Little Women is Korean drama at its best. While we can all agree that 2022 was an extraordinary year for female-based K-dramas, this 12-episode show is a true gem produced by the renowned Studio Dragon. The title, Little Women, has tricked many into considering it a mere adaptation of the 1868 novel of the same…
Category: Film
17th London Korean Film Festival: “Stellar: A Magical Ride” Review
There’s something inherently comforting about the road trip movie. Always following the same narrative formula, with little room to innovate due to its constraints, a film within this subgenre is always about a journey both literal and metaphorical – the lead character experiencing emotional growth, whilst ticking off all the expected beats you’d expect on…
17th London Korean Film Festival: “Kingmaker” Review
Released in January 2022 just weeks before the presidential election in South Korea, writer-director Byun Sung-hyun’s fourth directorial effort, Kingmaker, is as much a character drama as it is a political film. It is 1961, Seo Chang-dae (Lee Sun-kyun), a local pharmacist who fled the North, meets Kim Woon-bum (Sol Kyung-gu), an eloquent small-time politician…
17th London Korean Film Festival: “Alienoid” Review
Some films require patience to watch and some require energy. Writer-director Choi Dong-hoon’s Alienoid belongs to the latter camp for its hyperactivity. An ambitious mashup of multiple genres – sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, action, thriller, you name it – Choi’s sixth feature is, in a sense, a culmination of his filmography and much more. Alienoid does…
17th London Korean Film Festival: In Conversation with Choi Dong-hoon, Director of “Alienoid”
In 2015, during the BFI London Film Festival, I had my first conversation with South Korean filmmaker Choi Dong-hoon as he promoted his espionage action film Assassination. Several years later, he finished the script for Alienoid, a sci-fi fantasy action film. Starring a top-notch assemble of actors, including Kim Tae-ri, Kim Woo-bin, Ryu Jun-yeol, Lee…
7th London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Se-in, Director of “The Apartment with Two Women”
Kim Se-in, a South Korean filmmaker, began her journey in the film industry as a screenplay writer and editor. She directed a few shorts, including Hamster (2016), Playing with Fire (2018), and Container (2018). Kim’s feature debut, The Apartment with Two Women, received its world premiere at last year’s Busan International Film Festival and had…
7th London East Asia Film Festival: The Roundup Review
When The Outlaws, written and directed by Kang Yoon-sung, came out in 2017, the film became the third highest-grossing film of that year in South Korea. The production had enough thrills and suspense to satisfy even the most jaded sensation-seekers. It took a few years before the second instalment, The Roundup, was released onto the…
66th BFI London Film Festival: “The Woman in the White Car” Review
In a small Korean town, a police officer, Kim Hyun-ju (Lee Jeong-eun: Parasite, Hommage), alongside her partner, are called to a hospital to check on two sisters with one being severely injured and unconscious. We quickly learn that one of the siblings is called Do-kyung (Jung Ryeowon: Castaway on the Moon, Wok of Love, Gate),…
66th BFI London Film Festival: “Decision to Leave” Review
It may not seem like it at first glance, but Park Chan-wook’s films are those of a distinctly romantic disposition. His narratives typically explore the tension that arises when erotic and emotional idealism meets cold, hard reality; in his films, the only happy romances can be found in either the dispassionate confines of a mental…
Fragments Festival: In Conversation with Kim Bartley, Director of “Pure Grit”
What does it mean to explore non-fiction narratives through film? Accompanying other people with a camera during their everyday life is always difficult, but at the same time, it is an extraordinary journey for all parties involved, including the director, the film crew, and also the subject of the film. While documentaries capture meaningful moments,…
Fragments Festival: “Mama Bears” Review
24 June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. This is just the first step by the Republican Party in removing the American people’s hard-fought rights. Next up on the Christian nationalist agenda by the MAGA republicans seems to be same-sex marriage and the further erosion of trans rights. On the day that Trump was elected…
Fragments Festival: In Conversation with Sharmaine Weed, Protagonist of “Pure Grit”
Throughout the decades, the prominence of Native American men and women has declined. Undoubtedly, this is because of the horrific suffering they have endured due to colonization, as well as the widespread struggles on reservations nowadays. While foreign colonizers tried hard to strip away the culture of Native Americans, the people fought hard to preserve…
Fragments Festival: “Pure Grit” Review
Horses have been a part of Native American culture for a very long time, and most of their cultural iconography is filled with equestrian imagery, making a clear distinction in Indigenous art. Pure Grit, a documentary directed by Kim Bartley, depicts the story of Sharmaine, a young Native American woman who lives in the Wind…
Fragments Festival: “Framing Agnes” – Trans Lives Through the Lens – Film Review
Chas Joynt’s award-winning, solo documentary debut, based upon his 2018 critically acclaimed short of the same name, casts a critical eye over trans histories as marked out by the singular, exceptional, trans person in the popular domain. This follows the documentary No Ordinary Man based on the life of Billy Tipton that he co-directed with…
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