The second in the London East Asia Film Festival’s KCinema 100 series is Chihwaseon by the veteran director Im Kwon-taek, which tells the story of iconoclastic Joseon Dynasty artist Jang Seung-eop (pen name Owon). It will be screened at the National Gallery. Chihwaseon (취화선) Dir: Im Kwon-taek (2002, 116 mins) Cast: Choi Min-sik, Ahn Sung-ki […]
Directors: Im Kwon-taek
KCC Screening: Mandala
The fifth screening in the Rebels with a Cause season: Mandala (만다라) Director: Im Kwon-taek (1981, 112 mins) Cast: Ahn Sung-Ki, Jeon Moo-song, Bang Hee, Gi Jeong-su Thursday, 16 August 2018 7:00 pm @KCCUK | Book tickets Set in contemporary Korea, Mandala follows two rather different characters: Pob-un, a young Buddhist monk who has decided […]
A new year gift from the Korean Film Archive
Those nice people at the Korean Film Archive have given us a new year gift, in the form of twenty-one English subtitled classic movies newly uploaded to their YouTube channel. At least two of these have been available on subtitled DVD before (Come, Come, Come Upward and Gingko Bed) but I’m assuming these are new, […]
LKL at 10 years: the best of the past decade
Well, if you can’t reminisce on your website’s 10th birthday, when can you? Here’s a collection of some of my favourite London memories of the past 10 years (and one or two from slightly further afield). Some of the moments lived up to expectation: a front row seat at a performance by K-pop ballad diva Lee […]
Im Kwon Taek’s Festival to screen at RCA Battersea
The latest of the KCC’s screenings on university campuses is at the Royal College of Art’s Battersea site on 11 May: Im Kwon-taek: Festival (축제, 1996) + Introduction by Tony Rayns 11 May / 6:30pm / Royal College of Art’s Gorvy Lecture Theatre Dyson Building, Royal College of Art, Battersea SW11 4AN Cast: Han Eun-jin, […]
A week-long programme of films based on Korean novels at SOAS
April is the month of the London Book Fair (14-16 April at Olympia). Last year Korea was the market focus, an honour assumed by Mexico this year. But the Korea Publishers Association, LTI Korea and other bodies will be attending to fly the flag for Korea. To remind us of the fun we had last […]
Im Kwon Taek’s Festival is the next screening at the KCC
The KCC has announced the next of its free screenings: Festival (축제) Director: Im Kwon Taek (1996) Screening Date: 29 January 2015, 7pm at the KCCUK Running Time: 108 Book via KCCUK website This film is based on the novel of the same title by Lee Cheong-jun. It has an intriguing structure, moving between the […]
The 2015 KCC film schedule launches with Im Kwon-taek’s Wangsimni
The theme for this year’s film screenings at the KCC is “early works by 10 celebrated Korean directors”; and with ten months between now and the 10th KCC London Korean Film Festival, we are told that there’s a link there. No doubt more will be revealed in due course. This month there are two screenings […]
The London Korean Links Awards 2014
Our regular unscientific seasonal post which recognises some of the people, books, films and events which made 2014 an outstanding year. Personality of the Year This year there seem to have been more anti-heroes than heroes – examples to avoid rather than emulate. Villains we loved to hate this year have included the reclusive photographer, […]
Festival Film Review: Hwajang / Revivre
Well, I was right. Ahn Sung-ki confessed in the Q+A which followed the screening of Hwajang that one of his most difficult tasks in portraying Oh Sang-moo, a senior executive in a cosmetics company, was to project certain aspects of being old – of being blocked inside because of the swollen prostate, of being more […]
Bringing Kim Hoon’s Hwajang to the big screen: How to act a swollen prostate?
Im Kwon-taek set himself quite a challenge when he decided to make a movie of Kim Hoon’s Hwajang. It is a dense, concentrated and rich piece of writing – I hesitate to say “short story”, because really there’s not much narrative flow. Instead, there’s well-balanced contrast; there’s inner thoughts and emotions; there are the human […]
Im Kwon Taek’s Hwajang selected to close 2014 LKFF
It’s tremendously good news that the closing gala screening of the London Korean Film festival 2014 is Im Kwon Taek’s 102nd film, Hwajang (western title: Revivre). It synchronises nicely with the KCCUK’s focus on literature this year, as it is based on a short story by Kim Hoon. More importantly, it’s a film that has […]
Im Kwon-taek: In search of perfection
As the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon approach, LKL is finally spurred to write up some archive notes of interviews and Q&A’s with the director of their Opening Ceremony… “Why are you torturing me?” was Im Kwon-taek’s heartfelt cry when attending a screening of one of his films from the 1960s at a 70-film retrospective […]
Gilsotteum to screen at the KCC
Of the 15 or so Im Kwon-taek films I’ve managed to see so far, Gilsotteum is my favourite. It caught me by surprise at the retrospective last year, and I’ll certainly be trying to get to the screening this coming Thursday: Gilsotteum (1985) 7pm, 1 August 2013 Director: IM Kwon-Taek Cast: Kim Ji-mi, Shin Seong-il […]
Im Kwon-taek and the wounds of the Korean War
The Im Kwon Taek retrospective has given us all a chance to catch up on some of the films of the master that we haven’t seen before, rounding out our picture of Korea’s national director. Im is probably best known nowadays for his films which highlight some of the unique aspects of Korea’s cultural heritage: […]
Im Kwon-Taek’s Village in the Mist — affairs on an Anonymous Island
Han Su-ok, a young schoolteacher, arrives in an isolated mountain village to take up her first job in an elementary school. As she gets off the bus, the village initially seems deserted, like a ghost town, hemmed in by the high forbidding walls of the surrounding mountains like a prison. You wonder what sort of […]
The big London Im Kwon-taek retrospective – confirmed screening dates and times
There’s truly an over-indulgence in K-film over the next few weeks. In between the BFI London Film Festival which features no fewer than six Korean films, and the regular London Korean Film Festival at the beginning of November, we have an Im Kwon-taek retrospective, organised by the KCC in collaboration with the BFI and the […]