London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Park’s gong

Park Chan-wook with Alfred Bauer prize

So what exactly is the Alfred Bauer prize? We know that Park Chan-wook was awarded it at the recent Berlin Film Festival for I’m a Cyborg, because there’s this picture on the BBC website to prove it. Yet you read the various blogs and news websites and you get the impression that the prize is an award for the best science fiction comedy. So, in a crowded field of one, Park sweeps away all competition.

Well, no. According to the official list of Berlin prizewinners, the prize is awarded “for a work of particular innovation”, and if you want to be really pedantic it’s awarded to the film, not the artist.

Check out some of the stills from the film at HanCinema (linked to below), and you’ll certainly see that visually it looks pretty innovative.

Cyborg Still 2

Anyway, it’s great that the film is getting attention abroad (not that there was any doubt that people would be interested in it) given that it had such a disappointing reception at home (around 800,000 at the box office, compared with the Host’s 13 million).

Here’s hoping for a showing at one of the many film festivals in London this year – the May and September Korean ones, and the BFI London film festival. And why not drag Rain over here for a gig while you’re at it.

Until then, here’s some further reading:

  • Q’s review over at koreanfilm.org
  • I don’t know what size 39kg is, but it must be well below an American size zero. That’s the weight Lim Soo-jung (임수정) had to achieve to do the film, according to the Chosun Ilbo. She should now be able to make a fortune by patenting her raw sweet potato diet.
  • Various press coverage of the award: KBS | Chosun | Korea Times
  • Lots of Rain news and pics at the Move on with Bi / Rain blog
  • Park Chan-wook Cyborg interview in the Chosun Ilbo
  • Interview with Park in the JoongAng Ilbo
  • Jase’s Berlin Festival report over at koreanfilm.org.uk

Cyborg Still 1

2 thoughts on “Park’s gong

  1. Yup, I was on a business trip Monday / Tuesday and unable to unhack the site as quickly as I would have otherwise. My little mobile phone can’t cope with FTP programs. I need to be at my home PC for that.
    Still, it seriously boosted my number of visitors, as people seemed to want to come by & see cRu$ty’s handiwork.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.