Review: The Past is Present in Lee Yoon-ki's THIS CHARMING GIRL

By Rex Baylon

We love to watch. It’s impossible to deny that fact as advances in technology has made people-watching a popular guilty pleasure. As more and more of our gadgets and software are built to not only connect everyone but also document every banal detail of our lives, it’s become quite easy to learn everything about someone without every meeting them face-to-face. In the realm of cinema, the concept of voyeurism has always been a popular topic for filmmakers. Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, the Maysles brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Michael Powell and many others have devoted entire films or, in rare cases, entire careers to utilizing voyeuristic techniques to arrive at some sort of truth.

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News: MEMORIES OF MURDER Coming to the Small Screen

By Pierce Conran

It looks like Snowpiercer isn't the only Bong Joon-ho film getting the remake treatment. I don't normally cover TV news but I thought I'd make an exception for this. Considered by many to be one of the greatest Korean films of all time (it's my favorite), Memories of Murder is heading to the small screen in Korea as Signal.

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Korean Box Office: Heroes Top Fathers and Gangsters (2015 WK 5)

By Pierce Conran

A Hollywood film topped the Korean box office for the first time in 2015 while a pair of Korean blockbusters battled for second place. Local films did hold a combined advantage though with a 55% market share in a weekend that saw 2.08 million spectators visit theaters.

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Coming Attractions: GRANNY'S GOT TALENT's Schtick Ain't Ready For Television

By Rex Baylon

Bawdy Korean comedies more often than not fall on deaf ears when they reach foreign audiences and Shin Han-sol's new film Granny's Got Talent is no different. Structured on the thinnest of premises, a swearing contest that has drawn various foul-mouthed individuals to compete for the title of master of cursing.

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Reel Talk: Busan City vs. Busan Film Festival

Every Friday I appear on a segment called Reel Talk for Arirang TV on the 2 o'clock news, mostly covering Korean cinema.

Just over a week ago, a controversy erupted when Busan City asked the director of the Busan International Film Festival to resign. Events have unfolded in quick fashion, and for this week's Reel Talk I talked about what has happened so far and the possible implications of the situation.

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Coming Attractions: THE AVIAN KIND is a Brooding Kind of Film Fowl

By Rex Baylon

Shin Youn-sik is back with a new film in February titled The Avian Kind. Over the last few years, Shin got quite a bit of attention for a pair of films that both premiered at the Busan Film Festival, the contemplative mystery drama The Russian Novel (2012) and the art-meets-life gangster picture Rough Play (2013).

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New Korean Films: Trampled Flowers (2015 Week 4)

Shoot Me in the Heart

(내 심장을 쏴라)

By Fabien Schneider

Soo-Myung witnessed the traumatic experience of his mother’s suicide, and has since become a regular of a psychiatric hospital for the last six years. He has developed a form of schizophrenia, but he’s as honest as possible. One day, a new patient comes to share his room: Seung-Min is sound of mind, but has been sent here for no reason by some relatives of his. His only wish is to run away from this place as soon as possible.

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News: All Aboard! SNOWPIERCER Spoof Coming This Year

By Pierce Conran

The most well known Korean film of the last few years is coming back to screens, reimagined as an erotic parody. Bong Man-dae, the director of Cinderella (2006) and Playboy Bong (2013), though most well known as a purveyor of softcore erotica, is turning Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer into Rice Cake Soup Train (Ddeok-gook-yeol-cha, 떡국열차). That title's a bit of a mouthful (sorry, had to do it) but it makes more sense in Korean. If and when they decide this could target a foreign audience, I'm sure they'll come up with something better.

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Review: Stylish And Well Performed, SCARLET INNOCENCE Surprises And Delights

By Pierce Conran

Adapted from a Korean folk tale and starting off as a softly lensed romantic melodrama, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Scarlet Innocence, the latest work from noted visual stylist Yim Pil-sung, must be primed for a local audience. Yet this surprising genre-bending effort, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, holds off from showing its true colors until it has lulled you into a comfortable reverie. A successful exercise in subverting expectations, Scarlet Innocence may also prove a watershed moment for Yim, an acclaimed director whose high profile and gorgeously designed works have so far failed to translate into box office returns.

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News: BIFF Director Stays on, Censorship Concerns Linger

By Pierce Conran

Click here to read about the events leading up to this story.

It appears that Busan Film Festival director Lee Yong-kwan will not be leaving his post for the moment. Lee and BIFF executive programmer Kim Ji-seok met with Busan City mayor Suh Byung-soo and culture and tourism bureau director-general Kim Kwang-hee on Tuesday.

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Review: GYEONGJU, Not Just a Place But an Idea

By Rex Baylon

“You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

- Thomas Wolfe

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News: Lotte Picks up TERMINATOR, Still No Release for MEMORIES OF THE SWORD

By Pierce Conran

In an unusual move, Paramount announced earlier this month that their summer tentpole Terminator: Genisys would not be distributed by their usual partner CJ Entertainment in Korea. That position has now been filled by Lotte Entertainment, which will release the film in July.

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