Udine Far East Film Festival - Final Thoughts, Top 10 and Awards

Ongoing reports on the 14th Udine International Film Festival which Modern Korean Cinema will be covering onsite.

Last week was my first time at the Udine Far East Film Festival and straight off the bat the only negative point I can think of was that I wasn't there earlier to participate in the entire event.  Regardless it was still a packed week during which I saw nearly 30 films, ate some great food and made a lot of new friends.  I look forward to coming back soon but I'm sure it won't be in 2013 as I'll be making my way to Seoul next month.  That said I do hope to meet up with many of the same people later this year at the Busan International Film Festival.

The highlight for me during the week was the opportunity to soak in the 'Darkest Decade' retrospective on 1970s Korean film.  Darcy Paquet did an incredible job to bring these films, in good condition and many with brand new subtitles, to Italy and furthermore his picks were phenomenal, yielding some of the best Korean films I've seen.  It was a pleasure to see rarer Im Kwon-taek, Kim Ki-young and Yu Hyun-mok films as well as to discover the works of Kim So-young, Ha Kil-young and Kim Ho-sun.  I was particularly drawn to the many island dramas which have added new dimensions to an essay I have been planing on rural spaces as a site of horror in Korean cinema.  Darcy's monograph (pictured) is another wonderful resource and a great complement to the retrospective.

Just like last month's Fribourg International Film Festival (which was also covered by MKC) one of the prevailing themes of the festival's program was filmmaking itself.  Romancing in Thin Air (2011), The Woodsman and the Rain (2011), Vulgaria (2012) and The Woman in the Septic Tank (2011) all featured films within a film and each had their own novel take on the industry.  Despite the global glut of awards bestowed on The Artist (2011), and to a lesser extent on Hugo (2011), I'm still finding that the past year's best films that cast an eye on the medium are those that sadly won't be seen by many.  Although considering the cinephile-ready content, perhaps it's just as well that they feature strongly on the festival circuit above all else.

The great thing about the FEFF was its atmosphere: it's accessible, centralized, friendly and a lot of fun.  There was lots of events and special deals in restaurants for anyone attending the festival.  The Teatro Nuovo Giovanni, the single theater of the festival, was a wonderful venue with four levels.  I stayed down in the pit for all of my screenings and I don't think I would have liked to be seated too high up (some seats were above the screen) but the projections were all top notch.  Udine is also a wonderful little town with numerous restaurants, historic architecture, beautiful squares and everyone's favorite, gelato!  I didn't have much opportunity to visit beyond the town's centre but what I saw was very charming.

Anyone interested in Asian cinema should definitely make their way to Udine at some point in the future and if you do, hopefully I'll see you there!

Below are my favorites of the festival and the FEFF 2012 award winners.

Festival Picks

Top 10

1. Iodo (South Korea, 1977) - Day IV

=2. Punch (South Korea, 2011) - Day V

=2. Sunny (South Korea, 2011) - Day I

=2. The Woodsman and the Rain (Japan, 2011) - Day VI

=2. Unbowed (South Korea, 2012) - Day IX

6. Pollen (South Korea, 1972) - Day IV

7. Splendid Outing (South Korea, 1978) - Day VIII

8. One Mile Above (China, 2011) - Day VI

9. The Woman in the Septic Tank (Philippines, 2011) - Day IX

10. Vulgaria (Hong Kong, 2012) - Day VII


14th FEFF Awards

Audience Award

1. Silenced 4.4
2. One Mile Above 4.2
3. The Front Line 4.16

Black Dragon Award

Silenced 4.24

My Movie (Online) Award

Thermae Romae


FEFF Preview
Day IV Report
Day V Report
Day VI Report
Day VII Report
Day VIII Report
Day IX Report
Blind (블라인드, Beulraindeu) 2011
Dangerously Excited (나는 공무원이다, Naneun Gongmoowonida) 2012
Disney, Nostalgia, and Politics in Sunny (써니, Sseo-ni) 2011
Moby Dick (모비딕, Mo-bi-dik) 2011
Penny Pinchers (티끌모아 로맨스, Ti-kkeul-mo-a Ro-maen-seu) 2011
The Front Line (고지전, Gojijeon) 2011
Unbowed (부러진 화살, Bureojin Hwasal) 2012

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.

