With the extra time spent at home, the lockdown is the perfect time for many of us to catch up on television dramas. Besides being a great way to pass the time without leaving the home, dramas can provide us all with a little escapism, giving a much-needed break from the often overwhelming news cycle. … [Read More]
Category: Film reviews and comment (page 3)
Bong Joon-ho’s and Tilda Swinton’s Q+A after Snowpiercer
After the success of Parasite, BFI held the first major UK public screening of Snowpiercer on 1 March. Here is the BFI’s video of the Q+A that followed the screening. [Read More]
Parasite: a non-review
What can one say about a movie that has won Best Picture at Cannes and the Oscars, that has won best screenplay at the Oscars and BAFTAs, best edited drama feature at the Eddies, and best ensemble performance at the Screen Actors Guild? A movie that has been seen more widely in this country, and … [Read More]
Jeronimo Lim Kim – revolutionary father of the Korean community in Cuba
Those who have read Kim Young-ha’s Black Flower will know about the Koreans who migrated to Mexico in 1905 as farm labourers, just before Korea became a Japanese protectorate. By the time their contracts were up, Japan was about to absorb Korea into their growing empire. Now stateless, some of the migrants stayed in Mexico; … [Read More]
Bong Joon-ho’s BAFTA talk has now been uploaded
Bong Joon-ho’s BAFTA lecture at the Curzon Mayfair on 12 December 2019 has now been uploaded to the BAFTA Guru Youtube channel. The talk was part of a lecture series that “exists to celebrate screenwriters’ authorial contribution to film and gives esteemed writers a platform to share highlights and insights from their careers with an … [Read More]
Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 (82년생 김지영, 2019) review: Cho Nam-joo’s important novel brought to the big screen
This powerful drama examines the systemic gender inequality in Korean society through the psychological breakdown of a stay-at-home mother. Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 is a deftly realised, socially aware and societally critical directorial debut of real importance that shines a much needed light on women’s issues in Korea past and present from a female gaze. [Read More]
Another Child (미성년, 2019) review: when children become the adults
While Kim Yoon-seok’s directorial debut Another Child is a fairly simple story, gentle in pacing and physical depiction, its heartfelt emotionality portrayed by an exemplary cast is its true strength throughout, thematically virtually redefining the film’s alternate title Underage in terms of familial dysfunction. [Read More]
Birthday (생일, 2019) review: a moving tribute to the personal grief of the Sewol ferry disaster
Unashamedly a tear-inducing melodrama, Lee Jong-un’s intimate debut feature is a powerful film that ultimately stands as a tribute to each and every one of the innocent victims of the tragic Sewol ferry disaster and indeed those left in abject despair by their loss. [Read More]
A review of the Korean cultural year 2019
A review of some of the highlights and trends in the Korean cultural year, primarily in London but also with half an eye to anything we might have seen elsewhere in the UK. The review is a personal one, inevitably skewed towards the events we managed to get to. Introduction This time last year I … [Read More]
Film Review: Love, Lies (Park Heung-sik, 2016)
An historic album made by a hitherto unknown Korean popular music singer from the colonial period is literally unearthed in a modern-day construction site. Miraculously, although the LP is damaged, audio engineers can restore the sound to something like the original, for broadcast on a golden oldies radio show. But who is the singer, and … [Read More]
Illang: The Wolf Brigade (인랑, 2018) review: stunning spectacle, cardboard empathy in sci-fi actioner
While the action set pieces of Illang: The Wolf Brigade are without exception visually jaw-dropping and grippingly frenetic, it is actor Gang Dong-won’s frozen, slightly pained yet kind of blank expression regardless of what emotion is required to be conveyed that is by far Illang’s weakest link. [Read More]
The Land of Seong-hye (성혜의 나라, 2018) review: precarity, perseverance and life on the margins
This black-and-white Korean drama traces a young woman’s slow erosion under precarious work, debt and social pressure. Poignantly angst-ridden yet ultimately uplifting and life-affirming, The Land of Seong-hye is not only an intimate, contemplative tale of one young woman’s struggles and life journey but also a powerful societal critique of her land, Korea. [Read More]
Review roundup: Korean films at the 2019 BFI London filmfest
I was particularly looking forward to the Korean screenings in the London Film Festival this year. Both LEAFF and LKFF in prior years have been championing the talent among Korea’s female directors and the trend has now spread to the BFI programme: of this year’s BFI festival, four out of the five Korean movies were … [Read More]
Miss Baek (미쓰백, 2018) review: saving a child, saving a life
Based on a true story, Miss Baek is a harrowing yet essential exploration of domestic abuse and redemption. An exemplary film in every respect, it certainly isn’t an easy watch but it is nonetheless an absolute must-see, as grippingly important to Korean cinema as a whole as it is heartbreakingly powerful in its own right. [Read More]
The Negotiation (협상, 2018) review: a static game of cat and mouse
The Negotiation begins confidently but its early strength is somewhat marred by the later story requirement to have various seated, static characters talking repeatedly through video calls on immoveable desktop monitors, and though the film does largely succeeds in building tension, tension doesn’t always equate to exhilaration. [Read More]
The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale (기묘한가족, 2019) review – a warmly quirky zombie parody
The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale is inherently and deliberately silly but that fact in itself is a plus point in this case and any film fans (Korean or other) looking for a couple of horror/comedy hours of sheer tongue in cheek, genuinely funny zombie escapism could do a lot worse than check it out. [Read More]