Who knows how much Gordon Ramsay is getting paid to be brand ambassador for Oriental Brewery’s Cass lager. But he’s certainly getting their brand into the news, at least in the English language press, both in the UK and Korea. His current promotional tour to Korea, coinciding with his filming of an episode of Please Take … [Read More]
LKL articles by Philip Gowman (page 38)
Festival film review: Bae Chang-ho’s People of the Slum
Bae Chang-ho’s debut feature, People of the Slum (1982), is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Lee Dong-chul. The film tells the story of a complicated love triangle. Myeong-sook, played by Kim Bo-yeon, lives with her second husband, the idle and dissolute Tae-seop (played by Kim Hui-ra). Living in the same house in the run-down … [Read More]
Book review: Frontier Contact Between Chosŏn Korea and Tokugawa Japan
James B. Lewis: Frontier Contact Between Chosŏn Korea and Tokugawa Japan Routledge, 2003, 340pp What a relief to return to some non-fiction. And although at LKL we are wholly unqualified to review academic works, we don’t mind saying why we it is that we like a particular book. Frontier Contact paints a fascinating picture of … [Read More]
On reading Han Kang’s White Book by the pool
In general, I tend not to read much literary fiction. If I’m reading stuff which is unrelated to Korea, it’s likely to be either non-fiction or easy reading – a detective story or something reasonably lightweight. When it comes to Korea-related reading, until relatively recently the balance has again been in favour of non-fiction. But … [Read More]
Review: Eun Me Ahn’s Let Me Change Your Name
Often when I go along to an event which I suspect will be good, I try to manage my expectations downwards. If I succeed in persuading myself that the thing may be quite mediocre then at worst I won’t be disappointed and at best I will be delighted when the event surpasses expectation. With Eun … [Read More]
A few links relating to Trump’s visit
A few links relating to President Trump’s visit to Seoul before they are too out of date: His hosts used an official dinner to score two foreign policy points over the Japanese: One of the guests was former comfort woman Lee Yong-soo and the Japanese were said not to have appreciated it when Trump embraced … [Read More]
Book review: Han Yujoo – The Impossible Fairy Tale
Han Yujoo: The Impossible Fairy Tale translated by Janet Hong Graywolf Press, MN, USA 192pp / Tilted Axis Press, UK 352pp / 2017 Originally published as 불가능한 동화 (pub 문학과지성사, 2013) Sometimes, I like having my brain stretched when reading a book: something to get stuck into, to make me think. But there are limits. I … [Read More]
Pachinko featured in New York Times
There’s a nice feature on Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko in last weekend’s New York Times. I enjoyed the book myself though never got around to writing a review. It’s a very different work from her first novel, Free Food for Millionaires, which I described as a combination of Sex and the City and Wall Street, and … [Read More]
Festival film review: Becoming who I was
Nine years ago Moon Chang-yong and Jeon Jin were in Ladakh, Kashmir – a mountainous region 100 miles or so northeast of where the Dalai Lama lives, and less than 50 miles from Tibet’s westernmost extremity. They were filming a documentary about practitioners of traditional medicine in the various regions of Asia. Their subject was … [Read More]
Gig review: Park Jiha at King’s Place
Park Jiha brought the 2017 K-music festival to a close at King’s Place on 25 October with a mellow set of pieces taken from her album Communion which was deservedly shortlisted for the 2016 Korea Music Awards in both the Best Crossover Album and Best Jazz & Crossover Performance categories. Park is a versatile player, … [Read More]
November events 2017
After a ridiculously hectic October, the pace this month is a bit more manageable (at least, once we get past the first week and a bit). Film The London Korean Film Festival closes in London on 8 November before touring to Sheffield, Manchester. Nottingham, Glasgow and Belfast. Ellie Kyungran Heo’s Plantarians and Did You Eat Rice? … [Read More]
Exhibition + Performance: Geumhyung Jeong’s Unperformed Objects + 7Ways (NSFW)
It’s not often you go to an art event where, in retrospect, you might have expected an 18+ rating on the door. The only other time I seen a performance as risqué as Geunhyung Jeong’s at an art institution was when I allowed myself to be dragged along to an event at the ICA at … [Read More]
The Yongsan tragedy featured in two LKFF documentaries
Those of you who have read and love Han Kang’s Human Acts will know that is is inspired not only by the Gwangju uprising but also the Yongsan tragedy. Hwang Jung-eun’s One Hundred Shadows is even more directly inspired by the same tragedy. It was a news event that was little reported in the Western … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Soon-Hak Kwon — everynothing, at Union Gallery
The Union Gallery in Teesdale Street is going through a refit at the moment: as well as the exhibition space on the ground floor, a new showroom space is being developed in the basement. Soon-Hak Kwon, a Union regular, specialises in documenting the history of a gallery space by creating ultra-high resolution life-size images of … [Read More]
Festival film review: The Mimic
I don’t quite know how you go about reviewing a film like The Mimic. As I watched its early sections, enjoying the ride reasonably enough, I nevertheless thought back to some of the Whispering Corridors series (and sadly the weakest of them, Blood Pledge) in which plot is subservient to gratuitous scares. Probably if you … [Read More]
In pictures: Between Heart and Mind — Kang Soon-yul at Han Collection
Some photos from the exhibition of new work by Kang Soon-yul – Between Heart and Mind – at Han Collection last month. Her work is hanji collage in squares, circles and spheres created out of tiny fragments of paper on which words such as “Love”, “Heart/Mind” and “Mother” are painstakingly hand-written. As she says in … [Read More]