May 2012 Korean Releases

This monthly features previews the coming month's attractions in Korean cinema.  All of these monthly posts are available in an archive on the Upcoming Releases page.

May 3

As One (aka Korea)

Just Friends

May 10

Du-re Sori Story

I Am

The Strangers

May 17

All About My Wife

Granny Is in 1st Grade

The Taste of Money

May 24

Children of Heaven
Hello!

U.F.O.

May 31

Don't Click

In Another Country
Runway Cop
Still Strange

May TBC

Rosa

Tummy

As One (aka Korea)

Director:  Moon Hyun-sung

Cast:  Ha Ji-won, Bae Doo-na

Synopsis:  As One chronicles the victory of the first inter-Korean team at the 1991 Chiba Worldwide Table Tennis Championships.

Release date:  May 3

There's a lot of buzz surrounding this project, especially with its two big female stars and theme of rapprochement of the divided Korean nations.  It the film clicks with audiences it may be one of the highest-grossing films of the year. 

Just Friends

Director:  Ahn Cheol-ho

Cast:  Oh Yeon-so, Lee Young-hoon

Synopsis:  Just Friends is a romance about an unemployed art school graduate who has recently been dumped but meets an aspiring musician at a concert

Release date:  May 3

I Am.

Director:  Choi Jin-sung

Synopsis:  A documentary of SM Entertainment's recent Madison Square Garden concert.
Release date:  May 10

Du-re Sori Story

Director:  Cho Jung-rae

Screenplay:  Baek Jong-min

Cast:  Kim Seul-gi, Jo Ah-reum, Ham Hyeong-sang, Choi Eun-yeong

Synopsis:  Two friends at the National High School of the Traditional Arts take a special class taught by a teacher with conflicting western influences. The class will compete as a chorus in contest.

Release date: May 10

The Strangers

Director:  Choi Yong-seok

Cast:  Yeo Hyeon-soo, Han Soo-yeon, Kim Joong-ki

Synopsis:  Yeon-hee returns to her hometown following the death of her mother in a fire and there she meets Seok who has lost in father in the same accident.  They bond and attempt to overcome their grief while Yeon-hee revisits the reason she left in the first place.

Release date:  May 10

All About My Wife

Director:  Min Gyoo-dong

Screenplay:  Min Gyoo-dong

Cast:  Im Soo-jeong, Lee Seon-gyoon, Ryoo Seung-yong

Synopsis:  A romantic comedy about a man who, in a bid to cleanly divorce his wife, hires a playboy to seduce his spouse.

Release date:  May 17

The Taste of Money

Director:  Im Sang-soo

Screenwriter:  Im Sang-soo

Cast:  Kim Kang-woo, Kim Hyo-jin, Baek Yoon-shik, Yoon Yeo-joong

Synopsis:  A woman divorces a salaryman and becomes wealthy.  A tale of greed and sex in the upper strata of Korean society

Release date:  May 17

Im Sang-soo's new film wrapped in January and looks to be another fascinating exposé of our darkest desires.  The film will have its world premier at Cannes where it is in the main competition vying for the Palm d'Or.  The Taste of Money will also feature a small role for the founder of koreanfilm.org and MKC contributor Darcy Paquet.

Granny Is in 1st Grade

Director:  Jin Kwang-gyo

Cast:  Kim Jin-goo, Shin Chae-yeon

Synopsis:  A 70-year-old woman loses her son but she can't read the final letter he sent her so her 7-year-old granddaughter teaches her how to read.

Release date:  May 17

Children of Heaven

Director:  Park Heung-shik

Cast:  You Da-in, Park Ji-bin, Kim Bo-ra

Synopsis:  A new teacher begins a three month stint at a school for troubled children.  She hopes to involve some of new students in a talent contest by staging a musical.

Release date:  May 24

U.F.O.

Director:  Kong Quee-hyun

Screenwriter:  Kong Quee-hyun

Cast:  Lee Joo-seung, Kim Chang-hwan, Kim Tae-yoon

Synopsis:  A group of students catch sight of an alien spacecraft and decide to travel to UFO mountain but on the way there they are warned to turn back.

