Skip to content

Category Archives: Kim Ki-duk

Spring, Summer at the KCC

09-Apr-08
The KCC's third film screening, on Friday 11 April at 7pm, is Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring. From the KCC website: Synopsis Spring, a child monk audaciously stacks rocks on a frog's back. Summer, a young boy falls in love with a girl who comes to the buddhist monastery to convalesce. Fall, a young man who returns to the monastery a murderer. Winter, a man learns the art of Zen on a chilly mountain. Spring again, and an old monk raises a child. Against the dreamlike background of a monastery that stands in the middle of a forest, panoramic portraits of life flow in accordance with the four seasons. Biography After studying art in Paris, KIM Ki-duk returned to Korea ...
Also filed in Events news, Film, KCC Film Club, KCCUK | | Comments (0) »

Korean Film at Edinburgh

31-Jul-07
The Edinburgh Film Festival will be showing four Korean films this year. The choice of three of the four comes as no surprise. No western film festival with Korean content is complete without a recent Kim Ki-duk film, and this time round it's Breath (숨). Everyone wants to know how Park Chan-wook can follow his vengeance trilogy, so the quirky I'm a Cyborg (싸이보그지만 괜찮아) is a natural choice After A Good Lawyer's Wife (바람난 가족) and President's Last Bang (그때 그사람들), any film by Im Sang-soo deserves attention. And when the film is an adaptation of a novel by Hwang Sok-yong and deals with the Kwangju massacre, The Old Garden (오래된 정원) is certainly a candidate for any serious film festival The only ...
Also filed in Edinburgh 2007, Events news, Film, Im Sang-soo, Park Chan-wook, Roh Gyeong-tae | | Comments (0) »

Jeon Do-yeon wins at Cannes

28-May-07
Congratulations to Jeon Do-yeon on winning best actress at Cannes. She was an early front-runner in the competition, and just for once those early hopes of success were justified. For the first third of its nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time, "Secret Sunshine" feels like a slightly somber fish-out-of-water comedy (reports AO Scott at the New York Times), until a sudden catastrophe cranks up the psychological intensity, sending the heroine (the remarkable Jeon Do-yeon) into a frenzied, desperate search for some kind of peace. Her pain is almost too much for Mr. Lee's deliberate style to contain — and there is something incomplete about the film, in spite of its length — but Ms. Jeon's portrayal of a meek soul in torment is a ...
Also filed in Film, Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Chang-dong | | Comments (0) »

Darcy’s predictions for 2007

11-Jan-07
It's getting to be the case that the more interesting stuff over on Darcy's site is in his What's New page rather than his forums. Here are his predictions for 2007: Park Jin-pyo's VOICE OF A MURDERER is going to be a major critical and popular hit (at least 6 million tickets) There will be about 80 Korean films released in 2007, down from 103 this year Korean comedy will make a comeback Kim Ki-duk will fight with the press, and will not release his new movie in Korea Total annual admissions will drop for the first time in a decade Jeon Do-yeon (below) will win Best Actress at Cannes Darcy's been Jeon Do-yeon's number one fan for as long as I can remember. But it would be ...
Also filed in 2006 year-end posts, Film, Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Chang-dong | | Comments (0) »

Adrien Gombeaud and others: Kim Ki-duk

28-Dec-06

Adrien Gombeaud and others: Kim Ki-duk

(Dis Voir, 2006) Adrien Gombeaud / Anaïd Demir / Cédric Lagandré / Catherine Capdeville-Zeng / Daniele Rivière Stern(2,g) The best French organists are known for their improvisation skills. Suggest a theme, and they will start a journey from it, sometimes referring back to it but often exploring strange new vistas completely unrelated to it. The essays in this book strike me as something similar: fantasias and rhapsodies inspired by the theme of Kim Ki-duk's films rather than fugues or sonatas which examine the themes every which way. And definitely not etudes. The written content of this book is pretty sparse. It has 127 pages in total, of which the essays take up one half. The other half is taken up by stills from Kim's ...
Also filed in Book reviews: Film | | Comments (0) »

Kim Ki-duk’s apology

31-Aug-06
The Chosunilbo has a good item on Kim's apology to Korean cinema-goers. Visit the Chosun for the background and related links. The story is picked up in the koreanfilm.org forum, and a lively thread is ensuing. The consensus seems to be that if Kim wants Koreans to go to his movies, he should make movies that Koreans can connect with, and not rely on the marketing ploy "well, foreigners like my films, therefore Koreans should". I wish I had access to the primary material, and understood Korean. But here's some interesting extracts from some of Kim's recent statements (courtesy of Sangman at Koreanfilm.org) “모두 감추고 싶어 하는 치부를 과장해 드러내는 저 자신의 영화가 너무 한심하고 사람들에게 불안한 미래와 사회에 불신을 조장한 것이 너무도 ...
Also filed in Film | | Comments (0) »

Countdown to the Host (2)

21-Aug-06

Countdown to the Host (2)

The London debut of the Host is one week away. And it's still breaking box office records. It's sold out at the Edinburgh Festival, where Bong Joon-ho will be making a personal appearance, while in Korea, after one week according to the Chosun, the film brought in some 2.7 million viewers in just four days, setting records by opening on the greatest number of screens (620), the highest number of reservations (99 percent), and as the quickest movie to break the 1 million viewer mark (three days). That knocks the previous record-holders into a cocked hat. The previous record for biggest first week was held by "Typhoon" with 1.81 million tickets sold, for biggest one-day showing "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War" ...
Also filed in Bong Joon-ho, Film | | Comments (0) »

Kim Ki-duk: the Coastguard

26-Jun-06
While browsing Play.com over the weekend I noted an upcoming Tartan release: Kim Ki-duk's neglected Coastguard. The title of the film, to a westerner, is somewhat misleading. In the peaceful west, a coastguard is something to do with lifeboats, or air-sea rescue. He sits in a lookout post all day scanning the horizon for drug smugglers or Spanish trawlers using illegal drag-net fishing techniques. I apologise to any coastguards reading this -- I'm not meaning to downplay the importance or danger in what you do. But it's not the stuff of a Kim Ki-duk film. And so I only acquired my region 3 DVD of Coastguard when it was the freebie in Yesasia's buy 3 get one free offers. I ...
Also filed in Film | | Comments (0) »

New book on Kim Ki-duk

21-Mar-06
For all you fans of this inventive director, there's a new book out. I'll post some comments once I've read it, but that won't be for a while as I've got quite a backlog to get through. That plus the fact that the English version won't be available until November 2006, according to Amazon. Update: I've reviewed it here. Not worth the bother. Related posts:Kim Jong-il’s book on cinema Filmbrain has spotted - and bought and, even more nobly,...Seoul Magazine’s book of the month One of the features of the British book market is...Admiral Yi enters cyberspace in history book fightback The Admiral who gave the Japanese a bloody nose in... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Also filed in Film, General book news | | Comments (0) »

Kim Ki-duk mistaken for a tramp

11-Jul-05
Another great tabloid item from the Chosun, and it's true. I look forward to seeing the film. Related posts:Korean protests baffle Belgians I can't put it better than the Chosun Ilbo's own...Fourth most desired female rear belongs to a transsexual Sorry to be a bit tabloid, but I just had...60% of Koreans can’t use chopsticks Another choice item from the Chosun Ilbo.... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Also filed in Celebs, Film, Strange but true | | Comments (0) »