Uhm Ji-won is a South Korean actress whose career started in the late 1990’s. Her talent’s were first recognized with her performance of a subdued wife in the erotic thriller The Scarlet Letter (2004). She later played the leading role in Hong Sang-soo’s Tale of Cinema (2005), and worked with Hong again on his 2008…
Category: Film
The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale Review
Train to Busan (2016) established that there is both room and potential for zombie flicks in Korean cinema, and there has been a flood of undead-themed films and TV series in the past few years, with their makers hell-bent on achieving the same success as Yeon Sang-ho‘s action thriller. Some of the K-zombie projects, surprisingly,…
Juris Kursietis’ Oleg Review
The decision to leave one’s home country is never easy and no one really knows what awaits them out there. Oleg by Juris Kursietis weaves its way along this line, painting a relatable immigrant story of Oleg (Valentin Novopolskij), a Latvian butcher who moves to Belgium in search of a better life. He gets a job…
High Life Review
Up amongst the stars, hurtling through space, a group of death-row inmates are stuck together on a spaceship on an almost-suicide mission to extract energy from a black hole. Dr Dibs (Juliette Binoche) is the reproduction-obsessed, semen-harbouring doctor in charge of the inmates. She’s fixated with the notion of creating an artificial baby and uses…
72nd Cannes Film Festival: Sick, Sick, Sick Review
They say you never forget your first love. In this case, teenager Silvia (Luiza Kosovski) is so adamant to get back her Romeo that she turns to bloody sacrifice and revival voodoo. Brazilian filmmaker Alice Furtado’s feature-length debut is a swirling fever dream of obsession, mourning, and a cold apathy towards the world. Taking a…
72nd Cannes Film Festival: Nuestras Madres Review
Nuestras Madres – ‘Our Mothers’ in English – is a heart-rending and stirring uncovering of the trauma and anguish left behind by the Guatemalan civil war. César Díaz’s fiction-directorial debut focuses particularly on the stories of the many women survivors of the war. Everyone knows the effects of wars and the destruction they rage, but…
Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale Review
Going into Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale it’s fair to say that the deliciously vague trailer and intriguing synopsis built up a certain level of expectation to any discerning cinema-goer. The idea of a long, wonderfully soundtracked pilgrimage to a rock-and-roll gig at the end of the world would spark excitement into the heart of anyone…
21st Udine Far East Film Festival: Extreme Job Review
A fried chicken restaurant and a highly incompetent narcotic squad – what could possibly go wrong? Extreme Job is Lee Byeong-heon’s newest production that has unexpectedly become the second highest grossing film in the history of Korean cinema, with over $120 million box-office profit against a $5.8 million budget – it is no wonder that a Hollywood…
21st Udine Far East Film Festival: JK Rock Review
In the colorful world of Japanese manga live-action adaptations and musical-themed film productions, we can find a series of films that center around pop- and rock-bands that practically ooze ‘ikemen’ (good looking men) by the seams, while there is an (un)surprising lack of such films centering on female music groups. The reason for that lies…
21st Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Shunji Muguruma, director of ‘JK Rock’
Japanese director Shunji Muguruma may be on the brink of turning 50, but his work is all about the youth. He started out as a Japanese TV drama director, then switched to cinema where he both wrote and directed most of his projects. While making his 2016 production Little Performer: The Pulse of Winds, he…
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