on the controversial Lu Chuan picture City of Life and Death (2009) that same year, was cast as May, Dong-ha’s melancholic love interest.

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Architecture 101 (건축학개론, Geonchukhakgaeron) 2012

By Rex Baylon

Woe to all the young lovers around the world. In the arena of melodrama there seems to be no greater sin than to be young and in love. And within the confines of Korean film, a national cinema that relishes in using sickness, war, class conflicts and all manner of other obstacles great and small to keep its young lovers apart, the cinematic landscape is littered with countless failed and stillborn romances that have withered on the vine due to masculine pride or the natural process of time. The trauma brought on by these failed first time affairs of the heart reverberate all the way to adulthood with failed marriages, arrested development, and emotionally vacant characters being familiar tropes within the Korean romance genre.

After dabbling in the eerie atmosphere that is K-Horror with the supernatural thriller Possessed (Bulsinjiok, 2009), architect-turned-filmmaker Lee Yong-ju was back in the spotlight in 2012 with his new project Architecture 101. Revolving around the complicated relationship between an architect, Seung-min, played by Uhm Tae-woong, and his first love, Seo-yeon (Han Ga-in). Lee’s sophomore feature uses a split narrative focusing half the story in the not-so-distant past, where the two lovers of our story first meet and subsequently fall in love, and the present day where, for reasons not yet made aware to us, Seung-min and Seo-yeon have drifted apart and are no longer together. Commissioned by Seo-yeon to design a new home for her on Jeju island, Architecture 101 follows the same story beats that countless Hallyu love stories have followed since Hur Jin-ho’s masterpiece Christmas in August (1998).

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Fribourg International Film Festival - Day VII Report

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

Yesterday I saw my final two International Competition films and since the prizes will be announced later today I thought I would chime in with my own predictions.  I will post my favorites at the conclusion of the week but if I were a betting man I would wager on Historias Que So Existem Quando Lembradas (Brazil, Argentina, France; 2011) for the top prize, the Regard d’Or, and Lucky (South Africa, 2011) for the public prize.

I also had the great pleasure of interviewing Countdown (South Korea, 2011) director Huh Jong-ho yesterday morning.  We chatted for nearly an hour and went over a range of fascinating topics.  It will take me a little while to transcribe our conversation so I plan to publish the piece on Monday.

Honey Pupu

(Taiwan, 2011)

Dir:  Chen Hung-I

Honey Pupu is one of the most singular works to be screened this week at the FIFF.  Its take on the modern world is fiercely original and it employs a dizzying array of different formats and techniques to recount its philosophical and energetic tale of how people’s identity is shaped and disrupted by the world’s virtualization.

Vicky is a radio hostess who is searching for her lover who has disappeared.  She seeks the help of a number of young people she has encountered through social media with names like Cola, Assassin, Money and Playing.

Chen’s film combines gorgeous and whimsical cinematography with other techniques such as a futuristic platform for social media and photography.  His film features a terrific soundtrack which quickly oscillates from classical pieces to modern electro music without missing a beat.

Disappearance and the fear of the loss of identity are the crucial themes of Honey Pupu.  Much of the film references the alarming evanescence of the bee population which may or may not be because of the increasing amount of radio waves being given off by our mobile devices.  In turn the film seems to ask whether these mobile phones and laptops are contributing to the evaporation of our personal identitys within an increasingly more complex society.

Honey Pupu will not be to everyone’s taste but it was definitely a highlight for me this week and I think it is a rather important film.  I am curious to see what Chen will do next but also what other films will do in the future as they try to tackle the same slippery contemporary notions of the self.

The Last Friday

(Jordan, U.A.E.; 2011)

Dir:  Yahya Al-Abdallah

My 12^th and final International Competition film was a nice, thoughtful and respectable affair that while never dull was admittedly a little slow and not always engaging.  The Last Friday is the debut feature from Jordanian director Al-abdallah.

A divorced father needs to undergo surgery in four days but needs the money for the operation which is ill-afforded by his day job as a taxi driver in Amman.

