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…
Category: Foreign Films
Pachinko Review
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…
6th London East Asia Film Festival: “My Missing Valentine” Review
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…
65th BFI London Film Festival: “A Hero” Review
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,…
78th Venice International Film Festival: “Dusk Stone” Review
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)…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “Un Monde” Review
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…
74th Cannes Film Festival: “The Heroics” Review
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…
23rd Udine Far East Film Festival: “A is for Agustin” Review
Despite the importance that has been attached to education on a global scale over the years, the world still faces enormous inequalities in terms of access to education. The immediate and most telling effect of not receiving education is illiteracy. While only 3% of people in Europe are illiterate, in South America, Asia and Africa…
23rd Udine Far East Film Festival: “Shock Wave 2” Review
Good Hong Kong action cinema is like poetry – stuffed with great lead actors, grace, fantasy and pacing, it provides the audience with truly wild action. There is no denial that it has had a huge impact on Hollywood – the appearance of John Woo, Andy Lau, Donnie Yen, Aaron Kwok, Jet Li and Jackie…
23rd Udine Far East Film Festival – “Kundo: Age of the Rampant” Review
While not as stylistically apparent as Kim Jee-woon’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), Kundo: Age of the Rampant by Yoon Jong-bin is the second highest budget South Korean film, made by using western conventions. The film’s plot is firmly embedded in the late Joseon period and deals with a gang of thieves called…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 