London’s annual East Asian film festival returns for its fourth year at the end of October. The 2019 programme includes cinematic offerings from 11 countries, including two movies from North Korea. The festival opens with a South Korean disaster comedy movie and closes with a film by celebrated East Asian actor Aaron Kwok. Here is … [Read More]
Director: Jung Ji-woo
London East Asia Film Festival 2019 – detailed programme
Here are the films due to be screened at this year’s London East Asia Film Festival. The post will be updated with screening times when they become available. Check the festival website, www.leaff.org.uk, for updates. The official press release can be found here. London East Asia Film Festival 24 October – 3 November 2019 www.leaff.org.uk … [Read More]
A quiet look at the LKFF’s 2018 programme
The London Korean Film Festival returns for its 13th edition next month with a slightly quieter tone than in some previous years. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s as if the organisers are saying that, as the festival enters its teenage years, the audience is becoming grown-up enough not to require a diet of … [Read More]
London Korean Film Festival 2018: press release and detailed schedule
The 2018 London Korean Film Festival programme was announced at last night’s final teaser screening. The press release is set out below, and at the bottom of the page is the detailed schedule: The 13th London Korean Film Festival London: 1 – 14 November 2018 UK tour: 15 – 25 November 2018 LONDON, 17 September … [Read More]
Heart Blackened (침묵, 2017) review: wealth, blood and deception
Heart Blackened is a visually sumptuous, multi-layered and beautifully involved tale of love, hate, sacrifice and murder. While based on a 2013 Chinese film it never feels like simply a rehash. In fact, Heart Blackened could almost be considered as a modern day re-telling of a Pansori-type tale, and as such it ultimately feels utterly Korean through and through. [Read More]
A look at the 2016 London Korean Film Festival programme
Oooh oooh oooh my favourite film of 2012, and in a shortlist for my film of the decade is being screened again. I thought it would never find its way back into a London theatre and that I’d never have the pleasure of seeing it again, because it’s not the sort of movie that they’re … [Read More]
Film Festival Highlight: Eungyo – A poet looks into his glass
Korea’s most famous poet, Lee Jeok-yo, is well into old age. He has taken as a student cum in-house assistant an aspiring but not very talented novelist called Seo Ji-woo. A neighbouring high school girl starts takes a cleaning job at the poet’s house, and a connection soon forms between the poet and the young … [Read More]
Director Jung Ji-woo interview: aging, desire and society in Eungyo
Director Jung Ji-woo discusses EunGyo as a way to explore unspoken desires, aging, and social restraint in Korea. He reflects on empathy, casting authenticity, adaptation from literature and manhwa, creative freedom, working with actors, and how human difference and collision drive his filmmaking. [Read More]
The LKFF 2012 Programme
Here’s the schedule for the London Korean Film Festival 2012. And below the listing is the official press release to give you a flavour of the thinking behind the line-up. (All dates are November 2012). Thanks to Paul Quinn at Hangul Celluloid for doing a lot of the heavy lifting fishing out run times and … [Read More]
Happy End (해피엔드, 1999) review: explicit and unmissable cautionary tale
An explicit marital drama about infidelity, obsession and quiet desperation. As a neglected husband uncovers his wife’s affair, Happy End is an uncompromising look at the human heart and how its desires, if unchecked, can rule the head with cataclysmic results. A cautionary tale which is both explicit and unmissable. [Read More]