Revenge Week: Introduction - Seeds of Revenge

Part of MKC's Revenge Week (July 8-14, 2013).

One of the most popular trends in cinema across the world, revenge is a powerful device that triggers audience empathy and can be a great excuse to indulge in exploitation on the screen. Far be it from merely being a contrivance to allow for bloody genre cinema, the why of revenge often stretches beyond the theater. Society and history, not to mention personal expression, have led to the construction of many revenge narratives in cinema. Vengeance can take on many forms and its depiction can be a force of good, evil or any shade of grey in between. 

Click to read more»

Revenge Week Begins!

Welcome to Revenge Week on Modern Korean Cinema! We are very excited to be featuring lots of new and exciting content from MKC team members and many new contributors throughout the next seven days as we seek to explore the bountiful theme of revenge in Korean cinema.

This page will serve as homebase for all the accumulated content that goes up during the week so please bookmark or check back to keep up with all the great stuff coming up over the next few days.

Click to read more»

Final NYAFF Contest

Hey New Yorkers!! We hope you're enjoying all the goodies at NYAFF. Sadly though, all good things must come to an end and here at Modern Korean Cinema our Trivia Contest must officially close. For our fourth and final trivia contest contestants get a chance to win one ticket to a screening of Juvenile Offender, an arthouse drama about a troubled teen's reunion with his mother after abandoning him 17 years ago. The screening will occur on July 11th at 6 pm. As usual. all you have to do is answer the trivia question and send it to [email protected] before noon on the day of screening. Good like and good movie.

Click to read more»

New Korean Films: These Are Watching You (2013 Week 27)

Cold Eyes

(감시자들)

The Special Crime Department of the Korean police is led by Hwang Sang-jun, a detective who tracks down criminals thanks to his instinct. A new recruit, Ha Yoon-ju, who demonstrates an exceptional memory and sense of observation, joins his team. Both they must work as a team to capture a dangerous robbing organization headed by the cautious and very discreet "James."

Click to read more»

NYAFF Continues On!!

Okay, so now that NYAFF is underway and our first two trivia contests have finished. Congratulations to Matthew Kiernan, Jacky Caguicla, Avi Avital, and Talia Meisel for answering the trivia questions correctly and we hope that you enjoyed your movie. Now for our third contest the prize will be a ticket for the 2:15 pm screening of The Peach Tree on July 9th.

Click to read more»

New Korean Films: Horror Movie? Again? (2013 Week 26)

Cheer Up Mr. Lee

(힘내세요, 병헌씨)

A producer proposes to her TV station the idea of a documentary that follows the trials and tribulations of young apprentices filmmakers in their creative process. She and her team then begin to shoot all the doings of Byeong-heon. But she soon realizes the difficulty of this task. Byeong-heon drinks constantly, takes more than eight hours before starting to write the script and spends more than an hour trying different fonts for the title of the script. Moreover, he then goes out to meet his friends, a producer, cameraman and actor, all beginners, to get further drunk.

Click to read more»

More NYAFF Goodness!!!

Okay, so with the first NYAFF trivia contest announced yesterday and the deadline for that fast approaching MKC has a treat for all you Ryoo Seung-Wan fans in the New York area. This year Subway Cinema not only managed to score a print for the director's latest film The Berlin File as well as his 2010 crime epic The Unjust but they're also going to screen the director's martial arts fantasy film Arahan.

Click to read more»

New York Asian Film Festival GIVEAWAY!!!!

June is a time when kids are let out for summer vacation and film fans can gorge on the latest genre films from Asia in the New York tri-state area. For those not already in the know the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) has been held in the Big Apple since 2002. Starting off as a small local festival at small repertory theaters. NYAFF, through the help of Subway Cinema, has been steadily growing and now has become a festival that rivals even the more respected NYFF (New York Film Festival) in films screened and fan enthusiasm. Part film festival, carnivale and fan convention NYAFF has been the site that many directors have chosen to first premiere their films in North America. Not to mention the fact that the overworked staff at the NYAFF always deliver great guests like Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark and actors like Choi Min-shik and Donnie Yen.

Click to read more»

Korean Box Office: World War Z Scares Up Huge Opening (06/21-06/23, 2013)

A blockbuster came in stronger than expected this weekend, lifting the box office to a powerful 2.35 million admissions over the frame, a 50% jump over last year. Meanwhile, the news was not so great on the domestic front, as the market share shot down from 64% to 23%, as new titles continue to flounder in the marketplace.

Click to read more»

Edinburgh 2013: Juvenile Offender (범죄소년, 2012)

Part of Connor McMorran's coverage for MKC of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (June 19-30, 2013).

As much as we may like to think society is for the most part a well-oiled machine, there are still far too many people who slip through the cracks. Abandoned, unable to change themselves or the situation they face, they seek to reintegrate into a society which has no desire to welcome them. For most of its life, and especially since the end of World War II, film has been used to highlight and discuss the daily problems faced by those who exist on the outside of society. From the Italian neo-realists and their pleas to humanity, through to the angry white males of British kitchen sink dramas reacting violently in protest to the systems of society, film is used to give these people a voice that would otherwise go unheard.

Click to read more»

Edinburgh 2013: National Security (남영동 1985, 2012)

Part of Connor McMorran's coverage for MKC of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (June 19-30, 2013).

Though 2012 was an important year in Korean cinema for many reasons, one of the more interesting ones is that it saw the return of director Chung Ji-young. 2012 was essentially bookended by his two films; Unbowed was released in January, and National Security arrived at the end of November. Both films featured highly political narratives based on real life events, yet National Security struggled to bring in anywhere near the same audience numbers as Unbowed.

Click to read more»

Edinburgh 2013: The Berlin File (베를린, 2013)

Part of Connor McMorran's coverage for MKC of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (June 19-30, 2013).

Writing in his book 'The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema', Kim Kyung Hyun discusses the male-centric narratives found in Korean cinema of the 1980s and 90s. Discussing the film Shiri (1999), he argues that “The masculinity of Shiri’s protagonist veered away from the Korean male icons of the 1980s, but it did so by simulating Hollywood action heroes.” Shiri could easily be argued as the breakthrough moment for both commercial Korean cinema and genre cinema in general, creating a wave of films which heavily copied its style. The mainstream Korean film industry has thrived off genre cinema for the past decade, with the occasional ‘well-made’ film (films which are both commercially successful and show clear artistic intent, a perfect example being Bong Joon-Ho’s Memories of Murder from 2003) thrown in for good measure.

Click to read more»