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 […]
People: Ahn Sung-ki
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 […]
Screening: White Badge + Ahn Jung-hyo Q+A
Jeong Ji-yeong’s adaptation of Ahn Jung-hyo’s Vietnam War novel is the third in the KCCUK’s Korean Novels on Screen season of screenings. Director Jeong came to London back in 2010 to talk about this movie. LKL’s write-up can be found here. White Badge (하얀전쟁) Director: Chung Ji-young (1992, 124 mins) Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Lee Gyoung-young, […]
Festival film review: Bae Chang-ho’s The Dream
Bae Chang-ho’s The Dream is based on a story from the Samguk Yusa, a story that Yi Kwang-su worked up into a short novel. Although the tale is set in the late Silla dynasty, its message is timeless. The story starts with a weary and impoverished traveller (played by Ahn Sung-ki) trudging through the snow […]
Festival film review: Bae Chang-ho’s Whale Hunting
Based on a story by long-standing collaborator Choe In-ho, Whale Hunting is one of Korea’s seminal road movies. Hunting the whale, in the dark days of the dictatorship, was symbolic for yearning for things beyond the day-to-day. In Bae Chang-ho’s 1984 movie it represented the search for the things that give life meaning; in a […]
Festival film review: Bae Chang-ho’s People of the Slum
Bae Chang-ho’s debut feature, People of the Slum (1982), is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Lee Dong-chul. The film tells the story of a complicated love triangle. Myeong-sook, played by Kim Bo-yeon, lives with her second husband, the idle and dissolute Tae-seop (played by Kim Hui-ra). Living in the same house in the run-down […]
Brief festival film review: Eoh Woo Dong
Lee Chang-ho (이장호) Eoh Woo Dong (어우동, 1985, 110 mins). Review by Robert Cottingham. Eoh Woo Dong translates as “entertainer,” a rough approximation of the duties of 14th-century Korean courtesan Eoh Yoon Chang. After a lifetime “in service,” Eoh Yoon Chang retires to a faraway village. Meanwhile, her powerful father, ashamed of his daughter’s lifestyle, […]
Festival film review: Love And…
Two years ago the revered Korean film critic Tony Rayns asked Moon Sori an awkward question. The question was followed by a sharp intake of breath from the audience who couldn’t believe what they had just heard, and by a few false starts at a response by Ms Moon before she answered fluently. At the final […]
An introduction to “Love And…” — LKFF’s closing gala film
The London Korean Film Festival’s choice for the closing gala is an interesting one: Zhang Lu’s Love And… (the literal meaning of the Korean title, 필름시대사랑, is “Love of the Film Era”), which only recently opened at the Korean box office. Closing galas over the years have included blockbusters and mainstream movies such as Masquerade […]
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, […]
LKFF 2014: the conversations
The London Korean Film Festival is not just about getting acquainted with the latest in Korean movies. It is also an opportunity to meet some of the people behind those movies – actors, directors and producers. Opportunities for engaging with these film professionals vary: for an ever-growing group of aficionados there is the offer of round-table […]
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 […]
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 […]
White Badge: Korea and the Vietnamese War
In a year that we remember the 60th anniversary of the first post-WW2 US military involvement in Asia, it was a great idea to invite Director Jeong Ji-yeong (정지영) to the UK. Jeong is known for a number of well-received films, including Nambugun, a film which gives a nuanced view of the Korean War from […]
Korea at War: A Retrospective of Chung Ji-Young’s Films
Details of a mini Korean film festival in Cambridge. Well worth going to. Friday 23 April & Saturday 24 April, 2010 Robinson College, Cambridge Korea at War: A Retrospective of Chung Ji-Young’s Films To mark the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, Robinson College is pleased to present a retrospective of films […]
Nambugun – the first of two Korean War films this month at the KCC
In the first of two films selected to mark the anniversary of the start of the Korean War on 25 June 1950, the KCC will be screening Jeong Ji-yeong’s Nambugun (North Korean Partisans in South Korea, 남부군) on Thursday 11 June, 7pm. The 1990 film, with screenplay by director Jang Sun-woo, stars Ahn Sung-ki and […]
May 18 – surprise hit of the LKFF
A modern historical drama about Korea’s Tiananmen Square incident might not sound like the most gripping of scenarios for a film, but May 18 certainly draws you in as a cinematic experience. One member of the audience had already seen the film twice on the internet, but came along to see it on the big […]
Chihwaseon screens at the KCC
The next screening at the KCC, on Thursday 25 September, is Chihwaseon (2002), Im Kwon-taek’s bio-pic of one of Korea’s most famous painters, Jang Seung-eop, also known as Owon. The film features two of Korea’s most well-known actors, Choi Min-sik as Owon and Ahn Sung-ki as his patron Kim Byung-moon. Synopsis: During the 1850s, KIM […]
Lee Young-il and Choe Young-chol: The History of Korean Cinema
Jimdoondang Publishing Co, Seoul, 1988 I’m sure this book has a readership, but I’m not sure what it is. It is so badly written that it encourages skim-reading and thus is not particularly attractive for the general reader, while the index is so poor that its use as an academic reference tool is limited. As […]