Release date:  May 24

This sci-fi comedy opened last July at the Puchon International Film Festival and has since played at the Digital Seoul Film Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival.

Hello!

Director:  Lim Tae-hyeong

Cast:  Lee Sang-bong

Synopsis:  Documentary chronicling the lives of 14 blind schoolchildren

Release date:  May 24

In Another Country

Director:  Hong Sang-soo

Screenwriter:  Hong Sang-soo

Cast:  Isabelle Huppert, Yoo Joon-sang, Jeong Yu-mi, Yoon Yeo-jeong, Moon Seong-gun, Kwon Hae-hyo

Release date:  May 31

The new Hong Sang-soo film stars a major French actress and will be premiering in Cannes ahead of its Korean release, not to be missed.

Don't Click

Director:  Kim Tae-kyeong

Screenwriter:  Kim Tae-kyeong

Cast:  Park Bo-young, Joo Won, Kang Byul

Synopsis:  Bizarre events occur after a pair watch a mysterious video.

Release date:  May 31

This sounds like a blatant ripoff of The Ring (1998), given the poor quality of last summer's horrors, I'm not expecting much from this one.  Also, as you'll notice on the poster, Don't Click was scheduled for release last August but got pushed back, never a good sign.

Runway Cop

Director:  Sin Tae-ra

Cast:  Kang Ji-hwan, Sung Yu-ri, Kim Young-kwang, Lee Soo-hyuk

Synopsis:  In order to break a case, a determined detective goes undercover in the fashion world.

Release date:  May 31

Still Strange

Director:  Lee Hong-jae

Screenwriter:  Kim Tae-kyeong

Cast:  Jang Si-won, Kim Soo-woong, Lee So-hee

Synopsis:  An old couple and their grown up children gather during the first New Year's Day following their only son's death.

Release date:  May 31

Rosa

Director:  Maeng Gwan-pyo

Cast:  Ruzmetova Dayana, Jo Ha-seok

Synopsis:  16-year-old Uzbeki ballet dancer Diana loses her chance at a scholarship as the iron curtain rolls back.  She then goes to Korea with a stranger in the hope of following her dreams.

Release date:  May

Tummy

Director:  Park Bo-sang

Cast:  Cheon Ho-jin, Lee Mi-sook, Seo Yoon, Ye Hak-yeong

Synopsis:  A sex comedy about a family's romantic entanglements.
Release date:  May

This film was made in 2008 and is finally seeing the light of day.

Resources:

Asian Wiki
Daum
Han Cinema
KMDb
KOBIS


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.

Korean Box Office Update (04/27-04/29, 2012)

The Avengers Knocks Out the Competition

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	The Avengers (us)	4/26/12	64.30%	1,342,576	1,636,182	963
2	A Muse	4/25/12	15.80%	389,797	553,807	519
3	Architecture 101	3/22/12	6.20%	157,166	3,622,800	316
4	The Scent	4/11/12	4.70%	115,110	1,090,057	296
5	Battleship (us)	4/11/12	3.50%	90,458	2,171,337	299
6	Crayon Shin-chan (jp)	4/26/12	3.20%	90,099	92,885	277
7	Untouchable (fr)	3/22/12	0.70%	17,742	1,688,300	108
8	Spring Snow	4/26/12	0.20%	6,330	11,238	117
9	The Hunger Games (us)	4/5/12	0.20%	4,615	604,809	67
10	Over My Dead Body	3/29/12	0.10%	3,626	982,185	42

Well summer has truly arrived as we have our first major blockbuster performance.  There was never really any doubt what would happen this weekend but the size of The Avengers' opening was very impressive nonetheless as it captured almost two thirds of the weekend box office.

Total admissions stood at an enormous 2.1 million which is among the biggest in the history of the market, it was also well over last year's 1.5 million when Thor (one of the many predecessors to The Avengers) opened.  The Korean box office share took a big hit as it shrunk to 27%, which was a bit lower than 2011's 36%, but it will likely bounce back next weekend.

