With the extra time spent at home, the lockdown is the perfect time for many of us to catch up on television dramas. Besides being a great way to pass the time without leaving the home, dramas can provide us all with a little escapism, giving a much-needed break from the often overwhelming news cycle. … [Read More]
People: Gong Hyo-jin
Door Lock (도어락, 2018) review: female vulnerability and resilience in urban Seoul
With Door Lock, director Lee Kwon presents a tense and creepy fictional horror focusing on the vulnerability of women in Korea at the hands of the opposite sex and though the story’s conclusion will be fairly familiar to fans of horror it nonetheless celebrates female resilience and strength in Korean cinema as a whole. [Read More]
Be With You (지금 만나러 갑니다, 2018) review: a beautiful, classic, archetypal Son Ye-jin melodrama
Heartbreaking, uplifting and life-affirming at once, Be With You positively screams of classic Korean melodrama, in spite of being based on a Japanese novel… and that’s before we even consider the fact that the star of the film is New Korean Cinema’s ‘Queen of Melodrama’, Son Ye-jin. [Read More]
Missing (aka Missing Woman, 미씽: 사라진여자, 2016) review: a poignant study of motherhood and societal despair
While the societal issues critiqued in ‘Missing’ – and indeed its child abduction story as a whole – can be found in a virtual plethora of Korean films, director Lee Eon-hee wholly succeeds in weaving them together into a worthy, grippingly intricate and ultimately deeply poignant tale of motherhood and female understanding of female pain. [Read More]
Festival film review: Crush and Blush
Lee Kyoung-mi (이경미): Crush and Blush (미쓰 홍당무, 2008) Review by Robert Cottingham. Right near the beginning of Crush and Blush, the main character Mi-seok stands digging a deep hole in a schoolyard. I thought that it was a punishment used in South Korean schools, but if not it could be a visual metaphor for … [Read More]