In 2013, Huh Jung’s feature directorial debut Hide and Seek was up against blockbusters such as The Terror Live, Flu and Snowpiercer, and no one expected that the low-budget thriller would on the domestic South Korean market become a hit alongside the three aforementioned productions. 4 years later, Huh Jung is back with The Mimic and it is as…
The 2nd London East Asia Film Festival: V.I.P Review
Park Hoon-jung, a South Korean filmmaker, has – thanks to his distinctive and thoughtful writing style – attracted a vast number of international and domestic viewers to Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil and Ryoo Seung-wan’s The Unjust. His directing skills then allowed him to make New World, an intriguing film and one of the most gripping Korean gangster productions…
The 2nd London East Asia Film Festival: Anarchist from Colony Review
For the past few years, Korean cinema has been swamped with various period films, in which the country’s turbulent history has been amalgamating fiction, action and frequently monotonous anti-Japanese propaganda. Although successful within the domestic market, it is rare for historical dramas to achieve an overseas 5-star rating; and one such film is Lee Joon-ik’s…
The 22nd Busan International Film Festival: A Tiger In Winter Review
The topic of a creative slowdown is popular among authors in all nooks and crannies of the creative dimension, since it is the ultimate “tiger” that prays upon the auteur world. With the tiger also being one of the strongest animal representations of Korea and its people, the layers of metaphor in the title of…
The 22nd Busan International Film Festival: ‘Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?’ Review
Riding hot on the success of the last year’s Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, producer Genki Kawamura dished out yet another animated, fantasy high-school romance film this year – but as highly expected as it was, the remake of the 1993 live-action TV drama of the same name, Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side…
The 22nd Busan International Film Festival: Australia Day Review
Australia Day is the official holiday – National Day – of Australia, celebrating the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the British to Port Jackson in New South Wales. It is a controversial holiday for many reasons, especially for the indigenous peoples of Australia. It is this day that was chosen as the titular background…
The 22nd Busan International Film Festival: Glass Garden Review
South Korean filmmaker Shin Su-won is one of those rare female Asian filmmakers that have managed to break through the male-dominated walls of the industry to not only get noticed, but acknowledged. Her debut, self-produced feature Passerby #3 managed to immediately snag both domestic and international attention – it even won the Best Asian-Middle Eastern Film…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: The Shape of Water Review
Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, Pacific Rim) is an intriguing, imaginative and fearless filmmaker, whose dedication to his work and signature film technique made him into one of the most recognisable contemporary film directors. What makes his work even more alluring is the fact that he is very precise when it comes to “his”…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Robert Gulaczyk – Vincent van Gogh in ‘Loving Vincent’
Robert Gulaczyk is a Polish actor, who in 2006 graduated from the prestigious National Academy of Theatre Arts in Wroclaw. After the graduation, he worked extensively in the Lubuski Theatre in Zielona Gora and is currently employed as an actor at Modjeska Theatre in Legnica. His experience includes around 40 theatre plays and – as of…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Hugh Welchman, Director of ‘Loving Vincent’
Hugh Welchman, an Oxford University graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economy, has always had his eyes on film-making. Subsequently, he worked hard by doing almost everything, from teaching history to selling fish, just to support himself while working on film corporates in London. After a few calamitous encounters, Hugh came to a decision that training at…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: Loving Vincent Review
Who was Vincent van Gogh? To some, he was a madman; to others, an artist; but most people simply saw him as a genius. Vincent was a man with a unique personality and a great gift, whose life wasn’t filled with roses, but with the difficult reality of being rejected by many. What can be…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: Journey’s End Review
Journey’s End, by English playwright R.C Sherriff, was performed for the first time at the Apollo Theatre in 1928 with Lawrence Olivier – an emerging young actor at the time – in one of the lead roles. Within a short period of time the show was moved to a West End theatre where it ran for…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: Wajib Review
Annemarie Jacir, a Palestinian poet and filmmaker, is – to me – the true queen of independent cinema; she is also the voice of those who need to be heard and seen – the ‘voice’ of Palestine. Her career has been marked by unforgettable (and several award-winning) projects, such as A Post Oslo History (2001), The…
The 61st BFI London Film Festival: Devil’s Freedom Review
What makes us humane? What are the characteristics that we value and aspire to, the qualities that make us human rather than brutish? These are the questions that one might ask oneself after watching Devil’s Freedom by Everardo González, a Mexican writer, cinematographer and filmmaker, known for his extraordinary documentaries, including Monsenor: The Last Journey of Oscar Romero (2011)…
VIEW OF THE ARTS 