The Avengers 1,342,576 opening is huge but not a patch on last year's Transformers 3's opening bow, which stood at over two million.  This early in the summer though it is a notable achievement and one must remember that The Avengers is not as popular or well known as in the United States.  Given the film's positive reaction (Twitter netizens have been raving abut it) it should continue to play well but it will face some competition for the top spot next weekend in the form of a much anticipated Korean film.  Though I wonder how much pent up demand was spent this past weekend.  The good news is that this is definitely one of the biggest Hollywood films of the year so local fare may have to face much worse during the rest of the season.

A Muse was the major opening Korean film this weekend and I've been wondering why they scheduled at the same time as such a gigantic Hollywood blockbuster.  It had a fairly good opening with 389,797 but I imagine it would have done better without the extra competition.  Awareness for this pic is high and though I have not yet read any reviews I imagine that it could play well throughout the rest of May.

Architecture 101 stayed at number three but did drop around 40%.  Its 157,166 frame is still very impressive given it is now in its sixth week.  It will need a little more to push past the four million mark but I have a feeling that it won't quite make it that far.

Despite its increase last weekend, The Scent retreated this tie around as it lost over 60% of its business.  It made 115,110 over the frame and has crossed the one million mark but will probably disappear from theatres very soon.

Battleship, after two big weekends, sank suddenly as it shed over 80% of its audience for 90,458 over the three days.  Clearly The Avengers was too much competition for it.  This also does not bode well for its stateside release.

The new Crayon Shin-chan anime film had an okay start with 90,099 while French hit Untouchable finally took a tumble as it lost most of its business, leaving it with 17,742.

Spring Snow, the other Korean film opening wide this weekend had a disastrous start this weekend as it attracted only 6,330 viewers.  I'm not surprised really as even for fans of family melodrama I can't see much appeal in this one.

The Hunger Games and Over My Dead Body were almost wiped out as they both lost over 90% for 4,615 and 3,626 respectively, the latter has likely missed its chance at getting past the one million mark.

Next week we'll see if The Avengers keeps its crown or hands it over to As One, the most anticipated Korean film of the year to date.  It has a chance but I think the band of superheroes will be taking a second victory lap.  I'm also curious to see if A Muse can improve on this week's performance.

Source: kobis.or.kr


The Korean Box Office Update is a weekly feature which provides detailed analysis of film box office sales over the Friday to Sunday period in Korea. It appears every Sunday evening or Monday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News 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.

Udine Far East Film Festival Day IX Report

Ongoing reports on the 14th Udine International Film Festival which Modern Korean Cinema will be covering onsite.


And so Udine comes to a close it's been a great week and I just got back in a moment ago.  Here are my thoughts on the last day's films and tomorrow I will recap the whole week.

The Divine Bow

(South Korea, 1979)

Im Kwon-taek’s second film of the retrospective was also the third island drama in the programme.  After the motherhood themes of Kim Ki-young’s Iodo (1977) and the changing roles of women examined in Kim Soo-young’s Splendid Outing (1978), Im’s The Divine Bow also featured a female protagonist but this time the focal point was shamanism.

Shamanism is frequently represented in Korean cinema but for the most part it is an element rather than a major theme, aside from Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-ok’s incendiary Night Fishing (2011).  Generally speaking it features prominently in K-horrors, like Possessed (2009) and Ghastly (2011) and is almost always presented in a negative light.  Im, as he moved towards a more reflective style of filmmaking in the mid-70s, became interested in Korean culture and history and particularly in shamanism, which, unlike other religions of the peninsula, has much older roots in the country.

Im’s exploration of the rituals and traditions of the belief structure is almost reverential.  Rather than make a positive or negative commentary on it, he opts to explore it and leave us to draw our own conclusions.  The best scenes of the film, led and brought to life by the great Yun Jeong-hee (Poetry, 2010), are the hypnotic ritualistic dances.  The film is also impressive in its mise-en-scene, especially with its resplendent location shooting.  All told The Divine Bow is a great early Im feature which hints at some of his greatness of later years.

Flame

(South Korea, 1975)

Flame, from Yu Hyun-mok, is one of the more well-known films in the ‘Darkest Decade’ retrospective and I’ve had it on the long finger for some time.  Just like Rainy Days (1979), screened earlier this week, the film is set in a village in the past and appears to be an anti-communist film.  However one doesn’t have to search too far for Yu’s real intention, which has more to do with intolerance and hypocrisy in his own country rather than the one North of the border.

