London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Korean Connections at the 53rd BFI London Film Festival

Colin Bartlett has overcome the shortcomings of the London Film Festival website search engine by diligently reading the 100 page festival brochure for films with Korean connections. Here are the results of his labours. (Note: since 2009 the BFI have reorganised their site and none of the links provided below now work)

First, the two main films we already know about:

  • Hong Sang-soo’s Like you know it all (18, 19 Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/433like you know it all
  • Bong Joon-ho’s Mother (22, 23 Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/448Mother

And now the rest, roughly in order of relevance:

  • Visitors has three film segments of 30 to 40 minutes each, including one by Hong Sang-soo (21, 22 Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/525
  • Air Doll is Japanese but stars Bae Doo-na www.imdb.com/name/nm0046277 who – amongst others – was in the wonderful films “Take Care of My Cat”, “Barking Dogs Never Bite” and “Linda, Linda, Linda” (also Japanese!) (24, 25 Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/332Bae Doo-na in Air Doll
  • Kamui is a Japanese ninja movie (“probably the best ninja movie ever made” – Tony Rayns) by a Korean-Japanese director Yoichi Sai, currently chair of the Directors’s Guild of Japan (22, 23 Oct, both fully booked as at 3.Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/421
  • At the End of Daybreak – the only Korean connection seems to be that it is partly funded from South Korea, but it does have Wai Ying-Hung (Kara Hui when she was a female kung-fu movie star many years ago) who “gives the performance of her life”, so I’ll be seeing it! (20, 22 Oct) www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/347

If anything is fully booked there are two possibilities, as quoted from the brochure:

  • “More tickets will become available from 9.Oct after we have allocated tickets to our contributors. Visit www.bfi.org.uk/lff or subscribe to our email bulletin service and we’ll let you know when last minute tickets are released. or call the Box Office on 020 7928 3232 for the latest availability. New tickets are released on a daily basis so keep trying!”
  • “You can also queue for standbys, on sale 30 minutes before each screening. We nearly always have tickets available, even for screenings previously billed as fully booked.” (I usually start queuing maybe one to one and a half hours before the screening to be at or near the front of a queue.)

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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