Ali Suliman is marvelous is the lead role.  He has precious little dialogue and he ambles about almost lazily but his performance is very nuanced and he succeeds in so saying so much with so little.  The cinematography is another strong point of the film, very well composed and taking full advantage of the city’s dry, sun-drenched climate, it is one of the film’s greatest assets.

It’s also nice to see a film from the Middle East which isn’t too politicised, it is a film about a man rather than the society he lives in which makes it rather unique and refreshing.  Not to mention that it is a rare opportunity to see a Jordanian film.  The Last Friday probably won’t walk away with the event’s top prize but it is nonetheless a worthwhile film that I would cautiously recommend.

Romance

(Switzerland, 2011)

Dir:  Georges Schwizgebel

This extraordinary short was presented before Tatsumi and was made by Georges Schwizgebel who programmed a section of the festival dedicated to some of the most creative animation being produced in the world today.

Romance follows a man as he wakes up and makes is way to the airport and onto a plane where he sits beside a beautiful stranger.  The film’s soundtrack features a magnificent Rachmaninov track which perfectly complements Schwizgebel’s beautiful film which swirls through tableaus as though in a dream.  The style of the animation resembles late eighteenth century European painting and is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on screen.

I highly recommend this short to anybody, an exceptional work that deserves to be seen.

Tatsumi

(Singapore, 2011)

Dir:  Eric Khoo

Following Schwizbegel’s magnificent Romance was this biography of manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi.  Director Khoo intersperses the narrative of Tatsumi’s life with five stories which bring to life some of the artist’s work.

It is incredible and powerful but more than anything it is a great approach to the biography film.  It celebrates its subject and succeeds in exploring his life and work in equal measure.  The result is almost profound and rarely do I watch a film about a real person I was not familiar with beforehand and come away with a sense that I knew who he was all along.

Tatsumi’s stories are captivating and devastating.  They explore the darkest recesses of the human psyche and as harrowing and dour as their effect can seem, I was invigorated by the experience.

Khoo’s film demonstrates what can be done with animation, a genre that is increasingly producing intelligent work for adults around the world, not just in Japan.  Tatsumi was one of my favorite films of the festival and I am eager to explore more from both Khoo and Tasumi following this week.

Sex and Zen 3D: Extreme Ecstasy

(Hong Kong, 2011)

Dir:  Christopher Sun

My last film of the day is the only one of the week that I knew full well going in how awful it was going to be.  It was a midnight screening which meant nothing else was playing and having been confronted so often with it on Twitter I felt I should see it for myself.

Sex and Zen 3D has gained notoriety for the being first 3D erotic film, though such a claim seems dubious.  It is a B-movie that revels in titillation and theatrical bloodlust and is really no different from other films with the same aims.  It is sometimes creative in its gore and goes to great lengths to throw disgusting things at our faces with its so-so 3D effects.

Thirty minutes is really all you need with this film and it’s certainly not the story that’s going to keep you in your seat.  There’s little point in my criticising this poor and exploitative production but one thing that should be mentioned is just how long it is.  At 123 minutes it stays well beyond its welcome.

FIFF Preview

Day I Report

Day II Report
Day III Report
Day IV Report
Day V Report
Day VI 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.

Always (오직 그대만, O-jik Geu-dae-man) 2011

Korea has produced many romance films over the years and if you’ve seen even a few of them you may have noticed that things don’t always end well for the lovers.  Be it a spacio-temporal gap, a terminal disease or a handicap, there almost always seems to be something that separates them.  By force of seeing so many of these films I began to wonder if there might have been something behind this.  The most convincing reason I could come up with was that these separations may have been an allegory for a larger theme of separation that looms over Korea, namely the division of the peninsula.

While by no means a catchall theory, it think it stands up pretty well if you examine a number of the genre’s most famous offerings such as Lee Hyeon-seung's Il Mare (2000) and John H. Lee’s A Moment to Remember (2004).  However as the years wore on and my knowledge of Korean cinema increased, this has become a less satisfactory explanation.  It is quite simplistic and vague and though it can easily be applied to a film it can just as quickly be discredited.  I still think there’s something to it but now I can see that it is just one facet of a broader set of priorities for Korean filmmakers.

