The attempts to translate Haruki Murakami‘s prose into the cinematic language have so far mostly ended in spectacular disasters, or – in the best case – garnered mixed reviews, probably due to the specific style of the writer. But the fates have changed when Lee Chang-dong, the director of Poetry and Peppermint Candy, returned after 6 years of…
Category: Foreign Films
Roma Review
Roma follows the story of Cleo (Yalitza Aparico), a young indigenous housekeeper working for a middle-class family in Mexico City during the early ‘70s. Partly based off Alfonso Cuarón’s own childhood, Roma is an ode to the woman who helped raise him. Reflecting on a perspective of his upbringing that is different to his own,…
13th London Korean Film Festival: In Conversation with Kim Yang-hee and Yang Ik-june of ‘The Poet and the Boy’
The Poet and the Boy is a feature debut by Korean filmmaker Kim Yang-hee, starring Yang Ik-june, an actor and a filmmaker himself, who gained the public attention and won several awards with his semi-autobiographical feature debut, which he wrote, directed and played the leading role in – the 2009 indie hit Breathless. With her…
13th London Korean Film Festival: The Poet and the Boy Review
The Poet and the Boy (Si-e-nui a-rang) is the feature debut for Kim Yang-hee; it premiered at Jeonju International film festival in 2017, and made its way to London Korean Film Festival this fall. The film stars South Korean actor and filmmaker Yang Ik-june, who is best known for his debut film, which he both…
13th London Korean Film Festival: Old Love Review
After living in Canada for many years, Yoon-hee returns to her home country of South Korea to visit her mother who has dementia. Taking a cigarette break outside Incheon airport, she runs into Jung-soo, an old college sweetheart. The pair is surprised to see each other and agrees to catch-up about the last twenty years…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion Review
After the rather minor success, accompanied by mostly unfavourable critiques of his 2017 feature V.I.P, a film where mediocre imagination ruled the depictions of cruel treatment of women, which turned it into a prosaic, occasionally sickening narrative, Park Hoon-jung, who penned The Unjust (2010) and I Saw the Devil (2010), has finally made a proper…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: Miss Baek Review
Child abuse is a serious problem in South Korea, where the Western trend of permissive education and upbringing never made an entirely successful landing, and where (light) corporal punishment will still hardly draw the attention of authorities, which has lead to horrific numbers of child abuse cases that have been growing at an alarming rate….
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: In Conversation with Han Ji-min of ‘Miss Baek’
Han Ji-min is a South Korean actress who first gained mainstream attention with her performance in 2005 Korean TV series Ressurection. She continued a successful TV career, starring in some of the K-drama world favourites – Yi San, Padam Padam, Rooftop Prince, and Hyde Jekyll, Me. At the same time, she started building a successful…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: Shoplifters Review
A gentle and emotionally intelligent look at the meaning of family in contemporary Japan. Empathetic, quiet and in-tune with human fragility, this year’s Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters explores the humane need for belonging and connection. Wondering if you can ‘choose’ your family, Hirokazu Koreeda once again perfects the art of drawing genuine heartbreak from an…
3rd London East Asia Film Festival: Tropical Fish Review
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…
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