Coming Attractions: SOCIALPHOBIA Logs on to Korean Screens This March

By Rex Baylon

I love a good mystery and Hong Seok-jae's feature debut Socialphobia, opening in Korean theaters on March 12, has it in spades. Centering on a couple of police cadets played by Byun Yo-han and Lee Joo-seung sniffing around for clues about an online user with the handle Re-Na who made waves by posting a vicious comment about a dead soldier. These wannabe Hardy Boys eventually track her down, but before they can wring an apology out of her they are shocked to find something else.

Click to read more»

Review: THE CONTACT Provides a Glimpse of Romance at the Speed of the ‘90s

By Chris Horn

The romance genre is always teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice: an original plot and strong chemistry between the leads are the essential yet often elusive elements of successful romance. In 1997, Jang Yoon-hyeon struck gold, courting both viewer and critical approval with his hit romance The Contact. While it has its share of self-indulgence, it ultimately deserves its reputation as a refreshing genre film.

Click to read more»

Korean Box Office: Soft Opening for C'EST SI BON Ahead of Lunar New Year (2015 WK 6)

By Pierce Conran

In the warm up to holidays, 1.81 million people visited theaters as a Korean film reclaimed the top of the charts. Local films were dominant with 62% of the market.

Click to read more»

Reel Talk: Korea's Lunar New Year Contenders

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

The Lunar New Year, one of Korea's major holidays, takes place next Thursday so local studios are pitting their biggest releases against each other to capitalize on the busy theatergoing period. This week I talked about this year's holiday releases, C'est si bon and Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island.

Click to read more»

News: ODE TO MY FATHER Becomes 2nd Most Successful Korean Film of All Time

By Pierce Conran

Yesterday, JK Youn's Ode to My Father surpassed The Host (2006) and The Thieves (2012) to become the second most successful Korean film of all time. Still in third place on the charts in its eighth week, the blockbuster melodrama added 89,809 viewers on Saturday to bring its total to 13.02 million admissions ($92.16 million). Including foreign films, the film is in third place, behind Avatar's (2009) 13.62 million viewers.

Click to read more»

News: GANGNAM BLUES Targets Lee Min-ho Fans with New Edit for China

By Pierce Conran

Yoo Ha's gangster epic Gangnam Blues will be released in China next month but local viewers will be treated to a different cut of the film. In order to capitalize on star Lee Min-ho's big fan base in the region, changes were made affecting his character.

Click to read more»

Review: FUTURELESS THINGS, A Bright, Gleaming Comedy Well-Stocked With Laughs

By Rex Baylon

Towards the latter half of Kim Kyung-mook's Futureless Things, a niggling question kept popping into my head, "Why a convenience store? What makes a convenience store the perfect spot for this peculiar film?" I racked my brain trying to find an answer, hoping that maybe if I could discover the answer Kim's film might not be so muddled for me. Thinking about all the seemingly random events that transpired during the film's 105 minute runtime I came away with one thought: set anywhere else, this film, a not-so subtle commentary on the modern day South Korean psyche, would have been bogged down by a lot of dramatic cliches if it had been shot in an office, a classroom or even a cafe, in turn diluting a lot of the satire and replacing it with obtuse social commentary.

Click to read more»

New Korean Films: Tellement bon! (2015 Week 5)

C'est si bon

(쎄시봉)

By Fabien Schneider

At the end of the 60s, the “C’est si bon” music hall was the place where new trends in folk music were created. Every night, young people would gather there to discover the new hits of tomorrow, while many rookie artists would go on stage to put their songs to the test. Among them are Yoon Hyeong-Joo, “The Diabolic Sweet Voice”, and Song Chang-Sik, “The Gifted Musical Genius”, in competition with each other since the time they met. The manager of “C’est si bon” decides to introduce them with the trio that would take the name of his music hall. To fill the gap of the third musician, the producer hires Oh Geun-tae, a guy from Tongyeong, on the Southern coast, who has never played a guitar yet but has a wonderful baritone voice. Of course, the early days of this band are difficult, but when they all fall in love with Ja-young, they suddenly find the inspiration to write love songs.

Click to read more»

News: Record Sales & Slim Profits for Korean Film Industry in 2014

By Pierce Conran

South Korea's film industry topped the two trillion won mark for the first time in 2014, reaching 2.03 trillion won (USD 1.84 billion), which was a 7.6% improvement over the previous year. Growth was recorded overall in exhibition sales, the digital online market and overseas sales, yet within those figures Korean admissions, online streaming sales and film exports were all down. Worryingly, despite some record-breaking local hits, the return on investment rate for Korean films almost fell into negative figures.

Click to read more»

Review: Grand and Mysterious, THE AVIAN KIND Soars

By Pierce Conran

A great many gems have emerged from the Korean independent scene of late, but some worry that the milieu lacks the unique voices that it used to cultivate 10 to 15 years ago. Director Shin Yeon-shick may already be on his fifth film, but with his latest work The Avian Kind, the filmmaker has positioned himself as a fresh and distinct voice, challenging the realist aesthetic that defines the contemporary indie field.

Click to read more»

Review: CASA AMOR: EXCLUSIVE FOR LADIES, But Really Just a Man's World

By Pierce Conran

Every so often, Korean cinema presents us with a new film, filled with the promise of titillating erotica. Invariably, these turn out to be rather chaste affairs and Casa Amor: Exclusive for Ladies (the original title of which is Working Girl, in English but spelt in Korean), proves to be no exception. However, stylish though it may be, this new work proves more egregious than most, as it hints at the freedom of female sexuality yet ultimately sinks into woefully patriarchal archetypes.

Click to read more»

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.

Click to read more»