Weekly Review Round-up (04/21-04/27, 2012)

A number reviews for My Way as it plays in limited release across the US and some reviews from the recent Terracotta Far East Film Festival and the current Udine Far East Film Festival.

RECENT RELEASES

Always

(A Girl's Journey to the East, April 27, 2012)

Arirang

(Cine Vue, April 22, 2012)

Chilling Romance

(Hangul Celluloid, April 24, 2012)

Couples

(London Korean Links, April 22, 2012)

Dancing Cat

(Seen in Jeonju, April 22, 2012)

Dancing Queen

(Counting Pulses, April 21, 2012)

(London Korean Links, April 23, 2012)

Moby Dick

(CUEAFS, April 22, 2012)

My Way

(artsandcultruentx.com, April 25, 2012)

(Cinema Eye, April 26, 2012)

(Colourless Opinions, April 26, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, April 26, 2012)

(movietimes.com, APril 22, 2012)

(New York Post, April 22, 2012)

Penny Pinchers

(The One One Four, April 22, 2012)

Perfect Partner

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 26, 2012)

Planet of Snail

(Twitch, April 25, 2012)

Punch

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

Silenced

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 27, 2012)

(The Bangkok Post, April 27, 2012)

Sunny

(CUEAFS, April 25, 2012)

The Client

(Drama Beans, April 22, 2012)

The Day He Arrives

(Salon, April 21, 2012)

The Front Line

(Rockets & Robots Are Go, April 21, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

(Columbia Daily Tribune, April 26, 2012)

War of the Arrows

(myreviewer.com, April 27, 2012)

PAST FILMS

Castaway on the Moon, 2009

(Japan Cinema, April 27, 2012)

Feathers in the Wind, 2005

(Otherwhere, April 23, 2012)

Flower Island, 2001

(Init_Scenes, April 24, 2012)

Iodo, 1977

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 24, 2012)

Mr. Wacky, 2006

(VCinema Show, April 24, 2012)

Night Journey, 1977

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

Pollen, 1972

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 24, 2012)

Rainy Days, 1979

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

Shadowless Sword, 2005

(mihansa.net, April 19, 2012)

The Old Garden, 2006

(Korean Grindhouse, April 21, 2012)

Treeless Mountain, 2009

(Aidy Revies, April 26, 2012)

Wang Sib Ri, My Hometown, 1976

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 27, 2012)

Yeongja's Heyday, 1975

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 27, 2012)

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.

Weekly Review Round-up (03/31-04/06, 2012)

Great cross-section of reviews this week including for a number of new releases.

Enjoy!

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Nameless Gangster

(Film Business Asia, April 6, 2012)

Over My Dead Body

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, April 5, 2012)

Romance Joe

(Variety, March 29, 2012 - Paid Subscription)

Stateless Things

(alivenotdead.com, April 5, 2012)

(The Hollywood Reporter, April 3, 2012)

RECENT RELEASES

Countdown

(Film in Asian, April 2, 2012)

Haunters

(Digital Retribution, April 4, 2012)

In Love and the War

(The One One Four, April 1, 2012)

Jesus Hospital

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, April 1, 2012)

Late Autumn

(China.org.cn, March 30, 2012)

Love On-Air

(Variety, March 30, 2012 - Paid Subscrition)

My Way

(K-Popped!, April 5, 2012)

(Korean Class Massive, April 4, 2012)

Perfect Partner

(hancinema.net, March 31, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

(All Online Universe, March 28, 2012)

(cineoutsider, March 27, 2012)

(DVD Verdict, April 2, 2012)

(MotorBar, March 31, 2012)

PAST FILMS

Dasepo Naughty Girls, 2006

(Init_Scene, March 31, 2012)

Meet Mr. Daddy, 2007

(Korean Class Massive, April 2, 2012)

My Boss, My Hero, 2001

(Init_Scenes, March 30, 2012)

My Love, 2007

(Init_Scenes, April 1, 2012)

Running Turtle, 2009

(Init_Scenes, April 5, 2012)

The Case of Itaewon Homicide, 2009

(Korean Grindhouse, March 31, 2012)

The Heavenly Homecoming of the Stars, 1974

(Seen in Jeonju, April 1, 2012)

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.

Weekly Review Round-up (03/24-03/30, 2012)

Lots of review for Na Hong-jin's The Yellow Sea which was released this past monday on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK by Eureka Entertainment.  Also special shout out to refresh_daemon who has been particularly productive this week over on his Init_Scenes site!

