In less than a week, the 19th edition of the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) will open the doors of Teatro Nuovo “Giovanni da Udine” in Udine, Italy, and East Asian cinema will reign over the little city in the Italian Friuli-Venezia Giulia region for a full 9 days (21st – 29th April 2017). The FEFF…
Category: Foreign Films
Kushuthara: Pattern of Love Review
The Kingdom of Bhutan is no common place; and while it is one of the smallest countries in the world, its cultural variety and depth are heartfelt. Located in the breath-taking Eastern Himalayan mountain range, it presents the perfect opportunity for the filmmakers, climbers and photographers to experience the extraordinary beauty of the country. The history…
Lee Gae-byok’s Luck-Key
Body- and identity-swaps have been explored by Hollywood since the 1970’s; unfortunately, most of those films are just wacky comedies. Unexpectedly, Asian cinema has been keeping up with this trend of the la la land and has produced a few worthy productions, including the Japanese Key of Life by Kenji Uchida (Weekend Blues, A Stranger of…
Hong Ji-young’s Will You Be There?
Surprisingly, last year was fairly fruitful for the female filmmakers in South Korea. Most of their films – perhaps slightly unappreciated by the mainstream cinema critics – have been cherished by many film goers. One of those films is Will You Be There?, the first adaptation of Guillaume Musso’s 2006 bestselling novel with the same…
Missing Review
After a lengthy hiatus, Lee Eon-hie finally grabbed a pen and paper – as well as camera – and created (with some help from Hong Eun-mi) her first thriller Missing, which features two well-known Korean actresses: Uhm Ji-won (Master, The Silenced, Wish) and Kong Hyo-jin (Single Rider, Boomerang Family, Crush and Blush). Missing depicts a story…
In Conversation with Kristof Deak
There is a high possibility that in a little under a week, the first Hungarian short film in over fifty years will find itself on the list of the prestigious Academy Awards nominations – Sing (also Mindenki), the excellent 25-minute short about the competitive world of children’s choirs that is based on a true story…
In Conversation with Baek Yoon-sik
Baek Yoon-sik is a South Korean actor who first made a name for himself in the 1970’s as a film and TV actor, but then focused solely on his TV career – until 2003 when he decided to take a role in the now cult film Save the Green Planet – his film career got…
The 11th London Korean Film Festival: Alone
Imagine yourself waking up in a nightmare, a nightmare that you can not escape; what would you do? Park Hong-min’s Alone traps his key character Su-min (Lee Ju-won) in the endless ephialtes which occur in silent, hovel and labyrinthine alleys. Su-min, an avid photographer, captures on his camera – while taking pictures from his apartment’s roof…
The 11th London Korean Film Festival: Breathing Underwater
On the gorgeous Korean islands of Jeju and Udo (and the surrounding islets of Jeju province), almost every day, over 4000 women risk their lives to challenge the sea in order to bring out its treasures – sea urchin, conch, algae, octopus, and the highly treasured abalone. They are called haenyo – sea women – and…
In Conversation with Cho Hyun-hoon, director of ‘Jane’
Cho Hyun-hoon’s professional voyage into filmmaking started when his short film Metamorphosis got invited to Busan Asian Short Film Festival in 2007. In 2013, another short film of his, The Mother’s Family, was invited to Indie Forum Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival; the short was relatively successful; it won the Acting Award during Busan International Short…
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