The only time I’ve heard Baik Hyun-jhin perform live he had his head in a fireplace and was making moaning sounds up a chimney. He can make a performance of anything. His bandmate Bang Jun-seok has composed the soundtracks for movies from …ing to Battleship Island. Their 2015 debut album together, Your Hands, is well … [Read More]
Category: London East Asia Film Festival (page 3)
LEAFF, LKFF and the battle for our diaries
The film festival season is upon us, and this requires some serious diary planning. Fortunately the BFI London Film Festival remains serenely distant from the ignominious tangle caused by the collision of LEAFF and LKFF. With four titles scheduled earlier in the month, including the movie that I’ve been most looking forward to all year … [Read More]
London East Asia Film Festival 2017: full programme details
Yesterday the London East Asia Film Festival released details of the films it would be showing at its 2017 iteration. Plenty of Korean interest, as you might expect, with a focus on the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (last year, if you remember, they had a Jeonju spotlight). The opening gala screening, Hwang Dong-hyuk’s The … [Read More]
Festival Film review: Spirits’ Homecoming
Spirits’ Homecoming depicts the abduction and suffering of Korean girls forced into sexual slavery during the Pacific War, interweaving wartime trauma with the present-day lives of survivors. The narrative seeks release from unresolved grief and historical denial through a shamanistic ritual. LKL’s review is informed by a Q&A and panel session with the director. [Read More]
BECTU: “Film festival sets disgraceful example in Living Wage Week”
Many of us enjoyed the London East Asia Film Festival recently, myself included. But let’s not forget the hard work of the staff who make it happen. BECTU, the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, is supporting the temporary and part time workers who according to a news item on their website were paid below … [Read More]
Park Chan-wook talks about Handmaiden, octopuses and more
Park Chan-wook discusses adapting Fingersmith to colonial Korea, adding racial and class barriers, collaborating with Jung Seo-kyung and filming intimate scenes. He reflects on lessons from Stoker, violence and symbolism, octopus imagery, working with his brother on Night Fishing, shamanistic themes, adaptation processes and making films for future Korean audiences. [Read More]
Korean films in LEAFF’s Competition, Official Selection and Stories of Women sections
The 2016 London East Asia Film Festival has a number of strands. We’ve already posted details of the movies screening in the Park Chan-wook retrospective and the Jeonju International Film Festival Focus. So here are the Korean movies featuring in the other strands, the broader East Asian cinema sections, listed in order of screening at … [Read More]
Brief review: Park Chan-wook’s Handmaiden
I’ll leave others to do the detailed review of Park Chan-wook’s Handmaiden (아가씨), which screened at the London Film Festival this week and which will return later in the month at the London East Asia Film Festival. Suffice it to say that it’s gorgeous-looking, both in terms of costume and interiors, great story-telling and totally … [Read More]
LEAFF 2016 focuses on Jeonju film fest
One of the strands to be introduced by the London East Asia Film Festival is a focus on individual festivals in the region. In collaboration with the Institute for Contemporary Arts, who will be screening this strand on Saturday and Sunday mornings during the festival, the focus for the first year is the Jeonju International … [Read More]
Festival news: the first edition of LEAFF announces its programme
The London East Asia Film Festival announced the full programme of its first full “edition” this week, and there is a very strong Korean selection. As already announced, there will be a retrospective of one of Korea’s best known directors, Park Chan-wook, along with a screening of his most recent movie. In addition, there are … [Read More]
Event news: Park Chan-wook retrospective @LEAFF 2016
The London East Asia Film Festival, in its first full outing (20-30 October), hosts a Park Chan-wook retrospective, including a screening of his 2016 movie Handmaiden. The director will be present for that screening, and to introduce a remastering of his Lady Vengeance. It’s nice that a few of his shorts will be screened as … [Read More]
Ryoo Seung-wan interview: Veteran, action cinema and imagined justice
Director Ryoo Seung-wan discusses Veteran as a fantasy of justice where power can be defeated, his shift toward humour, casting Hwang Jung-min and Yoo Ah-in, and plans for sequels. He reflects on audience appeal, realistic action choreography, and his view of action as the core language of cinema. [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Hong Won-chan’s The Office at LEAFF
The Office was the second of two Korean films to screen at the 0th edition of the London East Asia Film Festival, and came with strong credentials. Though a debut feature by Hong Won-chan, he was the scriptwriter for the well received Yellow Sea and even better received The Chaser. And the movie was Official … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Ryoo Seung-wan’s Veteran
It was the first screening in the the trial “0th” iteration of the London East Asia Film Festival, but this really didn’t feel like a new film festival – more a continuation of past ones. We were opening in a venue that felt familiar, a lot of the faces front of house and on stage … [Read More]
Event news: Ryoo Seung-wan talking East Asian cinema with Chris Fujiwara
As part of the London East Asian Film Festival, director Ryoo Seung-wan will be discussing Asian cinema with Chris Fujiwara. Director Ryoo is over for the screening (with Q+A) of his hit film Veteran which opens the festival on 23 October. And remember that there’s another Korean film screening at the festival: Hong Won-chan’s Office, … [Read More]
London East Asia Film Festival – the line up looks really rather good!
It is pretty ambitious to try to sneak in an extra London film festival in between the well established BFI London Film Festival, anchored in the first weeks of October, and the early November London Korean Film Festival. But that’s what is happening with the London East Asian Film Festival. And when you consider that … [Read More]