Song Il-gon, though not as well known as filmmakers like Park Chan-wook, Kim Ki-duk or Lee Myung-se overseas, is nevertheless one of Korea’s most impressive cineastes.  In a very short time he made Spider Forest (2004), Feather in the Wind (2004) and Magicians (2005), all critically-acclaimed films.  Spider Forest in particular was I film I was very impressed with which straddled a fine line between commerce and art and in the briefest possible terms I would describe it as what a Korean David Lynch film might look like.

Given his prior output, his latest seems like a bit of a departure.  A romance film with a big hallyu star, Always was the opening film of last year’s Busan International Film Festival.  If you didn’t know who was behind it, the film seemed just like any other Korean romance film and sure enough this is the kind of reception it received after it premiered.  Because of its mediocre reviews and its disappointing box office returns I was ready to write the film off but out of respect for Song I decided I’d give it a chance.  I must say I’m very glad that I did, while it did not scale the heights of some of his previous films, it turned out to be a rewarding experience that had more to offer than its generic trappings might imply.

Cheol-min (So Ji-sun) is a former boxer which a shady past who now solemnly works odd jobs to make a living.  Jeong-hwa (Han Jye-hyo) is a telemarketer who lost her sight in a accident and mistakes Cheol-min for someone one day while he’s manning the booth at a parking complex.  Sensing something sweet and sincere in him she frequently visits him, sharing his booth as they watch K-dramas.  Both have suffered trauma and this is alluded to early on.  Their pain and consequent vulnerability makes them sensitive and very well suited to one another.  There is something dark lurking within in Cheol-min which he hasn’t fully been able to hide away while Jeong-hwa has her own complex (typical of handicapped characters in cinema) whereby she is unable to accept help from others.

So far so plain, nothing here really hints at anything more than typical romantic fare.  So the question is:  Is Always Song Il-gon’s attempt to make a commercially viable film?  Given the demographic friendly plot, the presence of major Korean heartthrob So Ji-sub and the film’s big marketing push, the answer would appear to be yes.  But this doesn’t mean the film is devoid of substance.  First of all, the film looks great.  The luminous cinematography is hazy and frequently sun-drenched, which gives off a potent air of nostalgia not to mention romance.  Generally speaking the film is well-made, it is evident that the film is a result of a strong directorial hand.

As far as the leads go I would say that the casting of So Ji-sub works in its favor.  Primarily a K-drama actor, So has also impressed in a few feature roles, namely as the stoic gangster in Jang Hoon-s exceptional Rough Cut (2008).  The strong silent type, a staple character of the romance genre, suits him very well.  He succeeds in bringing both the physicality and vulnerability out of his character.  Han Jye-hyo on the other hand is less impressive.  Early on she is very endearing and gels quite well with So but soon she falls prey to excess as she shrieks her way through the film’s more dramatic moments.

At one point in the film, Cheol-min is engaged in a vicious cage fight.  He is presented as the opponent who faces a superior and notoriously dirty fighter.  What struck me about this scene was its ambivalence:  while outmatched, his opponent doesn’t resort to dirty tricks while he does, and this wins him the fight.  The film cleverly brings the concept of audience alignment into question.  We root for him because he is the protagonist and also because the film shows us, through codes and pieces of information, that he is the good guy while the other fighter is the villain, though we have never seen him before this point.  We take these clues at face value but as Cheol-min begins to brutalize his opponent it becomes clear that our moral compass can be easily duped by emotional manipulation.

The film is not without its faults, which include a very poorly defined antagonist and some clunky Deus Ex Machinas but by and large this is a successful outing for Song who has once again stretched out into new territory.  Always proves to be a fresh bent on an old theme and will likely reward discerning viewers who give the film a chance.  I hope a few more people see it as it would be a shame for it drift away into anonymity.

★★★☆☆

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.

Pain (통증, Tong-jeung) 2011

Kwak Kyung-taek is primarily known as a maker of manly films, his filmography includes a number of testosterone fuelled works such as Friend (2001), Typhoon (2005), and Eye For an Eye (2008).  So it should come as some surprise that in 2011, his ninth feature was essentially a romance film, or so the marketers behind it would have us believe.  The truth is, Kwak is actually no stranger to romance narratives.  One of his best films is Love (2007) and if the title wasn’t enough of a giveaway, it is a love story, albeit one played in a world of gangsters.

