Yeong-gyeong first meets Su-hwan at a wedding party. She is an alcoholic and he suffers from chronic arthritis. He carries her home after she passes out drunk, in an act of lissom grace. His health complications, her illness and debt, both of their failed marriages and ritualised self-destruction bind them, and the slim promise of … [Read More]
On Screen: Film and TV (page 3)
Yadang: The Snitch (야당) – UK theatrical release
“From now on, you’re my snitch.” Navigating both the criminal underworld and law enforcement agencies, professional snitches called “yadang” provide covert information about the drug world to prosecutors and police. When a drug bust at a party attended by high-profile second-generation VIPs entangles those involved into a dangerous conspiracy, a seasoned yadang must do everything … [Read More]
Holy Night: Demon Hunters – UK theatrical release
Seoul descends into chaos as a devil-worshipping criminal network emerges. In a desperate plea for salvation, the police are forced to enlist ‘Holy Night’, a trio of demon hunters armed with supernatural powers. Can ‘Holy Night’ conquer the devil’s reign and restore order to the city? Screening at: London: ODEON Haymarket / Kingston / Greenwich … [Read More]
Jason Verney’s SEWOL: Sealed Eternally With Our Love screens at Kingston Int’l Film Fest
Three years after his short film Reparation screened at the Kingston International Film Festival, Jason Verney’s debut feature film will be at this year’s festival. Having been on the ‘frontline’ as an activist for the Sewol Ferry cause since that tragedy in 2014 and having visited Korea on many occasions over the last decade, film … [Read More]
Ilrhan Kim’s “Edhi Alice” closes 2025 Queer East festival
In Edhi Alice (에디 앨리스, 2024), director and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogates how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved. The subject of the documentary is Edhi, who works as a counsellor for LGBTQ+ teens in Seoul, and has decided to undertake gender reassignment surgery. Edhi’s story intertwines … [Read More]
Lear Screening + Q&A with Director Jung Young-doo
To celebrate Director Jung Young-Doo‘s Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, a special screening of the National Changgeuk Company‘s Lear will be held. Changgeuk, a traditional form of Korean musical theatre, blends music, dance, and drama to create a captivating experience. Following its successful world premiere at the Barbican Centre in 2024, this screening of the full-length … [Read More]
Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet – the perfect opening to BFI Flare 2025
BFI Flare launched yesterday with a humdinger of an opening movie: Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 The Wedding Banquet. Ahn’s partner in creating this update, James Schamus, also co-wrote Ang Lee’s version. While the original film features a single gay couple and a marriage of convenience, the reboot has two gay couples, which … [Read More]
Power and Paradox: Bong Joon-ho season at BFI Southbank
This retrospective of Bong Joon Ho, spanning an award-winning early short through to a series of internationally acclaimed features, charts the ascendancy of Korea’s most successful filmmaker, writes programmer Eunji Lee Korean cinema can be divided into two eras: before and after the emergence of director Bong Joon Ho. The advent of the 21st century … [Read More]
Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 – Theatrical release
From the Academy Award-winning writer and director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, Mickey 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living. So Mickey, known … [Read More]
KCC screening: A Resistance
Though set almost entirely within the confines of the notorious Seodaemun Prison, this mostly monochrome feature from writer/director Joe Min-ho (A Million, 2009) uses the incarceration of real-life freedom fighter Yu Gwan-sun (Ko A-sung) to crystallise the ordeals of Korea’s occupation by the Japanese. Arrested, along with 47,000 others, for participating in a non-violent national … [Read More]
Korean films at BFI Flare 2025
This year at BFI Flare we have three films by Korean directors and one by a Korean American. The latter – The Wedding Banquet by director Andrew Ahn – has been chosen to open the festival and includes Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung among the cast. Londoners were introduced to Andrew Ahn’s work at Queer East last … [Read More]
2024 in review part 3 – the film festivals and other screenings
In a somewhat disappointing filmic year in Korea, in London we could nevertheless celebrate the fact that a handful of the latest big-budget Korean movies continue to have limited-scope theatrical releases. In 2024 we got director Heo Myung-haeng’s contribution to the Roundup franchise, and the final instalment of Kim Han-min’s Yi Sun-shin trilogy, plus Jang … [Read More]
Documentary screening: K-Family Affairs
The recent political history of South Korea is interwoven with the family life of filmmaker Arum Nam, whose parents are part of the proud 386 generation, which played a significant role in achieving democratisation. Eager to pass on a better world to their children, Arum’s father became a public servant, and her mother a feminist … [Read More]
Squid Game Season 2: preview screening
Three years after the huge global success of Squid Game we are delighted to unveil the first episode of the second series following a screening of Series 1’s gripping finale ‘One Lucky Day’. Player 456 remains determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport. Using this fortune … [Read More]
Two Koryo Saram documentary screenings
In collaboration with Misha Zakharov, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick and curator at Screening Rights Film Festival, and Goethe-Institut UK, the London Migration Film Festival is hosting a special event on Koryo Saram (or Koryoin), the (post-)Soviet Koreans. In 1937, Koryo Saram were forcibly displaced from the Far East of Soviet Russia to Central … [Read More]
The Human Comedy – the cinema of Hong Sangsoo, at the ICA
Since the last UK retrospective of his work in 2010, South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has made an astonishing twenty-two feature films and several shorts. With his incisive and humorous explorations of infidelity, artistic endeavour, and communication (or lack thereof), Hong’s narratively concise and formally radical work has marked him out as not only contemporary … [Read More]