London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

What a difference a region makes

East Asian popular culture currents and counter-currents, Birkbeck College, 17/18 March 2006 Thanks to Chris Berry (Goldsmiths) and Nicola Liscutin (Birkbeck) for putting together a stimulating day and a half symposium discussing regional popular culture in East Asia. Presentations mainly covered the creative industries in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The focus on Taiwan was puzzling, … [Read More]

New book on Kim Ki-duk

For all you fans of this inventive director, there’s a new book out. I’ll post some comments once I’ve read it, but that won’t be for a while as I’ve got quite a backlog to get through. That plus the fact that the English version won’t be available until November 2006, according to Amazon. Update: … [Read More]

New Jeon Ji-hyun vehicle crashes

OK, so it’s not a complete box office turkey, but after one week at the top of the charts, it’s now down to number 4 and predicted to head south quickly. The vehicle, a film entitled Daisy, is a blatantly commercial effort to cash in on the marketability of the My Sassy Girl star outside … [Read More]

Kim Ki-duk mistaken for a tramp

A nice gossipy item from the Chosun Ilbo: Kim [Ki-duk] went to Jungbu Police Station in Seoul to obtain a permit to manufacture a model gun for his new film. But his seedy appearance inspired little confidence, and when he kept repeating the phrase, “The leading man’s gun, the leading man’s gun,” police decided he … [Read More]

The 2005 London Korean Film Festival programme

Here is the programme of films that screened in the 2005 London Korean Film Festival. Although this post’s datestamp is May 2005 so that it appears in the appropriate month of this site’s calendar archive, it is actually being uploaded in November 2015 (with subsequent edits), and is being posted for archival purposes. It’s nice … [Read More]

2005 London Korean Festival – programme details

Here is the programme of events that formed the 2005 London Korean Festival, organised by the Korean Anglican Community Centre. Although this post’s datestamp is May 2005 so that it appears in the appropriate month of this site’s calendar archive, it is actually being uploaded in September 2019, and is being posted for archival purposes. … [Read More]

London Korean Festival + Film Festival 2004

A press release announcing the launch of the 2nd London Korean Festival. The festival comprised a series of cultural lectures in conjunction with Asia House (not mentioned in the press release), a rock concert, a classical music concert and a film festival. The latter contained three of the top Korean movies of the decade (2003 … [Read More]

The first London Korean Festival, 2003

I recently discovered the WayBack Machine – the internet archive – which has enabled a certain amount of research into some of the Korean cultural activities in London prior to the establishment of LKL. In particular, I managed to find some archived pages from the website of the Korean Anglican Community Centre, the organisation that … [Read More]