Nam-soon (Kwon Sang-woo) lost his family in an accident when he was young and as a result he no longer feels any pain. He now works as a debt collector whose partner beats him in front of debtors until they pay up. He lives an emotionally barren life until he meets Dong-hyeon (Jeong Ryeo-won), a street stall vendor who suffers from hemophilia. As their unlikely bond grows stronger, Nam-soon gradually opens up and a lifetime of hurt washes over him.

Having seen six of his films I’m still a little undecided as to how good a filmmaker Kwak is.  Friend was a strong feature that prompted such a wave of popularity in Korea that it carried him to the upper echelons of the industry, not least because the film was reportedly based on his own youth.  His films are always polished and are well put together but he lacks a visual stamp, which is a defining feature for many of his confreres in the industry.  Aside from male characters, the most defining characteristic of Kwak’s films is the omnipresence of his protagonist's backstories, they are never free of tragedy or their social class.  Structurally this will be conveyed in one of two ways, either we are presented with the tragedy or poor social setting beforehand as a prologue to the events of the films, such as in Friend, Mutt Boy (2003), and Love, or we discover their traumatic backstories through flashback, like in Typhoon, Eye for an Eye, and now Pain.

Like so many Korean films that have come before it, the source of the protagonist’s anguish in Pain is rooted in a deadly car crash.  Off the top of my head, in 2011 alone, I can think of Champ, Blind, and the popular K-Drama City Hunter that have all used the same trop.  Granted it is an effective tool but perhaps more to the point, it has believability on its side.  There aren’t many accidents that can wipe out most of a family and still be deemed plausible.  Fires (also very popular in Korean cinema) and vehicular collisions pretty much fill out this list.

Riskier still are the ailments of the lead characters.  Analgesia and hemophilia are conditions that we do not encounter on a daily basis, far from it.  So to have two characters suffering from them meet and fall in love goes quite a ways to stretching credulity.  Misgivings aside though, it works surprisingly well.  It’s original and leads to some novel situations while also accentuating the emotional highs and lows of the narrative.  Of course Nam-soon's insensitivity to pain is also a metaphor for the suppression of his traumatic memories, to the point where he can no longer feel them or any thing else.  He holds himself responsible for his family’s death and as a result constantly subjects himself to punishment.  Since he cannot feel pain, this cycle can only accelerate and escalate, never providing any relief.

Throughout Kwak’s films you won’t find many strong female characters.  Even in Love, the presence of the female romantic interest is largely symbolic: the impetus of the film’s actions rest on Joo Jin-mo’s character’s shoulders.  I wondered whether Pain would suffer a similar fate but thankfully Dong-hyeon is afforded much more characterization than previous women in his films.  Perhaps even more successful is the casting of the delightful Jeong Ryeo-won, who was wonderful in Castaway on the Moon (2009).  She’s perfect for the part, equal parts tough, vulnerable, and cute, and as always, a joy to watch on screen.

I think that Pain stands as one of Kwak’s best films, even though it was far from his most successful one.  The only part of the film that drags is the end, which smacks a little of inevitability.  However, it does make reference to the conclusion of Park Kwang-su’s seminal Chilsu and Mansu (1988), whose damaged characters find themselves at an impasse by the film's end.  They stare down into a precipice from up on high, not quite understanding what lead them there and helpless as they await their fate, forced upon them by a traumatized society, which is breathlessly trying to move towards the light.

★★★☆☆

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.

