Park Heung-shik’s The Railroad follows two emotionally closed strangers stranded near the North Korean border. Through restrained storytelling and gradual flashbacks, the film explores grief, guilt, self-deception, and social pressure. What risks melodrama becomes a nuanced, character-driven journey that builds empathy and resolves in understated, hard-earned hope. [Read More]
Category: Film reviews and comment (page 31)
Treeless Mountain (나무없는 산, 2008) review: childhood, loss and resilience at eye level
A quietly gripping, sometimes painfully heart-breaking, and ultimately life affirming drama, Treeless Mountain provides an unmissable view of the world of the main characters, from three feet off the ground. [Read More]
Untold Scandal (스캔들 – 조선 남녀 상열지사, 2003) review: pleasure, power, and desire in the Joseon dynasty
Untold Scandal is easily the most sensual and sumptuous of all of the adaptations of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. A tour-de-force from beginning to end, Untold Scandal is a film which everyone should be told about. [Read More]
The Uprising (이재수의 난, 1999) review: when history drowns in endless exposition
An endless pre-occupation with forced exposition combined with a lack of character depth and, resultantly, next to no character empathy whatsoever, all adds up to The Uprising being dull from start to finish. Not only a waste of the talents of Shim Eun-ha and Lee Jung-jae but, ultimately, also rather a waste of viewers’ time… [Read More]
Inshalla – Detente in the Desert
It’s Lee Young-ae’s first film, released at the very beginning of 1997. It’s pretty difficult to get hold of. Unavailable on Region 3 DVD, you might be able to find a cheap Hong Kong version of the film from Panorama. Currently, YesAsia only lists it on VCD. Filmed mainly in Morocco, there’s plenty of exotic … [Read More]
Watching Korea with the British Museum
Peter Corbishley reviews the recent Korean Film double bill On Saturday 6th November 2008, Margaret O’Brien of The British Museum and Jeon Hye-Jung of the Korean Cultural Centre put on a somewhat sparsely attended family programme of Korean films. Margaret O’Brien, who has been Head of Lifelong Learning at the Museum since 2000, presented the … [Read More]
Korean films in Times 2008 chamber of horrors
Two years after its Korean release, Won Shin-yeon’s A Bloody Aria received a limited theatrical release in the UK. It came to the Institute for Contemporary Arts in October, and the ICA will be releasing it on Region 2 DVD in February next year. Shot in grimy HD video with just a handful of cast … [Read More]
May 18 – surprise hit of the LKFF
A modern historical drama about Korea’s Tiananmen Square incident might not sound like the most gripping of scenarios for a film, but May 18 certainly draws you in as a cinematic experience. One member of the audience had already seen the film twice on the internet, but came along to see it on the big … [Read More]
Aimless bullet, scary housemaid and Korea’s modern history
Two classic films from Korean cinema’s golden age provided a fascinating compare-and-contrast exercise last Monday night at the Barbican. Encouragingly, the films were better attended than the comparable double-bill last year (Madame Freedom and My Mother and her Guest). Maybe that reflects the growing literacy of UK audiences when it comes to Korean film. Or … [Read More]
The Good, The Bad, The Weird (좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈, 2008) review: exhilarating action and genre-blending fun
The Good, The Bad, The Weird revels in kinetic set-pieces, black humour and playful genre parody, delivering relentless momentum and crowd-pleasing thrills. OK, the plot isn’t multi-layered, there’s no real “good will triumph over evil” but if that’s what you’re looking for you’re missing the point. [Read More]
Good, bad or weird? A look at Kim Jee-woon’s classic western
Now the festival is over, perhaps it’s time to set down some thoughts on the lead film, Kim Ji-woon’s Manchurian western. This was one of the most hotly anticipated films in recent years, on a par with Lady Vengeance and Secret Sunshine. Kim Ji-woon has built up an enviable track record with his past films. … [Read More]
Lee Byung-hun on being the bad guy
Lee Byung-hun, in town for the launch of the London Korean Film Festival, took advantage of his trip to have some interviews and engage in other promotional activities. He impressed the crowds at the opening screening of The Good the Bad and the Weird, and again the next day at the post film discussion, with … [Read More]
Night and Day: Hong Sang Soo in Paris
Claire O’Connell reviews Hong Sang Soo’s latest film, Night and Day, screened last week at the BFI London Film Festival What do you do when you are being sought by the Korean police for possessing cannabis? Run away of course. This is how the painter Sung-Nam (played by Kim Young-Ho) ends up in Paris from … [Read More]
Catch Na Hong-jin’s Chaser while you can!
Saharial advises you to go see The Chaser on the big screen while you can. I was delighted when I discovered, at long last, a Korean film showing again in a city centre cinema, something that seems very rare these days. The basic story that I knew before I went in, was that it concerned … [Read More]
Hansel and Gretel (헨젤과 그레텔, 2007) review: broken fairy tales and lost innocence
Yim Pil-sung has produced a stunningly beautiful dark fantasy which rewrites, or more exactly, extends the Grimm fairy tale we all know. Lush production design and restrained horror reveal a tragic past of abuse and abandonment, blending creepiness with poignancy while exploring damaged innocence, memory and hope. [Read More]
Alienation and industrialisation in Green Fish
Matthew Jackson encounters Lee Chang Dong for the first time “Good, but gruelling” was Jason Bechervaise’s summary of the film for me in the lift in on the way up to the screening of ‘Green Fish’ at the Cultural Centre on Thursday night. I later learned this film had been the subject of his dissertation, … [Read More]