The film begins with an unknown and injured man with a rifle, running away from something.  The sequence is edited in slow motion and complemented with an effective score.  It is also quite disorienting and this is exacerbated when the narrative begins to unfold in flashback, via a number of unidentified snippets which we are left to decipher.  This does pose a practical problem as it is a little difficult to piece together the plot and to recognize the characters within it but it is also deliberate and serves its purpose.

Yu employs this experimental structure to highlight the confusion of the period.  Koreans underwent constant change during the colonial period and this only got worse during the Korean war.  Following that, the country, though recently autonomous, became authoritarian under its new military rulers and then switched in the 60s to an even worse dictator.  The period that the film chronicles goes no further than the Korean war but Yu seems to be commenting on a broader historiographical context which also includes recent and present times.

Questions of family, loyalty and duty are explored, just as they were in Rainy Days, and make this another fascinating work.  When I get to Korea I will be trying very hard to get my hands on the out-of-print Korean Film Archive’s Yu Hyun-mok’s DVD boxset to further my discovery of this great filmmaker.  Another wonderful retrospective film, I’m just sad that it was the last one...

Romancing in Thin Air

(Hong Kong, 2011)

There have been a lot of films about filmmaking on the festival circuit this year and the format has yielded many great works.  Sadly, Johnny To’s latest does not sit well alongside this crowd.  Romancing in Thin Air is a romance, which is nothing new for the prolific director, but for his occidental fans who are primarily know him through his action and gangster films like The Mission (1999), Election (2005), and Exiled (2006), this will not be required viewing. 

It isn’t a bad film and just like the rest of To’s oeuvre, it features strong mise-en-scene.  It even throws in some clever postmodern elements, like the film within a film, which enhance the romantic aspect and raises a few interesting questions regarding our relationship with the medium.  With all of its intertextual elements, I’m not sure that it’s really trying to say anything but the joy is the hint of something grander.  It doesn’t make grandiloquent statements like Amir Naderi’s grandiose Cut (2011), which I had the chance to see at last month’s Fribourg International Film Festival, nor does it mine the catharsis of creativity like The Woodsman and the Rain (2011), but it does titillate nonetheless.  I guess I’m just a sucker for movies that shine a light on their construction.

The film follows a Hong Kong actor who exiles himself to an out of the way resort in the Yunnan province where he meets a no-nonsense woman who seems indifferent to his status and charm, though is secretly one of his biggest fans.

Romancing in Thin Air is certainly not the greatest in To’s body of work but a charming and thoughtful effort nonetheless, though I imagine many people will not have time for it.

Dangerously Excited

(South Korea, 2012)

This is the only Korean film playing that has yet to be released in theaters (it opens in July), so it was nice to get the jump for once and not be influenced by any sort of critical consensus.  Dangerously Excited is a charming little film about a civil worker who excels at his job.  Through a series of events he winds up host to a young indie band which he then becomes the bassist for.

Yoon Jae-moon takes the lead in this film and though he is recognizable from a host of major recent Korean films (The Good, the Bad and the Weird, 2008; Mother, 2009), this is the first time I’ve seen him take the lead in a film.  He’s a natural fit as the straightlaced office worker who treasures the order in his life and his performance never veers into caricature.

I will write a full review of Dangerously Excited for MKC soon but it’s safe to say that it is a very enjoyable film if somewhat slight and not altogether memorable.

Unbowed

(South Korea, 2012)

Unbowed, after its release earlier this year during the lunar day holiday, met with much the same reaction as last year’s Silenced.  They were both incendiary courtroom dramas based on real events that became big commercial and critical hits while also serving to open up long overdue national dialogues about Korea’s justice system and its rampant cronyism.  In fact in the space of few months there were three high profile Korean courtroom dramas that connected with audiences, the other being The Client (2011), itself a strong feature which also alluded to problems in the country’s legal system but was mainly a generic (and fictional) piece.

Chung Ji-young hadn’t made a feature film in 14 years and he’s not quite in step with the industry standards of today but it’s just as well as his effective but unobtrusive style leaves the film in the hands of its strongest elements: its excellent cast and brilliant script.