Grand Prix (Geu-rang-peu-ri) 2010

Like a great many other males of this earth, I am frequently seized with an insuppressible feeling of revulsion when faced with the prospect of sitting down to watch a romance film. Gender bias aside, I do not think that this feeling is unwarranted. Given the quality in recent years of the romance genre across the globe, there is very little reason for any person, let alone men, to waste their time with the products on offer. It used to be that romance films were among the best examples of cinema for any given period in time. Silent cinema produced some gems including F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), but it was in the 30s and 40s that Hollywood really embraced romance. Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), Fleming’s Gone With the Wind (1939), Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942), Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), and so many more are all considered to be classics. Indeed even beyond that period and also across the globe, cinema produced magnificent, heartrending, devastating, and brilliant romantic films. I can’t say exactly when it started but at a certain point the beauty, poignancy, lyricism, wit, and levity began to disappear from the genre and what we have today is for the most part a collection of the most astoundingly crass, classless, corporate, consumerized, and commercialized examples of shockingly sexist, hollow, and demeaning drivel. Harsh words but rarely so justly deserved.

Kim Tae-hee's sadface

There are still some great examples, The Notebook (2004) and (500) Days of Summer (2009) among others, represent some of the most worthwhile examples of classical and progressive approaches to the genre. Sadly these are few and far between. For this reason, and innumerable others as you well known by this point, many of us have been drawn to Korean cinema. I am not allergic to romance films because I am a man, I am simply offended by them because I consider myself to be a discerning (and sadly very cynical) film lover. To my shock and wonderful surprise, aside from the great Asia Extreme films that were the introduction for many of us to Korean cinema, I discovered this far eastern Asian cinema was equally adept at making timeless love stories. The first I came across and to date still the most popular export in the genre was My Sassy Girl (2001), a fresh, zany, hilarious, and touching romantic comedy that had the ability to appeal to many demographics. Beyond that there are many romantic Korean films that have moved us, including: Il Mare (2000), The Classic (2003), A Moment to Remember (2004), Someone Special (2004), My Little Bride (2004), and A Millionaire’s First Love (2006), to name but a few.

This is why, unlike anything that comes out of Hollywood, I will give any Korean romance a chance. With this spirit I thought that I would give Grand Prix a chance, a racetrack-themed love story starring the beautiful Kim Tae-hee. Now I know that not every Korean film is going to worthwhile, especially as romance is concerned, but I must say that I was quite taken aback at how truly abysmal this film was. Cloying, saccharine, insincere, vapid, and lacking any finesse and skill, Grand Prix is a film that attempts to be as manipulative as it possibly can and as bad as that sounds, the fact that it is so poorly made and in no way comes anywhere close to affecting us with its confounded opportunism sticks it right at the bottom of the pile.

World's most irritating child

Kim Tae-hee plays a jockey who falls during her race and her horse, who has broken its leg, is put down in front of her. She is so distraught by the experience that she do the only thing she can do and that is to give up her profession and wear pretty clothes while traipsing around the prairies of Jeju island and looking wistfully and longingly at the scenery and other horses. On her travels, or rather the first thing that happens when she steps off the boat, she meets another jockey (Kang Dong-geun) who is a guy she will fall in love with for reasons unknown and is riding the horse that she will ultimately compete with in the Grand Prix of the title. What else happens, let me see there’s a local equestrian center and some old people who are mean to one another because of some longwinded and laughably dark backstory, a frequently topless male model who is just there for no ostensible reason, and the world’s most irritating, uncute, and strangle-worthy child. If these elements can’t combine into a surefire hit then I don’t know what can!

Grand Prix is one of those films that is masterful and awe-inspiring in its complete and all-encompassing ineptitude. There is not one thing that works in this film. The cast: Kim Tae-hee is pretty but can’t really act, she is also the last person I would chose to cast as a jockey; Yang Dong-geun (a replacement for Lee Jun-ki who dropped out to do military service a month into filming) is irritating and a terrible romantic lead; I’ve already mentioned the kid who I would have little reservations dropping off of a cliff; and all the other inconsequential supporting characters are either annoying, dull, or vacuous. The plot is hackneyed, patched together with an odd array of multi-colored and ill-fitting bandaids, and replete with soulless, melodramatic backstories. The production values are okay but there are some real problems with respect to the sound and editing.

The insufferable Yang Dong-geun

It was very difficult to watch this all the way through to the end and despite being stubbornly democratic in my viewing tastes for Korean cinema, especially as I undertake my 2010 film project, I daresay I regret wasting my time with it. There are many far superior mediocre films that deserve your squandered leisure time over this. Don’t make the same mistake I did.


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.