Busan 2017 Review: GLASS GARDEN, Spoiled yet Soiled by Ravishing Imagery

By Pierce Conran

One of Korea's foremost indie voices returns with a fable couched in verdant imagery but marred by a sense of deja vu. Shin Su-won's fourth feature Glass Garden, the opening film of this year's Busan International Film Festival, feels like a metaphorical anecdote winged with familiar side plots and stretched out to feature length.

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News: Actor Kim Joo-hyuk Dies in Traffic Accident

By Pierce Conran

It's with a heavy heart that we share the news of the untimely passing of actor Kim Joo-hyuk, who in a rich 20-year career appeared in works such as Singles, My Wife Got Married, The Truth Beneath and Yourself and Yours. He was just 45 years old.

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News: Hong Sangsoo and Kim Min-hee Start Filming 5th Collaboration

By Pierce Conran

Hong Sangsoo and Kim Min-hee are teaming up for the fifth time on a new project that began filming earlier this month. As usual their are no plot details for what is simply Hong Sangsoo's Untitled 22nd Project for now. The film comes amidst a busy year that saw Hong release three films, all with Kim, and will co-star Jung Jin-young (seen in Claire's Camera), Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim Sae-byuk (both in The Day After).

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Short Watch: JOHNNYEXPRESS Delivers Devilishly Dark Laughs

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

This week on Short Watch, we invite you to check out the hilarious short animation JohnnyExpress. From director Kyungmin Woo, the tale involves a lazy intergalactic delivery man who causes quite a stir on his latest run.

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News: Newcomer Jeon Jong-seo Cast in LEE Chang-dong's Murakami Adaptation BURNING

By Pierce Conran

Auditions appear to have wrapped up for Lee Chang-dong's sixth film Burning as it was announced today that newcomer Jeon Jong-seo will take on the lead female role in the adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story Barn Burning, originally published in The New Yorker.

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Review: OPERATION CHROMITE, A Soulless, Calculated Cashgrab

By Pierce Conran

Summer in Korea guarantees a few things, hot humid days, the loud whir of cicadas and the guaranteed release of a jingoistic cashgrab. Recent summers have gifted us with Roaring Currents and Northern Limit Line and last year followed suit by treating us to Operation Chromite. Featuring a tacked on performance by global star Liam Neeson, this Korean War offering might have been more egregious had its clearly venal nature not been so readily apparent the moment the project was announced.

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Review: OUR LOVE STORY Offers Authentic, Modern and Compelling Romance

By Pierce Conran

2016 has seen Korean cinema make a big push to focus its narratives on characters from all walks of life, and particularly of different sexual orientations, with several major queer films bowing at festivals from Berlin to Busan. In between those events, one unassuming independent feature from a film school may have stolen the spotlight from the rest.

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Short Watch: DEER FLOWER Will Bloom in Your Nightmares

Deer Flower from KANGMIN KIM 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

Screened and awarded around the world since it debuted at Sundance last year, Kim Kang-min's deranged and remarkably original short animation Deer Flower deserves all the attention it has and continues to receive.

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News: A TAXI DRIVER Enter Oscar Race and All Time Top 10 at Korean Box Office

By Pierce Conran

In addition to becoming the year's biggest film, Jang Hoon's Gwangju drama A Taxi Driver will now be hoping for Oscar glory as it has been selected as this year's Korean submission to the foreign language category of next year's Academy Awards. Meanwhile, the film overtook Taegugki to enter the all time top ten Korean films at the box office over the weekend. To date, the film has brought in 11.89 million viewers ($82.78 million).

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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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