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Architecture 101

(Seongyong's Private Place, March 24, 2012)

RECENT RELEASES

Always

(Beyond Hollywood, March 27, 2012)

Couples

(Film Business Asia, March 24, 2012)

Invasion of Alien Bikini

(hancinema.net, March 24, 2012)

I Saw the Devil

(Korean Candy, March 27, 2012)

Oki's Movie

(AsianCineFest, March 23, 2012)

Re-encounter

(Beyond Hollywood, March 26, 2012)

The Journals of Musan

(Hangul Celluloid, March 28, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

(Andie Buckle's Film Emporium, March 25, 2012)

(Cine Vue, March 27, 2012)

(Eastern Kicks, March 29, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 24, 2012)

(movieramblings.com, March 24, 2012)

(Twitch, March 25, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Man Who Was Superman, 2007

(Init_Scenes, March 26, 2012)

Crying Fist, 2005

(Korean Grindhouse, March 25, 2012)

First Kiss, 1998

(Init_Scenes, March 29, 2012)

Going By the Book, 2007

(Dramas Whoo!, March 26, 2012)

Lady Vengeance, 2005

(Init_Scenes, March 27, 2012)

My Home Village, 1949

(North Korean Films, March 28, 2012)

Oldboy, 2003

(Init_Scenes, March 25, 2012)

Once Upon a Time, 1978

(Init_Scenes, March 24, 2012)

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, 2002

(Init_Scenes, March 23, 2012)

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.

The Yellow Sea (황해, Hwang-hae) 2010

Since the days of the New Korean Wave of the late 80s and early 90s men in Korean cinema have frequently found themselves on the road in search of answers, a home and their identity.  In contemporary Korean cinema male characters are for the most part much more comfortably settled within the progressive society of modern Korea and yet their philosophical dilemmas still simmer under the surface, refusing to go away.

Four years ago, Na Hong-jin burst onto the scene with one of the most remarkable debuts in modern times.  The Chaser was an under-the-radar genre effort from a rookie director with two mid-level stars, and yet it became one of the highest grossing films of the year and along with The Good, the Bad and the Weird was also one of Korea’s most popular exports.  Today, in the spring of 2012, Na and his two stars Kim Yun-seok and Ha Jung-woo are among the heavyweights of the Korean film industry.  Kim’s last five films have all attracted well over 2 million admissions; in fact most of them have soared over the 5 million mark (The Chaser; Woochi, 2009; Punch, 2011), a enormous benchmark in the Korean industry that few films have reached.  The charismatic Ha is now one of the country’s top leading men, indeed two of his films topped the box office last month alone (Nameless Gangster, Love Fiction).

For Na’s sophomore feature, the gang got back together again and delivered another worldwide hit in The Yellow Sea, originally released in Korea in December 2010 and presented internationally at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2011.  Just like his first film, Na’s follow up is firmly rooted in genre but disassembles and reconstructs it to further his own ends.  Beginning as an ominous rumble in the distance, the film accelerates to the point that it becomes a heart-pumping descent into despair. 

Ha Jung-woo plays Goo-nam, a down on his luck cab driver in the Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture of Northeast China who loses at mahjong every night as he hopelessly tries to earn enough money to pay off the loan sharks who funded his wife’s passage to Korea.  He’s offered a job to clear his debt by Jeong-hak (Kim Yun-seok), which sees him smuggled into Seoul in order to kill a man.  He has a week to carry out the contract and while on the peninsula will try to track down his wife whom he hasn’t heard from since she left.

Na’s mise-en-scene is downbeat, gritty and very evocative.  We follow Goo-nam around Yanji, a dirty city full of forgotten souls.  It operates like a lawless border town, steeped in vice and hopelessness.  The film is split into a few chapters which each up the stakes over the last.  Goo-nam’s debasement is the key narrative point for much of the film and more than anything, what defines this is his fractured identity.

Throughout most of The Yellow Sea he find himself in transit or on the run.  He is preyed upon and taken advantage of from the outset; his lack of clear national identity is also the source of his lack of confidence.  There is an early scene which features stray dogs and it quickly becomes clear that this is what he is.  He only fights back through the basest instincts of survival.  Much of the action takes place in boats, buses, cars, ports and roads and Goo-nam is always in danger.  Like the emasculated males that found themselves wandering the roads of earlier Korean cinema, he seeks his identity through lines of transportation but in modern Korea, a country that often seeks to forget about its past, he is not welcome.  He is a visible and painful reminder of an oppressive and traumatic recent history.  Whether jumping off a boat, apprehended on a bus, chased on the street or crashed into while driving a car, he is forced into the wild, away from civilization.  Conversely it is only in these scenes, high up in the mountains, that the threat dissipates.  Despite the looming danger, he is safe in the untouched and austere calm of the outdoors.

