Recent collaborations between British and Korean musicians have not always been successful. A planned experiment between jazz trumpeter Guy Barker and Samulnori founder Kim Duk-soo never happened because the latter went awol when Barker came to visit. Instead, having already been booked for the 2008 Dano Festival in Trafalgar Square, Barker appeared briefly on stage … [Read More]
Category: Festivals (page 23)
Brief Festival Film Review: Kai
Lee Sung-gang (이성강): Kai (카이, 2016, 96 mins) Review by Robert Cottingham Snow Queen Hattan casts a spell over the peaceful village where Kai lives, and covers everything in ice. The River Spirit who is the protector of the village gives the brave young Kai the only key to fighting off Hattan and asks him … [Read More]
The Wailing (곡성, 2016) review: a relentless descent into fear and paranoia
The Wailing takes director Na Hong-jin’s almost trademark intricate, pulse-pounding narrative intensity and ramps it up yet further with palpable character fear, paranoia and desperation. Thriller by name, utterly thrilling in nature, this darkly violent, three-pronged horror ‘whodunit’ is a worthy successor to The Chaser and The Yellow Sea. [Read More]
Festival film review: Crush and Blush
Lee Kyoung-mi (이경미): Crush and Blush (미쓰 홍당무, 2008) Review by Robert Cottingham. Right near the beginning of Crush and Blush, the main character Mi-seok stands digging a deep hole in a schoolyard. I thought that it was a punishment used in South Korean schools, but if not it could be a visual metaphor for … [Read More]
Jung Woo-sung and Kim Sung-soo interview: “Hyung, this is really tough!”
Actor Jung Woo-sung and director Kim Sung-soo discuss Asura: The City of Madness, focusing on its fictional setting, extreme characters, and themes of power, corruption, and moral collapse. They reflect on their long collaboration, challenging performances, shifting career choices, and the responsibility of senior artists to support new filmmakers. [Read More]
Festival film review: The Truth Beneath
Lee Kyoung-mi (이경미): The Truth Beneath (비밀은 없다, 2016) Review by Robert Cottingham Lee Kyoung-mi got her start in films working with Park Chan-wook, and from watching this film it seems she has taken his lead when it comes to violent revenge. When a politician’s daughter goes missing the scandal threatens to upset his ambitions … [Read More]
LKFF report: the opening night and The Truth Beneath
The eleventh of the London Korean Film Festivals organised by the KCCUK opened on Thursday with a little sprinkling of stardust. Jung Woo-sung, who electrified the audience during the 2014 festival where he was the headline attraction, came to the opening night as just a regular guy wanting to watch a movie. But that didn’t … [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]
Jambinai at the Oslo Hackney – a second-hand mini-review
We didn’t manage to get to Jambinai at the Oslo Hackney as this year. Nor it seems did the Guardian or Resonate, who have been diligent reviewers of the other K-Music gigs. Jambinai were certainly one of the highlights of last year’s festival – and I would have loved to have got to see them … [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]
Gig review: Patients + Idiotape @ Rich Mix
Sometimes you enjoy an event but don’t know what to say about it. Rock music is not one of my own core competencies. I know when a band enthuses me, but if asked to describe the style or genre, or to compare the musicians with other, possibly Western, reference points I’m usually at a loss. … [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]
Gig review: Youn Sun Nah + Ulf Wakenius @ Union Chapel
It’s been too long since Youn Sun Nah performed in London: five long years. Last time was a small, intimate venue – Pizza Express in Soho – and the time before was the Queen Elizabeth Hall – more generous in terms of space but one that made the performers work hard to create the atmosphere. … [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]
Kang Ik-joong’s Floating Dreams: the stories
As Kang Ik-joong said of his installation on the Thames: his motive in collecting drawings from the North Koreans displaced by the Korean War was actually to collect their stories. Here are some of those stories, as shared on the Totally Thames website. Park Yun Ok (age 95) http://totallythames.org/blog/floating-dreams-one-dream-many-stories “My name is Park Yun Ok. … [Read More]