Ahn Sung-ki is perfect for this role, there’s really no other word for it.  He is absolutely convincing as a fiercely intelligent and pragmatic man driven to the edge,  his standoffs with the cold judge (Moon Sung-kun, equally formidable) are intense and cathartic.

I will also be reviewing this film properly in the coming days but if you get a chance to see it, Unbowed is a must and already 2012’s best Korean film (admittedly I’ve only seen two!)

Full MKC review

The Woman in the Septic Tank

(Philippines, 2011)

My final film of the festival was a bit of a wild card but I was excited for it as I had been told that it was yet another film about filmmaking.  The Woman in the Septic Tank is an outright comedy that takes aim squarely at that which has been dubbed ‘poverty porn’, a type of film that is typical produced in a developing nation and which appeals to film festival goers by depicting harrowing despair.  The Udine Far East Film Festival does their utmost to steer away from this kind of film and even says so in its trailer, so it’s only fitting that this film, which in a sense reaffirms the festival’s aims was the penultimate film of the week.

A couple of young filmmakers in Manila are looking to make a brilliant art film that will go straight to Cannes and the narrative begins with a few scenes of the film.  They are slow, depressing and boring but also hilarious as they exaggerates all the worst elements of these types of films.  However most people in the audience didn’t seem to understand that it was joke until we cut to the fresh-faced filmmakers in the car heading to a coffeeshop to order soy mocafrappucinos or gold knows what else.

The star of their film is going to be Eugene Domingo and she uproariously sends herself up in a great cameo and also various performances within the film’s film.  During one scene the director and producer argue about who should play the lead, a mother of seven in a Manila slum who sells a child to a Caucasian pedophile.  Aside from Eugene they also consider Cherry Pie, for me this was hilarious and also eye-opening as she was in Fable of the Fish (2011), which I saw last month at the Fribourg International Film Festival, essentially the same role in the exact kind of film that this one seeks to ridicule.  I need to find out which one was made first!

Though not on the level of some other movies about the industry that I’ve seen so far this year, The Woman in the Septic Tank is outrageous and extremely refreshing, especially if you’re familiar with the festival circuit.

FEFF Preview

Day IV Report

Day V Report

Day VI Report

Day VII Report
Day VIII Report
Final Thoughts, Top 10 and Awards

Blind (블라인드, Beulraindeu) 2011
Dangerously Excited (나는 공무원이다, Naneun Gongmoowonida) 2012

Disney, Nostalgia, and Politics in Sunny (써니, Sseo-ni) 2011

Moby Dick (모비딕, Mo-bi-dik) 2011

Penny Pinchers (티끌모아 로맨스, Ti-kkeul-mo-a Ro-maen-seu) 2011

The Front Line (고지전, Gojijeon) 2011
Unbowed (부러진 화살, Bureojin Hwasal) 2012

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.

Udine Far East Film Festival Day VIII Report

Ongoing reports on the 14th Udine International Film Festival which Modern Korean Cinema will be covering onsite.

Splendid Outing

(South Korea, 1978)

The second Kim Soo-young film of the retrospective (after Night Journey, 1977), Splendid Outing was a fantastic island drama that was almost a horror in its design.  It’s also seem to be a huge influence of one of the best Korean films of the last few years, Jang Chul-soo’s Bedevilled (2010).

The film’s central protagonist is a successful businesswoman, which is an anomaly in 1970s Korea.  She owns a high rise, has a big office and seems respected by all of her peers.  She has two children but doesn’t seem to have much time for them.  Early on in the film the pressure starts to get to her and she takes a trip down to the South in her car, at which point she is swallowed up by a mob in coastal town, abducted and brought to an isolated island where she is given to a man who believes that she is his wife.

Once again, notions of female identity in contemporaneous Korea dominate.  Is she being punished for not conforming to the standard role of a woman?  The abundant power she holds is instantly stripped from her and after neglecting her duties as a mother in the home she is forced to care for a new offspring and has no means of escape.

Of course the traditional position of woman in society also comes under the microscope as she is literally stripped of all her freedom and forced to debase herself.  She is beaten and people ridicule her when she tries to explain who she is.  Like a number of other Korean films, old and new, the main character is transplanted from a comfortable urban environment to a rural one.  The islands in Iodo (1977), Splendid Outing and Bedevilled, as well as the villages in Bestseller (2010) and Moss (2010) are presented as spaces of horror, where dogmatic traditionalism or religion lead to horrific acts of abuse.