The Yellow Sea begins as a gritty drama and thriller, and then turns into a suspense film for its second chapter but then becomes an unapologetic and propulsive action film for the significant remainder of the running time which, though 140 minutes long, is breathless.  It’s an exhausting and sometimes morbid experience to be sure, but the pure energy and raw vitality of the set pieces are exceptionally effective.  Much of the pulsating back half of the film had me short of breath.

Just like in The Chaser, Ha and Kim are exceptional.  Though their roles as protagonist and antagonist are reversed, they are remarkably engaging.  Ha truly embodies Goo-nam’s despair while Kim, despite his dead eyes and listless mumble is one of the most ferocious and animalistic cinema villains of recent times.

I will say that The Yellow Sea is best enjoyed as a genre effort as held under close dramatic scrutiny, it may turn up some unsatisfying conclusions.  A small price to pay in my eyes for what was one of the most invigorating cinematic experiences of the last few years.  While Korean cinema may have a lot more to offer than its thrillers, when a film like this comes along, it’s easy to see what all the fuss is about.

The Yellow Sea is out on DVD/Blu-ray in the UK on March 26th, from Eureka Entertainment.

★★★★☆

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.

Weekly Review Round-up (03/10-03/16, 2012)

Another huge Weekly Review Round-up as the Korean blogathon came to an end.  A great wealth of films covered stretching across every time, genre and style you could imagine.

Enjoy!

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Dancing Queen

(The One One Four, March 14, 2012)

Eighteen, Nineteen

(Scene in Korea, March 9, 2012)

Jesus Hospital

(hancinema.net, March 10, 2012)

Stateless Things

(Scene in Korea, March 10, 2012)

RECENT RELEASES

A Little Pond

(Unseen Films, March 10, 2012)

Blind

(Far East Films, March 11, 2012)

(VCinema, March 9, 2012)

Cyrano Agency

(We Eat Lemon, March 10, 2012)

Ghastly

(Film in Asian, March 12, 2012)

Invasion of Alien Bikini

(cineAWESOME!, March 11, 2012)

Metamorpheses

(VCinema, March 9, 2012)

Oki's Movie

(Unseen Films, March 11, 2012)

Penny Pinchers

(Far East Films, March 11, 2012)

Poetry

(KOFFIA Blog, March 11, 2012)

Punch

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, March 13, 2012)

Quick

(Unseen Films, March 10, 2012)

Silenced

(Hangul Celluloid, March 10, 2012)

Sunny

(YAM Magazine, March 11, 2012)

The Day He Arrives

(The Montreal Gazette, March 8, 2012)

The Last Blossom

(Init_Scenes, March 13, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

(KOFFIA Blog, March 10, 2012)

(Varied Celluloid, March 9, 2012)

War of the Arrows

(Asian Movie Pulse, March 10, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, March 11, 2012)

(Korean Grindhouse, March 11, 2012)

PAST FILMS

200 Pounds Beauty, 2006

(YAM Magazine, March 11, 2012)

A Bittersweet Life, 2005

(John Kreng, March 9, 2012)

(VCinema, March 11, 2012)

Ad Lib Night, 2006

(Flying Guillotine, March 8, 2012)

Another Public Enemy, 2005

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

Bad Guy, 2001

(Next Projection, March 12, 2012)

Christmas in August, 1998

(We Eat Lemon, March 10, 2012)

Dream, 2008

(Next Projection, March 13, 2012)

Duelist, 2005

(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Epitaph, 2007

(VCinema, March 8, 2012)

Haeundae, 2009

(Hong Kong Rewind, March 9, 2012)

Hansel and Gretel, 2007

(Orion's Ramblings, March 11, 2012)

In Between Days, 2006

(Podcasts Without Honor and Humanity, March 9, 2012)

Life Is Cool, 2008

(Unseen Films, March 9, 2012)

M, 2007

(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Marathon, 2005

(Init_Scenes, March 9, 2012)

(Podcasts Without Honor and Humanity, March 7, 2012)

Mother, 2009

(At the Cinema, March 11, 2012)

My Dear Enemy, 2008

(Unseens Films, March 11, 2012)

