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]
People: Ryu Seung-ryong
Festival Film Review: Masquerade deserved all the awards it got
It swept the board at the recent Grand Bell awards – best film, best director and best leading actor among them. And for all-round entertainment, the closing film of the London Korean Film Festival 2012 deserved all those awards. Was a uniquely reformist tax policy set by a pantomime performer who was pretending to be … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: All about my wife – a perfect date movie
Part of the K-comedy stream of the 2012 LKFF. Im Soo-jeong plays a shrewish wife driving her husband (Lee Seon-gyoon) crazy, causing him to hire a Casanova (Ryu Seung-ryong) to woo her to give him an excuse for divorce. This is a perfect date movie: entertaining, never too demanding but still making you think about … [Read More]
‘War of the Arrows’ – Causing Death and Saving Lives
The opening gala of the London Korean Film Festival was a more rambunctious affair than I remember even last year’s being, due in no small part to the sudden and unexpected entrance of SHINee (I was lucky enough to be two rows behind them, but many who had specially booked seats I gather were incandescent … [Read More]
Why I walked out of Possessed half way through
Maybe it’s because I was tired. Maybe it’s because I’m reading a particularly good book at the moment. Or maybe it’s because I arrived too late to get my favourite spot in the Spartan seating arrangements in the multi-purpose hall at the KCC1. But as I sat through the first half of Possessed2 at the … [Read More]
Event news: Possessed screens at the KCC
Leading up to Halloween, the films at the KCC this month aim to scare. First up, Possessed, aka Living Death (불신지옥). Possessed (불신지옥) Director: Lee Yong-ju (2009, 100mins) Screening Date: 7pm, October 06, 2011 Number of Seats: 125 Theatre: Multi-purpose Hall Synopsis: A young girl named So-jin survives a terrible car accident which left her … [Read More]