Summer Time dissects and discusses the events surrounding, and subsequent to, the Kwangju uprising of 1980 within a deeply erotic and highly sexually charged narrative, and its ultimate success is largely dependent on whether or not individual viewers get overly bogged down (or caught up) by the sheer volume of sex and eroticism on show. [Read More]
Category: Film reviews and comment (page 32)
Addicted (중독, 2002) review: love, identity and the aftermath of loss
After a tragic accident leaves one brother brain-dead and the other profoundly changed, Addicted explores whether love can survive death, doubt and fractured identity. Each of the characters becomes an unwilling victim of the love that they choose and each has to question whether to pay the high price which that love requires. [Read More]
Crazy First Love (첫사랑 사수 궐기대회, 2003) review: loud and illogical, unfunny and unromantic
In other hands, Crazy First Love could, perhaps, have been an engaging romantic comedy with some poignant moments but, sadly, what we end up with here is simply a collection of borrowed ideas from other superior movies, nailed together by annoying characters and illogical character motivations. [Read More]
Failan (파이란, 2001) review: an unlikely but poignant love story built on absence
An unconventional romance that rejects clichés by telling a love story between two people who never meet. In every aspect Failan is a ground breaking film, imaginatively conceived and expertly executed. Hollywood could never succeed in making a film which breaks your heart the way Failan does and let’s hope it never tries. [Read More]
Im Kwon-taek shines at KCC
Matthew Jackson’s impressions from last Thursday’s screening of “Beyond the Years” at the Korean Cultural Centre There is definitely something extra that you get out of going to see a film in the company of people that you do not necessarily know, in surroundings that are not quite the same as any other you are … [Read More]
The Classic (클래식, 2003) review: parallel romances, social change and a star-making performance
The Classic, thanks in part to Son Ye-jin’s masterful dual performance, manages to be better than the sum of its component parts should allow, but it really is a pity that a film as gorgeous as this is prevented by the contrivances and problems present from being as truly memorable as it could so easily have been. [Read More]
Christmas in August (8월의 크리스마스, 1998) review: unspoken love and quiet heartbreak
Hur Jin-ho’s landmark melodrama eschews gushing sentimentality for a delicate, understated exploration of love and mortality. One of his most accessible films, and his most famous, Christmas in August is a heartfelt, poignant and affecting story of love and loss, in which the words “I love you” never need to be said. [Read More]
Han Sang-hee and the Art of Happiness
Matthew Jackson reviews “Virgin Snow” – the first film to be screened at the KCC, Tuesday 26 February The screening of Virgin Snow at the new Korean Cultural Centre was the inaugural session in its programme of monthly film nights, and I felt it would be well worth attending for that reason alone. From the … [Read More]
Korean film – a review of 2007
Jason Bechervaise, founder of koreanfilm.org.uk, gives his perspective on the ups and downs of the Korean film industry in 2007 By all accounts 2007 was a year that has been difficult one for the Korean film industry where it seems that the golden years of the Korean film industry has passed. Rising costs have meant … [Read More]
The Scarlet Letter (주홍글씨, 2004) review: desire, deception and the cost of temptation
The Scarlet Letter is an utterly gripping work showing the darker side of love and the consequences of surrendering completely to lust and temptation, using explicit sexuality in a tragic study of identity, power and consequences. It also serves as a tribute to the talent of the late Lee Eun-joo. [Read More]
Secret Love (비밀애, 2010) review: fate, twins, and a contrived melodrama
Elements of thriller and suspense drama, sadly, cannot save Secret Love from essentially being a melodrama with little heart, and an all too familiar, overly contrived, and clumsily executed, plot simply begs the question of whether Secret Love should, perhaps, have remained secret, after all… [Read More]
Secret Sunshine (밀양, 2007) review: grief, faith, and defiance in Milyang
Secret Sunshine is both a study of grief and a dissection of faith and religion. Like director Lee Chang-dong’s previous work the film doesn’t shy away from showing the disintegration of a human being as a result of uncontrollable events and the actions those events elicit. [Read More]
Shadows in the Palace (궁녀, 2007) review: secrets, power and death in Joseon Korea
As layered as it is intricate, as bleak as it is visceral, Shadows in the Palace is a beautifully complex and intelligent period thriller; a twisted story of secrets, lies, power and hidden sexuality made all the stronger by the avoidance of sexually explicit visual imagery and titillation… [Read More]
Seopyeonje (서편제, 1993) review: pansori, sacrifice and modernity
A masterpiece of Korean Cinema, Seopyeonje details the trials and tribulations of both the film’s characters and historical Korea itself, with the words mournful and hypnotic serving to describe both Seopyeonje, the pansori music, and Seopyeonje, the film. [Read More]
Sorum (소름, 2001) review: haunted spaces and the psychology of despair
With its slow, brooding and genuinely unsettling narrative, Sorum isn’t a film which everyone will savour, but its uncompromisingly bleak depiction of the vicious depths to which human beings are capable of sinking certainly allows it to stand out from standard horror movie fare. [Read More]
Spider Forest (거미숲, 2004) review: memory, guilt and the labyrinth of the mind
A man awakens from a coma and returns to a forest where murder and betrayal unfolded. A combination of thriller, horror story and ghostly tale, Spider Forest details one man’s attempts to uncover his forgotten memories, and serves as a thought provoking study of loss, betrayal, regret and self-destruction. [Read More]