My Heart Beats, 2009

(Korean Grindhouse, March 5, 2012)

Nowhere to Hide, 1999

(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Oasis, 2002

(Rainy Day Movies 8, 2012)

Oishii Man, 2008

(Podcasts Without Honor and Humanity, March 6, 2012)

Peppermint Candy, 1999

(Rainy Day Movies 8, 2012)

Public Enemy, 2002

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

Public Enemy Returns, 2008

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

Rikidozan, 2004

(VCinema, March 11, 2012)

Sky Blue, 2003

(VCinema, March 9, 2012)

The Good, the Bad and the Weird, 2008

(Greetings From Movie City, March 8, 2012)

The Power of Kangwon Province, 1998

(Oriental Film House, March 10, 2012)

Tigresses, 1977

(Planet Choco Zine, March 9, 2012)

Time, 2006

(Next Projection, March 11, 2012)

Truck, 2007

(Unseen Films, March 9, 2012)

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.

Top 10 Korean Films of 2010

2010 was a great year for Korean cinema and as here at Modern Korean Cinema I'm going back through Korean film to get a sense of what were the best and most important films through the years.  I'm thrilled to present my top 10 for the year to coincide with the Korean Cinema Blogathon.  I have seen a lot of films from 2010 and the only major omission is Cafe Noir which has yet to find a DVD release, here's hoping there'll be one!

This follows on from January's Top 10 Films of 2011 and I hope to make my way back through to the 90s.

Without further ado, scroll through the top 10 below, followed by some honourable mentions and the year's biggest turkeys:

Intro - 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 - Best of the Rest

Top 10 Lists

Year  2020 - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016
2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010

2010s (Top 50) - All Time (Top 25)

Genre

Gangster - Horror - Revenge

How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists

Top 10 or end-of-year lists are one of my great guilty pleasures.  I know that ultimately they don't really mean very much and are guaranteed to be subjective, arbitrary, and divisive.  Yet I am always eager to discover other people's lists come year's end.  To see how my favorites films fared, to discover some things I may have missed and to generally scrutinize the palaver of this enduring critic's ritual.

I thought it would be fun to see how Korean films did on 2011's lists, if only to see what and how many Korean films generated international attention.  So I went ahead and tracked down every list I could find which featured a Korean film.  I found 70, including 7 which only considered Korean cinema, a pretty solid number which is spread over an impressive array of worldwide broadsheets, film websites, and a panoply of blogs.  I was also surprised to see over 30 films make it onto these diverse lists, a reflection of the depth of Korean cinema, from thrillers, horrors, and action films, all the way to melodramas and a large selection of low-budget indies.

The results of this ranking are in no way supposed to reflect some sort of objective standpoint of the best Korean films of last year.  For one thing, only a handful of films got any decent kind of exposure in the west and they were by and large 2010 releases.  Some of 2011's best films were only featured on a smattering of lists as they have not really been seen outside of Korea.  As I've said this is just a little bit of fun!

The system used for the below ranking is very simple.  1 point for making it onto a top 10 list (or the odd top 11), 2 points for a top 5 finish, and 3 points for taking first place.  The lists are available below, divided into Korean-only and international lists.  If you are aware of anything I've missed by all means let me know either here, on twitter, or by e-mailing me at pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com.

How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists

1. Poetry (53)

2. I Saw the Devil (34)

3. The Yellow Sea (17)

4. Sunny (12)
5. The Day He Arrives (10)

6. The Journals of Musan (9)

7. Bleak Night (8)

8. Silenced (5)
9. Night Fishing (5)

10. Arirang (4)

10. King of Pigs (4)
10. Re-encounter (4)

13. Poongsan (3)

13. Punch (3)

15. Bedevilled (2)

15. Come Rain, Come Shine (2)

15. Dangerously Excited (2)

15. Pong Ddol (2)

15. Quick (2)

15. The Front Line (2)

21. Animal Town (1)

21. Barbie (1)

21. Blind (1)

21. Dooman River (1)

21. Haunters (1)

21. Invasion of Alien Bikini (1)

21. Late Autumn (1)

21. Late Blossom (2)

21. Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild (1)
21. Moby Dick (1)

