With its slow, brooding and genuinely unsettling narrative, Sorum isn’t a film which everyone will savour, but its uncompromisingly bleak depiction of the vicious depths to which human beings are capable of sinking certainly allows it to stand out from standard horror movie fare. [Read More]
Month: January 2008 (page 3)
Francesca Cho’s January shows
Korean-born artist Francesca Cho is exhibiting work in two group shows, in London and Bergamo, this month. The London show, Sacred, in the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre London Bridge (73-81 Southwark Bridge Road, SE1 ONQ [map]) near the Financial Times offices in Southwark Bridge Road — two minutes’ walk from Tate Modern — is to … [Read More]
Spider Forest (거미숲, 2004) review: memory, guilt and the labyrinth of the mind
A man awakens from a coma and returns to a forest where murder and betrayal unfolded. A combination of thriller, horror story and ghostly tale, Spider Forest details one man’s attempts to uncover his forgotten memories, and serves as a thought provoking study of loss, betrayal, regret and self-destruction. [Read More]
Inheriting the gifts of grief: Brenda Paik Sunoo’s moving memoir
Brenda Paik Sunoo: Seaweed and Shamans – Inheriting the gifts of grief Seoul Selection, April 2006 I remember logging this book in my memory sometime in early 2006, having read some advance notice of in, I think, the Seoul Selection weekly email. I didn’t read the small print too closely, and confess I didn’t read … [Read More]
Teenage Hooker Became A Killing Machine review: art film pretentions, agonisingly overstretched content
With painfully slow pacing, unfocused themes and appalling performances, Nam Ki-woong’s B-movie sadly squanders the opportunity presented by one of the most provocative titles in recent memory, stretching a ten minute music video plot out to a laboured sixty minutes… [Read More]
Sex, modernity and the Korean war: a review of Ahn Junghyo’s Silver Stallion
Ahn Junghyo: Silver Stallion – a novel of Korea Soho Press, 1990 First published in Seoul in 1986 Translated from the Korean by the author As the book opens, we encounter a small village which is somehow untouched by the Korean war which seems to have passed them by. The old order, personified by Old … [Read More]
Spring term SOAS free seminars
The event schedule for the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies has just been announced for the current term Fridays, 5pm Room G52, Ground Floor, Main Building SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG (except where otherwise stated) For further details contact: Rahima Begum (rb41 AT soas DOT ac DOT uk) All Welcome These Seminars … [Read More]
Woyzeck comes to London from Edinburgh
As part of the London Mime Festival 2008, one of the hits of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe will be coming to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, 24-26 January. Sadari Movement Laboratory – Woyzeck Thursday 24 January 2008 – Saturday 26 January 2008 George Buchner’s Woyzeck, based on the true story of a poor German soldier driven … [Read More]
Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골, 2005) review: humanity found beyond the battlefield
An uplifting and gently funny tale, told with genuine affection and served up with copious amounts of popcorn (watch the film and you’ll understand what I mean), Welcome To Dongmakgol reminds us that, whatever our beliefs and whatever the causes for which we fight, we should never forget our humanity. [Read More]
Wet Dreams (몽정기, 2002) review: adolescent awkwardness with innocence and heart
A coming-of-age comedy that approaches adolescent desire with warmth, humour and surprising innocence. Wet dreams blends familiar genre elements with genuine charm, playful innuendo and nostalgic honesty, standing apart from cruder sex comedies through its good-natured tone and affectionate look at youthful confusion. [Read More]
Windstruck (내 여자친구를 소개합니다, 2004) review: echoes of My Sassy Girl without the same spark
A rather lacklustre script and jolting switches between genres diminish what would otherwise be an engaging story, and the constant mirroring of elements from My Sassy Girl are an ever-present reminder of all the things that Windstruck would have liked to have been… [Read More]
DPRK art show, part 2
Such was the quantity of good material that Mansudae sent to London last year for the exhibition at La Galleria that there wasn’t enough space to show it all. So for two weeks this month there will be an opportunity to see some of the work that didn’t make it on to the walls. Last … [Read More]
January Events 2008
Visual Arts Arcadia continues at I-MYU till 14 January. The next show will be from 31 January featuring Bon-a Koo and Yeonsoo Ha. Francesca Cho participates in a World Religion Day exhibition at Novas Gallery, the Contemporary Urban Centre, 73-81 Southwark Bridge Rd, London SE1 0NQ, from 18 January. And, if you happen to be … [Read More]
Some New Year drumming
First, a video posted to YouTube on New Year’s Eve: a Korea-Japan collaboration in Los Angeles, from Doppo Nagata. “New year celebration of dance and music 2008” from Los Angeles, California. “Japan-Korea cross-cultural future traditional music and dance”. Music composed and produced by Doppo Nagata (Soul of Japan and beyond). Choreography by Soo Hyang Lee … [Read More]
DPRK new year editorial 2008
A Joint New Year Editorial of the leading DPRK newspapers, recently forwarded by the DPRK embassy. Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) — Rodong Sinmun, Joson Inmingun and Chongnyon Jonwi today released the joint New Year editorial “Glorify This Year of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the DPRK as a Year of Historical Turn Which … [Read More]
New Year’s resolutions
1 I will free myself from the daily post Having managed to maintain one post per day for the past 15 months or so, even when on holiday, I’ve now proved to myself I can do it. To be honest, it’s never been much of a struggle to find something to write about, and it’s … [Read More]