Last year the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam featured the moving South Korean documentary Planet of Snail. This year the interest is north of the border, with a new documentary on North Korean defectors by award-winning film-maker Ann Shin. The Defector: Escape from North Korea Ann Shin, Canada, 2012, color, HDcam, 71′ THE DEFECTOR: … [Read More]
Month: November 2012 (page 3)
“Arirang” looks to be safeguarded at UNESCO for (South) Korea
After last year’s scare that China was laying claim to Arirang, Korea’s most famous folk-song, it looks like UNESCO will soon be listing it as part of Korea’s intangible heritage (source: Korea Times / Cultural Heritage Administration). But the song, which is loved throughout the peninsula and in Korean communities elsewhere, is to be registered … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: All about my wife – a perfect date movie
Part of the K-comedy stream of the 2012 LKFF. Im Soo-jeong plays a shrewish wife driving her husband (Lee Seon-gyoon) crazy, causing him to hire a Casanova (Ryu Seung-ryong) to woo her to give him an excuse for divorce. This is a perfect date movie: entertaining, never too demanding but still making you think about … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: The Grand Heist – a lightweight, fun caper movie, but not for grown-ups
If films require a minimum age classification so that youngsters are not harmed by seeing adult material, shouldn’t there also be a maximum age classification system to warn adults that they are going to be watching material designed for juveniles? If The Grand Heist, billed as a Joseon dynasty Ocean’s Eleven1, had such a classification, … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: One Deranged hour of my life that I will never get back
Sometime you go into a movie not knowing what to expect and come out feeling fulfilled. Sometimes you go into a movie with high expectations and come out feeling disappointed. If I find a movie dragging, I’ll usually give it a chance to pick up. But when I really can’t see that the film is … [Read More]
Director Jung Ji-woo interview: aging, desire and society in Eungyo
Director Jung Ji-woo discusses EunGyo as a way to explore unspoken desires, aging, and social restraint in Korea. He reflects on empathy, casting authenticity, adaptation from literature and manhwa, creative freedom, working with actors, and how human difference and collision drive his filmmaking. [Read More]
Haegue Yang inaugural artist for Der Öffentlichkeit in Munich
Installation artist Haegue Yang has been commissioned as the first artist to fill the Middle Hall of Haus der Kunst in Munich. The installation will be on display until September 2013. The first minute or so of the following video introduces the work, and the official press release follows. Haegue Yang / Der Öffentlichkeit — … [Read More]
White Night pulled from LKFF 2012 programme
Sadly White Night (백야, LeeSong Hee-il 2012), the only queer-themed film on LKFF programme this year, has been pulled at the last minute. According to Otherwhere, the 70 minute feature was inspired by the real life case of a homophobic street assault. The film, which first showed at the Jeonju International Film Fest in April … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Gabi – a glossy period spy movie with plenty to recommend it
This year’s Korean Film Festival has a focus on period film – the closing gala is Masquerade, and we also have The Grand Heist, I am the King, and Gabi. Gabi is set in the last decade of the 19th Century, at a time when the Japanese and the Russians were competing for influence in … [Read More]
2012 Travel Diary #20: Rabbit Stew and Love Shots
Beopgyesa, Sancheong County, Gyeongsangnam-do, Friday 30 March 2012. The ice on the mountain trail the previous day had given me metaphorical cold feet about proceeding upwards beyond Beopgyesa to Jirisan’s summit. During the night, the wind and rain outside our comfortable cabin in the temple compound confirmed the decision that we would head downhill, rather … [Read More]
British Korean Womens Society – inaugural event
The BKWS has had a number of invitation-only events over the past year or so. Now they are having their first public event. All welcome (including men, Korean or otherwise). An RSVP is required (and contribution to cover the catering costs): BKWS committee would like to invite you and your friends to an inaugural event … [Read More]
Kim Yoon-suk interview: from The Chaser to The Thieves
Kim Yoon-suk discusses his decision to focus exclusively on film, his collaborations with Na Hong-jin, and the appeal of socially grounded, hardcore thrillers. He reflects on the demands of The Thieves, the limits of TV drama production, and why intense genre films travel more easily than Korean comedy on the international stage. [Read More]
Choi Dong-hoon interview: “a genius storyteller”
Director Choi Dong-hoon discusses his move from acting to full-time directing, his approach to genre cinema, and why character matters more than message. He explains the creative choices behind The Thieves, casting Jeon Ji-hyun and Kim Hye-soo, working beyond heist films, and balancing Korean stories with growing international audiences. [Read More]
Royal Ancestors – an unsolicited review
I recently received an email from a friend who was given a copy of Royal Ancestors and Ancient Remedies for Christmas last year: Just finished reading your Korean book, which I enjoyed a lot. I confess I was struck by a similarity between the book and the Jongmyo ancestral rituals, in that I thought it … [Read More]
Im Kwon-taek and the wounds of the Korean War
The Im Kwon Taek retrospective has given us all a chance to catch up on some of the films of the master that we haven’t seen before, rounding out our picture of Korea’s national director. Im is probably best known nowadays for his films which highlight some of the unique aspects of Korea’s cultural heritage: … [Read More]
Andre Schmid at SOAS: moral didactic literature and North Korean history
The third of this season’s free seminars at SOAS: How does the rise of moral didactic literature fit into narratives of North Korean history? Andre Schmid (University of Toronto) Date: 16 November 2012 Time: 5:15 PM Venue: Russell Square: College Buildings Room: G50 Abstract How to be a good socialist subject? After the Korean War … [Read More]