Following the success of Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, writer-director Kim Yong-hwa returns with a sequel, with the story picking up right where it left off. I wonder how many underworld trials I would have to go through if I were to be resurrected; I can only hope that it would not be…
Category: Korean Cinema
LEAFF 2018 Pre-Fest Screening: Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds Review
South Korean cinema is known for its wealth of excellent thrillers, horror films, historical dramas and melodramas, but its fantasy genre has been known more for the misses than the hits; it always seemed that the industry found itself slightly out of its depth when it took on the more massive, epic-level projects – or…
In Conversation with Lee Jin-mu, South Korean Actor, Model and Filmmaker
Can one scene from a film change a young boy’s life? That seems to be the case for Lee Jin-mu, a South Korean actor, filmmaker and a model, who got struck by the acting bug when he saw an emotional scene from Eyes of Dawn, one of the most popular TV dramas of the 1990’s:…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: 1987 – When the Day Comes Review
When in 1987, Park Jong-chul, a 21-year-old activist and a student of Linguistics at Seoul National University, died while being questioned by the Anti-Communist Investigations Bureau about whereabouts of the campus leader and the fellow ‘revolutionist’, no one expected that the South Korean political landscape was about to change forever. The authorities insisted that the young…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: The Battleship Island Director’s Cut Review
Hashima Island is a small Japanese island, located a mere 15 kilometers off the coast of Nagasaki; it is full of concrete buildings and has a seawall that protects it from the waves. Its shape is the reason for the other name the island is known for: Gunkanjima (Gun-ham-do, 군함도 in Korean) – “Battleship Island”. The…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Hwang Jung-min and Ryoo Seung-wan
In South Korea, Hwang Jung-min is a member of the so-called ‘100 Million Viewer Club’. He starred in 2 od the 5 highest domestic grossing films in South Korea (Ode to my Father and Veteran) of all time and it is safe to label him as one of the Big Three; alongside Song Kang-ho and Ryu Seung-ryong, he…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Lee Jang-hoon, Director of ‘Be With You’
The volunteers at the 20th Udine Far East Film festival looked in wonder as the doors of the main Teatro Udine theatre opened on Friday night – and half of the visitors came out either red-eyed, wiping their eyes or still quietly sobbing. That was the effect of Be With You, the Korean adaptation of the…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: Be With You Review
The novels of Takuji Ichikawa are well known to numerous book lovers. His bestselling works have been adapted for the Japanese silver screen a couple of times; Be With You in 2004 by Nobuhiro Doi, and Heavenly Forest in 2006 by Takehiko Shinjo. The film adaptation of Be With You became a huge commercial success with its imaginative, beautiful and emotional love story…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Jang Hang-jun, Director of ‘Forgotten’
On the second, scorching hot film festival day in Udine, the audience enthusiastically welcomed the chilling screening of Forgotten (which available also on Netflix), the film that took us for a ride in more ways than one. Only a day later, still not over the tale that gave us all a good scare even though it was…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: Forgotten Review
Several screams pierced the air – and the girl next to me even lost her shoe – in the Teatro Nuovo theatre on the humid Sunday night screening at the 20th Udine Far East Film festival; the audience was completely immersed in a roller-coaster viewing one can only expect from a true-to-the-bone South Korean thriller….
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Steel Rain’s Kwak Do-won, Jung Woo-sung and Yang Woo-suk
In 2019, director Lee Han (Thread of Lies, Punch) made a return with a courtroom drama with elements of comedy and thriller that revolves around a defense lawyer (Jung Woo-sung) who is trying to get his client acquitted by getting the only witness to murder, an autistic girl (Kim Hyang-gi), to testify. Innocent Witness got screened during the…
20th Udine Far East Film Festival: Little Forest Review
Reflection, a slow pace of life… and life, dictated by the four seasons, are themes, rarely depicted in Korean cinema; instead, more viewers are attracted to the adrenaline-packed productions, full of well-known actors. But 2018 marked a change of tide – the leading female “auteur of Korean New Wave cinema” Yim Soon-rye adopted Little Forest, the two-volume…
Udine Far East Film Festival Reveals Its 20th Anniversary Edition Lineup
Today, a mere 9 days before the European audience finds its way to the little town in the Northeast Italy to explore the new and old jewels of Asian Cinema, Udine Far East Film Festival revealed its 2018 lineup. It was to be expected that the 20th anniversary edition of the festival would provide the…
Steel Rain Review
Netflix seems to have become every film goer’s Elysium; it has grown into a wholesome VOD platform, with country-specific contents, and has successfully moved even further as a global producer of TV shows and films. Even with some hit-and-miss productions, Netflix provides an easy access to a good selection of films from around the globe….
