While Steel Rain’s action set pieces are always exemplary, often visually breathtaking, it is the growing trust between the two main characters from either side of the Peninsula that is the film’s true and lasting strength; speaking of humanity’s similarities across a seemingly insurmountable divide, problems with accents and the English language notwithstanding… [Read More]
People: Kwak Do-won
BFI Festival Film Review: Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing
The Wailing is a punishing, relentlessly tense horror thriller that thrives on ambiguity and sensory overload. Na Hong-jin toys with belief, suspicion and endurance, delivering a prolonged roller-coaster of dread, brutal set pieces and exhausting climaxes that leave viewers shaken, uncertain and deeply unsettled. [Read More]
The Wailing (곡성, 2016) review: a relentless descent into fear and paranoia
The Wailing takes director Na Hong-jin’s almost trademark intricate, pulse-pounding narrative intensity and ramps it up yet further with palpable character fear, paranoia and desperation. Thriller by name, utterly thrilling in nature, this darkly violent, three-pronged horror ‘whodunit’ is a worthy successor to The Chaser and The Yellow Sea. [Read More]
A Company Man (회사원, 2012) review: of hierarchies and hitmen
Superbly choreographed, perfectly realised action/fight sequences ultimately cannot hide A Company Man’s narrative predictability and though director Lim Sang-yoon should indeed for credited for attempting a critique of company hierarchy, work ethics and expected loyalty, this dissection feels somewhat underwhelming. [Read More]