Chen Yu-Hsun dishes up a lively and lovable comedy-drama with this New Taiwanese Cinema classic. Originally released in 1995, Tropical Fish encapsulates an authentic and personal look at Taiwanese approaches to family-living and the nation’s harsh school system. Mocking how concerned families are with school exams and how ludicrous the studying regime for adolescents can…
Category: Asian Cinema
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: Dear Ex Review
When Song Zhengyuan dies, he leaves everything he has to the most important person in his life: his gay lover Jay (Roy Chiu). To his wife Liu Sanlian (Ying-Shiuan Hsieh) this comes as a shock, as it leaves nothing for her and their teenage son Chengxi (Joseph Huang). She’s livid, and jumps at the chance to…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Ji-young, Director of ‘Intention’
Kim Ji-young attracted audiences’ attention when he directed two documentaries: Fraser Report – Who Made South Korea Economics Grows Rapidly and Hundred Years’ War in Korea: Two-Face of Syngman Rhyee in 2012. A few years later, along with the help from investigative journalist Oh Hee-jung, he tackled the subject of the Sewol Ferry Disaster. Researched mostly in secret…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Yoon-seok of ‘Dark Figure of Crime’
Kim Yoon-seok is a renowned South Korean actor with an extensive filmography and even a few TV-series (K-dramas) under his belt, even though he initially debuted in 1988 as a theatre actor, in the role of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, originally portrayed by Marlon Brando on Broadway. It is impossible not to…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Tae-gyoon, Director of ‘Dark Figure of Crime’
For a long period of time, Kim Tae-gyoon worked as an assistant director to Kwak Kyung-taek, the director of The Classified File, Friend: The Great Legacy and Eye for an Eye. Over the years, their friendship grew. Kwak Kyung-taek became Kim Tae-gyoon’s mentor, teacher and a friend. While working on the story of Dark Figure of…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: Dark Figure of Crime Review
Why are there so many unsolved/ghost murder cases out there in the world? Experts might work on as many as they can take on, yet they still cannot solve the crimes that go unnoticed. To the victims’ families, the agony of not knowing what happened to their loved ones is beyond one’s comprehension. But how do…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Jang Joon-hwan, Director of ‘1987: When the Day Comes’
Jang Joon-hwan’s first journey into filmmaking started in 1994, when he directed the short film 2001 Imagine. Before moving to make his first feature Save the Green Planet – an odd mix of genres such as thriller, comedy and science fiction, that is now considered to be a cult film – he worked as a cinematographer, scriptwriter…
3rd London East Asia 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…
23rd Busan Internationational Film Festival: House of Hummingbird Review
Hummingbirds are the smallest of birds, with their tiny wings flapping away even faster than their heartbeats, unless they experience torpor, a hibernation-like state that hummingbirds use to protect themselves from the cold. Even though they are tiny, they build nests that have been named among the most exquisite wonders of nature. Much like hummingbirds, there…
23rd Busan Internationational Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Bora, Director of ‘House of Hummingbird’
There is nothing better than an unexpectedly great film that makes you experience the entire palette of human emotions – a film that makes you reminisce, steep yourself in its characters and see the world through their eyes, giving you an experience that might end up opening your own eyes a bit further. A film…
23rd Busan International Film Festival: Beautiful Days Review
On October 4th, 2018, the 23rd edition of Busan International Film Festival opened its doors with numerous stars in attendance, marking the return of the festival in its full glory after several tumultuous years. The festival selected its opening film carefully – Beautiful Days (뷰티풀데이즈), the world premiere of the film directed by the Busan…
23rd Busan International Film Festival: Come On Irene Review
Hideki Arai’s 1990s manga series Come on Irene (Itoshi no Irene) addressed the shortage of brides in the rural areas of Japan, melding comedy, drama and darker thriller hues into its story – there is no wonder that it attracted Keisuke Yoshida, a Japanese filmmaker whose previous projects successfully combined those same elements. In fact,…
23rd Busan International Film Festival: In Conversation with Nats Sitoy, the First Filipino Actress to Take Lead Role in a Japanese, Manga-Based Film
Natileigh – Nats – Sitoy is a Cebuana actress who has been busy making a name for herself as an indie actress in the Philippines. After she won Best Supporting Actress role at Cinema One Originals for her role in Lily, she appeared in Bagahe (2017), in Brillante Mendoza’s Netflix series Amo (2018) and in…
62nd BFI London Film Festival: The Spy Gone North Review
The historical drama is a tale that is constantly over-shadowed by its real-life counterpart’s undoing. No matter which way the film may elude to direct itself, the foreboding presence of certain real-life individuals makes clear to an audience which way the film will steer. This is especially the case when dealing with the infamous Kim…