21. Mother Is a Whore (2)

21. Out of the Cave (1)
21. Romantic Heaven (1)
21. War of the Arrows (1)

21. White: The Melody of the Curse (1)

Lists of Korean Films

Asia Pacific Arts - Rowena Santos Aquino

Complex - Jaeki Cho

koreanfilm.org - Darcy Paquet
Modern Korean Cinema - Pierce Conran

Seen in Jeonju - Tom Giammarco

Seoul Beats

Lists Featuring Korean Films

Boston Globe - Wesley Morris

Boxing Uwe Boll

Chicago Reader - Ben Sachs

Chicago Tribune - Michael Phillips

Cineawesome! - Jeff

Cinema Salem - Kereth

Cinema Salem - Peter

Cinetology - Luke

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Clint O'Connor

CNN - Tom Charity

College Times - Aaron Tavena

Culture Mob - Matthew Wayt

Dad's Big Plan - Mr. Sparkles

Film Freak Central - Angelo Muredda

Film Freak Central - Walter Chaw

Film School Rejects - Brian Salisbury

Film School Rejects - Luke Mullen

Film School Rejects - Rob Hunter

Film Threat - Don Lewis

Film Threat - John Wildman

Film Threat - Mark Bell

Film Threat - Noah Lee

firstshowing.net - Jeremy Kirk

Front Room Cinema - Tom Bielby

Hollywood Hubbub - Frantic Monkey

Hydra Mag - Jose-Luis Moctezuma

indieWire - Anne Thompson

insidepulse - Robert Sutton

Left Field Cinema - M. Dawson

Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan

Living in Cinema - Michael Phillips

Miami Herald - Rene Rodriguez

Mile High Cinema - Jason Cangialosi

Movie Reviews by Tom Clift - Tom Clift

MSN Movies - Sean Axmaker

NOW Magazine - Radheyan Simonpillai

Palo Alto Online - Susan Tavernetti

playbackstl.com - Pete Timmermann

playbackstl.com - Sean Lass

Rich on Film - Rich

Salon - Andrew O'Hehir

Shock Till You Drop - Jeff Alard

Slant - Diego Costa

Slant - Nick Schager

Sounds Like Cinema - Greg Bennett

southcoasttoday.com - Alexis Hauk

St. Louis Today - Joe Williams

The Austin Chronicle - Marc Savlov

The Cinema Snob

The Daily Texan - Alex Williams

the-dispatch.com - Matthew Lucas

The Globe and Mail - Liam Lacey and Rick Groen

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw

The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy

The Montreal Gazette - T'cha Dunlevy

The New York Times - Manohla Dargis

The Screening Room - Mark Humphreys

The Suffolk Voice

Time Out New York - Keith Uhlich

Total Film - Sam Ashurst

Twitch - James Marsh

Twitch - Kwenton Bellette

Wildgrounds - Ki Mun

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.

Weekly Review Round-up (12/31, 2011 - 01/06, 2012)

For the first WEEKLY REVIEW ROUND-UP of 2012, a few reviews for new releases in Korea and a lot of pieces on older Korean films which is always nice to see.

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Pacemaker

(The Korea Times, January 4, 2012)

Spellbound

(8Asians, January 4, 2012)

(The One One Four, January 2, 2012)

Wonderful Radio

(The Korea Times, December 29, 2011)

RECENT RELEASES

A Better Tomorrow

(joblo.com, January 4, 2012)

GLove

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 5, 2012)

Mama

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 3, 2012)

Man of Vendetta

(Rainy Day Movies, January 3, 2012)

No Doubt

(Init_Scenes, January 4, 2012)

Poongsan

(Asian Movie Web, January 2, 2012)

Rolling Home With a Bull

(Init_Scenes, January 3, 2012)

Sector 7

(New Korean Cinema, January 4, 2012)

Sunny

(Hangul Celluloid, December 30, 2011)

(The One One Four, January 5, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

(Asian Movie Pulse, January 3, 2012)

You're My Pet

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 4, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Good Night's Sleep For the Bad, 2009

(Init_Scenes, December 31, 2011)

Baby and Me, 2008

(UnitedKpop, December 31, 2011)

Death Bell, 2008

(Twitch, January 4, 2012)

I'm a Cyborg But That's Okay, 2007

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 2, 2012)

Pyongyang Nalpharam, 2006

(North Korean Films, January 3, 2012)

Secret Sunshine, 2007

(koreanfilm.org, January 1, 2012)

Silmido, 2003

(gwangjublog.com, January 3, 2012)

Taegugki, 2004

(Nerdlocker, January 5, 2012)

Tale of Cinema, 2005

(Rainy Day Movies, January 4, 2012)

The Host, 2006

(Film in Asian, January 4, 2012)

Untold Scandal, 2003

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 5, 2012)

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.