London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Hunt: UK theatrical release

Agents of the Korean National Intelligence Service (KNIS), Park Pyung-ho (Lee Jung-jae) and Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung) are both independently hunting a North Korean spy within the agency. When the leaked top secret intel jeopardises national security, they are ordered to investigate each other and slowly start to uncover the shocking truth. HUNT is a … [Read More]

Korean interest at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival

Details of the five Korean movies and one Korean American movie in this year’s London Film Festival follow. For completeness, and not listed below, there’s a zainichi Korean character in Kôji Fukada’s movie Love Life. Decision to Leave (헤어질 결심) South Korea 2022, 138min Director-Producer: Park Chan-wook Screenwriters: Chung Seo-Kyung, Park Chan-wook Cast: Tang Wei, Park Hae-il … [Read More]

Free Chol Soo Lee: theatrical release

In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. After spending years fighting to survive, investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented social justice movement. Nearly five decades later, Free Chol Soo Lee excavates this largely unknown yet essential … [Read More]

Documentary screening: Factory Complex

Drawing parallels across several decades, Factory Complex engages with the struggles and suffering of women workers in various industries across Korea and beyond. Beginning with Korean textile workers in the 1960s before taking us inside the textile industry in Cambodia today, the film confronts audiences, drawing on archival footage and testimonies of those who were present in … [Read More]

Documentary screening: With or Without You

With or Without You follows the lives of Magg-i and Chun-hee, both widows of the same man. After their husband has passed, the two elderly women continue to share the same house and a tender relationship blessed by moments of wit and humour. The debut documentary of Park Hyuck-jee, shot intermittently over several years, depicts the … [Read More]

Documentary screening: Soup and Ideology

After suffering an aneurysm, Yang Yonghi’s mother starts revealing tragic memories of her fleeing Korea during the Jeju incident in 1948. The Japanese-born filmmaker begins to piece together her present and her mother’s past, whom she visits in Osaka every month with her Japanese fiancé. They bond through cooking and tradition, despite their ideological differences … [Read More]

Tiger is Coming: Kim Modeun

Kim Modeun presents a special screening of the film MODEUN TOUR: The Path of The Body, featuring six vignettes Stone, Water, Wind, Sea, Stratum and Alley. These six dance films focus on the space and nature of Jeju Island, the southernmost area of Korean Peninsula, through human bodies, their relationship to nature and the boundaries … [Read More]

Documentary screening: Jang Yunmi’s Under Construction

Jang Yunmi’s award-winning first feature reflects on the routine of construction worker Sudeok. From a captivating, careful look, as he manufactures reinforcement bars, the film gradually uncovers the physical, emotional and mental impact of his forty-year career in construction. Jang’s compositions, as she delicately interlaces their discussions with her footage, explore the boundaries between the … [Read More]

Shadow Flowers screens at Bertha Dochouse

Revealing a rarely discussed but strongly enforced law in South Korea, Shadow Flowers follows Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean woman, who finds herself trapped in South Korea, from where it is illegal to cross to the North. Desperate to return to her family and loved ones, Kim tried to smuggle herself out and even sought … [Read More]