After a rocky start with Netflix, I’m now coming round to it. I started subscribing to the online service in order to watch Okja, the Netflix-only feature film by director Bong Joon-ho. Although that particular experience was a big disappointment, I continued the subscription in case I was tempted by any of the other movies … [Read More]
Director: Im Pil-seong
Antarctic Journal: a promising start, a confusing end, and a film to be avoided
Antarctic Journal (Im Pil-seong, 2004) screened at the KCC on 24 April as part of the Year of the Film Professionals. The second professional to be so featured was cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon, who gives Park Chan-wook movies their distinctive look. Antarctic Journal is one of Chung’s rare films with another director. Given the poor reviews … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Behind the Camera — the Q&A of the feature of the documentary of the making of the …
British cinema-goers are used to a short commercial before the main feature in which a film director is pitching his latest movie idea to some corporate suits whose only interest is that the film should promote a certain mobile phone network at every opportunity. So it’s not such a strange idea that a well-known Korean … [Read More]
K-film at the BFI London Film Fest: Doomsday Book is really not worth the effort
Doomsday Book, the first of six Korean films to screen at the 56th BFI London Film Festival is a set of three short films based loosely on a science fiction theme. The two outer segments, gentle comedies directed by Im Pil-seong (임필성), sandwich a semi-serious but nevertheless meagre filling by Kim Ji-woon entitled Heavenly Creature … [Read More]
Hansel and Gretel opens in London
Hansel and Gretel screens at the ICA from 16 January, and moves to the Prince Charles on 30 January, before getting a selected nationwide release. It made an appearance at the BFI London Film Festival 2008, so if you missed it then, now’s your chance to see it. Following a car crash on a country … [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]