2023: a year when an environmental artist from Gwangju shared a hug with the King; four K-pop princesses went to Buckingham Palace and received honorary MBEs; and the tolling bell of Jirisan’s Daewonsa temple was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The year marked the 140th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the UK … [Read More]
Category: Film reviews and comment
A look back at LEAFF and LKFF 2023
We didn’t get around to writing any detailed reviews of the films that screened at the two big festivals in the autumn of 2023, so it’s time to try to pull some thoughts together before the memories fade entirely, jostled sideways by new ones. There were some sparkly new films which were fun to watch … [Read More]
The Sight and Sound top 100: what’s buried in the detail?
Back in December 2022, Sight and Sound released its updated list of The Greatest Films of All Time. This list, which was first presented in 1952, is prepared every ten years. For the first time, in this most recent iteration a Korean film made it into the top 100. There are no prizes for guessing … [Read More]
12.12 The Day gets a well-deserved third week in London cinemas
In the past few years the UK has benefited from a number of theatrical releases of recent Korean box office movies. Sometimes, the UK release has occurred while the movie is still showing in cinemas back in Korea, indicating a certain amount of confidence on the part of the distributors to invest in a title … [Read More]
Ghibliotheque’s Film Korea: a highly enjoyable introduction to the world of Korean cinema
Do you remember what it was like when you first discovered Korean film in all its diversity? For me, it was in about 2000. Christmas in August, Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?, Shiri and Lies were among my first DVD orders: a bewildering array of stuff was available, and I wanted to know … [Read More]
Festival film review: The Apartment with Two Women | Gyeong-ah’s daughter
London audiences have been spoiled with some great films in the recent festivals, from the latest blockbusters to indie debut features. Both LEAFF and LKFF included in their programme a debut feature by a female director, focusing on mother-daughter relationships and headlining actors who have not had much screentime in the mainstream. LEAFF’s selection was … [Read More]
Festival film review: Hommage
In her first feature, Passerby #3 (2010), Shin Su-won looked at the life of a woman who left her job to try to become a film director. In her latest, she returns to a similar movie-making theme. Hommage is about a middle-aged movie director, Ji-wan, whose films have never been much of a success. She … [Read More]
Soup and Ideology: Yang Yonghi’s exploration of the Jeju 4:3 incident through her own family history
It must be a nightmare living with Yang Yonghi: you are constantly being filmed. Yang’s work focuses on her family history, and she has been collecting footage of her daily life since the mid ’90s. When the individual scenes are filmed – conversations, family meals, seemingly unremarkable incidents – the filming must seem without purpose. … [Read More]
And in other Apple news…
With all the excitement about the launch of the adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko on Apple TV, and Apple’s Oscar win, something that might once have been big news – the appearance of a free-to-view Park Chan-wook short film on YouTube – has not really had much airtime. Back in 2011, brothers Park Chan-wook … [Read More]
A look back at some of the movies in the 2021 London Korean Film Festival
One month after the close of LKFF we’re finally getting around to penning some thoughts on the movies we saw there. We’ve already commented on Im Sang-soo’s latest, which left us with very warm feelings about the festival as a whole. What about the rest of the programme? Let’s get this out of the way … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Heaven – To the Land of Happiness
In recent years the LKFF programmers have been getting into a groove of scheduling indie, minority interest movies for the closing film of the festival. This year, they turned things upside down by programming the festival’s most appealing film (for me, at least,) to end the fortnight. Yes, the opening movie, Mogadishu, is the top … [Read More]
A look at the closing movies from recent LKFFs
As I left the cinema after Friday’s closing movie of the 2021 London Korean Film Fest, somewhat on a high because it was such a good film and Q+A, I observed to a friend I happened to bump into: “That was the best closing gala for years!” As I said that, the most recent decent … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: The Singer
As is often the case, I was out of town for the London East Asia Film Festival, so I missed the international premiere of the Director’s Cut of Cho Jungrae’s The Singer. I’m not sure if the previously available version has had a formal international premiere – probably not, given the devastation that Covid has … [Read More]
Interview: Cho Jungrae (The Singer, 2020)
I watched Cho Jungrae’s 2020 movie The Singer earlier this year online, after being told by a friend of the director that it was available on Amazon Prime. It struck me as a fresh take on the pansori movie genre: instead of telling a pansori tale more or less straight like Im Kwon-taek’s Chunhyang, it … [Read More]
LKL’s list of ten Squid Game superlatives
Well, I guess everyone who’s going to watch it has watched it already, but nevertheless I’ve tried to avoid any major spoilers in the below. Here’s the list of things that struck me most about the hit series. Most enjoyable reveal Runner up was the identity of the multi-gazillionaire who set up the game, But the … [Read More]
Minari: a movie re-viewed
After my first viewing, I was wondering whether to recommend Minari to my friends and family. If I’d bought an expensive cinema ticket to see it then I would have only seen it once. However, I bought a ticket that licensed me to view it as many times as I wanted within a 24 hour … [Read More]