For the past 30 years or so, Asian cinema has become a part of life for European filmgoers. Although the Western continent itself has a lot to offer, the films from the Far East are the ones that grab viewers by their throats. It is important to remember that Far East cinema does not only […]
Breaking news! Hwang Jung-min, Korea’s top star, has been kidnapped by a gang of thugs and taken to a remote location. Well, not really, but that’s the concept of Pil Gam-sung’s action-thriller Hostage: Missing Celebrity. As per the previous (joke) announcement, Hostage: Missing Celebrity is what you probably expect it to be about: It follows […]
24th Udine Far East Film Festival: In Conversation with Park Dae-min, Director of “Special Delivery”
It took a while for Park Dae-min to make his first film. Although he graduated with a degree in architecture, he found his passion for filmmaking back in 2002 when he directed a short film Hey, What Are You Looking For, which was invited to screen at the Busan International Short Film Festival. Park Dae-min […]
It’s the beginning of the 20th century and the Korean peninsula is under Japanese rule in Apple TV+’s new drama Pachinko. Sunja (Yeon Yu-na), a young girl, although poor, has a decent life. She has a good mother, Yangjin (Jeong In-ji) and a father for whom she is the apple of his eye. After her […]
Taiwanese romantic comedies can touch one’s heart regardless of their Rotten Tomatoes rating or the narrative itself. And despite the genre, the country’s cinema has always highlighted its culture and people against the wonderful landscapes and pictorial compositions of local architecture. Although rom-coms are filled with cliches, some storylines make the audience analyse their own […]
Asghar Farhadi, an Iranian director, producer and screenwriter, has a superb ability when it comes to writing his stories. He also has a very precise cinematic style which makes him different from Western filmmakers. While Farhadi’s first love was theatre, he chose filmmaking as his profession. Farhadi has always poignantly examined the themes of love, […]
After almost two years of not having proper film festivals in London, life in the capital is slowly coming back to normal, allowing many events to take place. Following the chaos caused by the pandemic, I have come to one conclusion: I can’t imagine my life without film festivals. Yes, it can get extremely busy […]
We watch a young boy wander along a windy shoreline in the middle of the night. With him, he’s got his dog, a backpack, and a torch which he shines out onto the sea. He’s looking for the mythical creature that supposedly lurks in these waters. This is the last time we (or anyone else) […]
There’s no shortage of films that deal with the concept of childhood bullying, but very few document experiences that will ring true to anybody who has been through it. In recent years, bullying has been depicted in film almost exclusively as an online phenomenon, with all attempts to show the harrowing effects of cyberbullying falling […]
In cinema, drug and alcohol addiction is often treated like the darkest iteration of Chekhov’s gun: if someone says they’re in recovery in the first act, expect them to relapse in the second. Because of this narrative cliche, very few films directly grapple with the realities of rehabilitation, and that rather than being an end […]
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