One of my favorite films of retrospective and the festival, Splendid Outing is a classic Korean film that could win over many spectators if given the chance.

A Woman Chasing a Killer Butterfly

(South Korea, 1978)

This bizarre effort from Kim Ki-young was loved by some and derided by others but it is certainly one of the week’s films that elicited the strongest response.  A Woman Chasing a Killer Butterfly (aka Killer Butterfly) seems like a cultish B-movie but it also has many philosophical overtones as it references Nietzsche and other works, including Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1934).

I won’t bother providing a synopsis because to be honest I wasn’t really sure what was going on most of the time.  The film seemed relatively clear at first as it went through two pseudo-chapters but its third section, which swallowed most of the narrative, lost me completely.  I was frustrated not to understand what as going on but I was never bored.  Killer Butterfly is furiously inventive and often hilarious though this is not always intentional and poor subtitles from an old copy didn’t help matters.

Compared to Kim’s other films I was surprised at the lack of a polished mise-en-scene, which leads me to imagine that this was made in a rush.  This would also explain the choppy plotting and uneven pacing.  That said, I will definitely give this another chance some day, if I’m presented with the opportunity, as I think there was much that I didn’t catch during this viewing.

Afro Tanaka

(Japan, 2012)

I’ve been lucky to see some wonderful Japanese comedies this week, including Sukiyaki (2011) and The Woodsman and the Rain (2011), but it’s true that sometimes, Japanese humour can be a little dry.  The films of Miki Satoshi (In the Pool, 2005; Adrift in Tokyo, 2007), which I had a chance to see earlier this year at the East Winds Festival, walk a dangerously fine line but just about get away with it.  Afro Tanaka has a lot of charm and is frequently inventive but it pushes this style of comedy to an extreme and at times it was too much for me handle.  However, the audience in the theater certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves and true enough the film has many laugh out loud moments so perhaps this just wasn’t one for me.

Tanaka is a young man with an enormous afro who has yet to have a girlfriend.  He is invited to the wedding of a childhood friend and must now find a companion so as not to lose face.

I couldn’t quite make sense of the ridiculous afro, it was funny for a moment but over the course of the film, which stretched to nearly two hours, it starts to become a bit of an eyesore.  The script contents itself with situational comedy for the most part which is a shame as I think some more focus on the characters and a stronger plot may have yielded a much stronger film.

The Bounty

(Hong Kong, 2012)

This HK movie world premiere was attended by director Fung Chih-chiang as well as the producer, costume designer, production designer as well as a co-star.  An action-comedy about a bounty hunter tracking down a fugitive on a little island in Hong Kong, The Bounty had its moments but was not a satisfying effort.  Chapman To, the star, was hilarious but this pales in comparison to his performance in Vulgaria (2012).  There wasn’t much to the plot which in and of itself isn’t really a problem for this kind of a narrative but it dragged on for far too long.  There was a clear ending point which seemed to work quit well but then the film trundled along for another half an hour which really spoiled it.

Maybe the film would have played better if it had remained a straight comedy but as it stands its slide into melodrama was poorly conceived and killed any momentum that the film had built early on.  There were elements of the film I liked, the comedy mostly worked in the early stages and as already mentioned Chapman To was good, he’s a very reliable performer in this type of role, but overall this is not a film I could recommend to anybody besides diehard HK film fans.

Blind

(South Korea, 2011)

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Day VI Report

Day VII Report
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Final Thoughts, Top 10 and Awards

Blind (블라인드, Beulraindeu) 2011
Dangerously Excited (나는 공무원이다, Naneun Gongmoowonida) 2012

Disney, Nostalgia, and Politics in Sunny (써니, Sseo-ni) 2011

Moby Dick (모비딕, Mo-bi-dik) 2011

Penny Pinchers (티끌모아 로맨스, Ti-kkeul-mo-a Ro-maen-seu) 2011

The Front Line (고지전, Gojijeon) 2011
Unbowed (부러진 화살, Bureojin Hwasal) 2012

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