Musicals are a rarity in South Korean cinema, even if there are South Korean productions out there with traces of music themes, thrown into the middle of the film or found close to the end credits – but that does not qualify those movies as musicals. Swing Kids, directed by Kang Hyeong-cheol (Tazza: The Hidden Card),…
Backstreet Boys’ DNA World Tour Larger Than Life
Backstreet Boys have it all, it seems, but it has not always been a life of ease for the members. Although the group went through hardships both in personal and professional life, it only made them stronger. The times when flowers, underwear and mascots were showering the stage may be over, but it seems that…
Coldrain Sets The Black Heart On Fire With Their Energetic Performance In London
It rarely happens that a band, one that usually plays in front of huge crowds, performs an intimate gig in an unexpected venue. Coldrain, formed over a decade ago in Japan, gained their worldwide recognition in 2013, when they signed a deal with British company Raw Power Management; the act opened up many new doors…
“We Asked for a Star, You Gave Us a Galaxy” – BTS Take Over the Wembley Stadium
BTS’s concerts at Wembley Stadium marked a pivotal moment in the band’s global ascendency. Razed to the ground and rebuilt in the early 2000s, the new Wembley Stadium was unveiled to the public in 2007 and has been the site for many iconic sporting and music events since. BTS are the first South Korean musicians…
In Conversation with Lee Min-jae and Uhm Ji-won of ‘The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale’
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…
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…
SF9 Amazes Their Fans With Their Performance at the London’ Shepherd’s Bush Empire
To most Korean idols, the K-pop world is anything but a bed of roses. With the boy and girl groups being categorized into ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C-list’ levels depending on their popularity rankings, many of the artists have to fight hard to reach a decent place. Debuting under FNC Entertainment in 2016, SF9 has been…
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…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 