Review: MEMOIR OF A MURDERER Forgets to Untangle Its Intriguing Premise

By Pierce Conran

Just two weeks after V.I.P., Korean cinemas are getting another twist on the serial killer story with Won Shin-yeon’s new work Memoir of a Murderer, based on a 2013 novel by celebrated writer Kim Young-ha. Its name evokes the greatest Korean serial killer thriller of them all (though the Korean title actually translates to A Murderer’s Guide to Memorization), but this cat-and-mouse murder mystery and Alzheimer’s drama combo shares more in common with Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil.

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Review: TUNNEL Excavates Thrills, Drama and Politics Galore

By Pierce Conran

Last year's peak summer box office season wound down with Tunnel, a disaster film from A Hard Day (2014) director Kim Seong-hun. Featuring superstars Ha Jung-woo and Doona Bae in a powerful tale combining humanity and social commentary, this big-budget affair executes a effective two-handed play by suffusing its narrative with obvious melodramatic hooks while maintaining a restrained, clear focus throughout.

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Review: THE NET Is a Simple Catch from Kim Ki-duk

By Pierce Conran

Complex issues get a facile treatment in The Net, the latest work from Korean provocateur Kim Ki-duk. More coherent than his last two outings but a far cry from his best work, Kim's film comes off as little more than a simplistic sermon brought to life through routine indie specs.

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Review: THE AGE OF SHADOWS, Kim Jee-woon's Dazzling Period Spy Thriller

By Pierce Conran

Korean theatres have become inundated with films set during the Japanese Colonial period over the last few years but all are put to shame by The Age of Shadows, Kim Jee-woon's mesmerising return to home soil after directing Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand. The film also marks a strong start for Warner Brothers in the market, financing a Korean production for the first time.

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Short Watch: Neon Dreams of PLASTIC GIRLS

Plastic Girls from Nils Clauss on Vimeo.

Short Watch is a weekly feature dedicated to highlighting important short films from emerging and established filmmakers. Check back each Tuesday to watch a free and subtitled Korean short on MKC.

By Pierce Conran

Korea's problem with sex and sexuality has been explored by an enormous amount of artists in Korea, but never quite like in the dreamlike and powerful Plastic Girls. From Seoul-based German cinematographer and filmmaker Nils Clauss, this short takes a unique view of the objectification of the female form and explores a number of uniquely Korean spaces in the process.

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Review: ASURA: THE CITY OF MADNESS Unleashes Unbridled Machismo in Brooding Noir

By Pierce Conran

It's a man's world in Asura: The City of Madness, and a rotten one at that. Cops, prosecutors and politicians jostle about with unbridled machismo in a noirish caricature of corruption in the latest thriller to balk at the irresponsible behaviour of Korea's power brokers, following Veteran, Inside Men and A Violent Prosecutor.

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Review: CLAIRE'S CAMERA, Hong Sangsoo's Low-Key Cannes Holiday

By Pierce Conran

Love him or hate him, Hong Sangsoo has been remarkably consistent with his films, which both offer viewers a familiar framework and new variations on his favorite themes. His 20th work Claire's Camera debuts this weekend as a Special Screening in the Cannes Film Festival, after shooting at the festival last year. The brief (68 minutes) film reunites him with his In Another Country (2012) star Isabelle Huppert and muse Kim Min-hee for the third time (with a fourth collaboration, The Day After, also premiering at Cannes in a few days in competition).

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Review: THE TOOTH AND THE NAIL Does't Quite Scratch the Itch

By Rex Baylon

A fedora and trenchcoat, a beguiling femme fatale, a city in the throes of corruption. All elements of the film noir genre and all present in the picture The Tooth and the Nail. Adapted from a crime novel by Bill Ballinger, an author criminally unknown by mass audiences now but whose work from the early 50s till the late 70s had a marked influence on TV and the crime mystery genre. The Tooth and the Nail is pure period pulp. Helmed by one of the directors of the equally stylish period horror film Epitaph, Jung Sik later quit during post-production due to creative differences with the production company and was replaced by Kim Hwi, whose credits include a list of horror and suspense-thrillers (The Neighbors, The Chosen: Forbidden Cave).

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Review: BAMSEOM PIRATES SEOUL INFERNO, Incendiary and Essential Viewing

By Pierce Conran

Four years after his sensational debut Non-Fiction Diary, director Jung Yoon-suk proves not only that he’s no fluke, but that he’s among the most exciting and visionary documentary filmmakers working in Asia today. An exhilarating exploration of the underground rock scene in Seoul while also a melancholic meditation on painful disillusionment in an arch-conservative Korean society, his latest work Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno is a music documentary unlike any you’ve seen before.

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Review: THE TABLE Gathers Quartet of Superb Actresses in Elegant Drama

By Pierce Conran

Kim Jong-kwan assembles some of the finest actresses working in Korea today for his delightful new drama The Table. In some ways the Korean indie cousin of Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, this elegant, delicate and humorous collection of four extended conversations works beautifully as a feature film, unlike the vast majority of omnibuses that are so popular in local cinema.

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Review: THE PRISON Shackles Itself in Familiar Story

By Pierce Conran

The run of corruption thrillers that have proven so popular at the Korean box office of late shows no signs of abating with The Prison, which takes the same themes that have populated works such as Inside Men and Veteran, and applies them to the more intimate setting of a jail, which serves as a stand-in for society at large.

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News: Will Steven Yeun Star in Lee Chang-dong's BURNING?

By Pierce Conran

Last week we finally got the news we'd all been waiting for when it was confirmed that Lee Chang-dong would finally be getting back behind the camera to shoot his next feature Burning, an adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story. Now, with only a few weeks to go until its mid-September start date, news has broken that Walking Dead and Okja star Steven Yeun has been offered a lead role in the project.

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