Childhood is often described as a time of discovery, when young people are encouraged to develop their interests and gradually understand what they might want from life, although the reality can be considerably less forgiving for children who grow up believing that their achievements determine how others see them. In his feature directorial debut, The…
Tag: reviews
21st London Korean Film Festival: “The Journey to Gyeong-ju” Review
For those who have lost someone to a violent crime, the passage of time does not necessarily bring the consolation that others so readily expect, especially when the person responsible has completed their sentence and returned to ordinary life, while the bereaved are left to contend with consequences that no legal judgement can undo. In…
The A Festival 2026: A Second Day of Great Performances, Music and Laughter in Paris – Concert Review
The second day of The A Festival at the Paris Event Center, on 25 October, gathered a great number of artists again. Japanese pop-rock, Chinese R&B, K-pop and Thailand’s increasingly influential T-pop industry all had their place on the programme. And what is worth discussing is not simply the international line-up, but the differences between…
Jay Park & LNGSHOT in London: A Night for Performance Lovers – Concert Review
Many are the opinions that swirl around Jay Park: none of which deny his talent on stage. The South Korean singer and rapper has been in the music industry since before many of his fans were born, including one of the boys under his own label, More Vision, that he’s been working closely with, amongst…
21st London Korean Film Festival 2026: Korean Cinema in the Spotlight
The London Korean Film Festival returns this November for its 21st edition, bringing together established directors, emerging filmmakers and some of Korean cinema’s most recognisable actors for two weeks of screenings, premieres and conversations. For more than two decades, the London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) has introduced British audiences to the remarkable variety of stories…
The A Festival: New, Pide, PJ and Leon on Bringing “GELBOYS” to Life – Exclusive Interview
A manicure is a promising excuse to spend time with someone you fancy, until you discover they have been taking somebody else along too. That situation sets the relationships in GELBOYS in motion, as FourMod’s attraction to Chian becomes tangled with jealousy, friendship and the involvement of Baabin and Bua. First released in 2025, the…
70th BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Mokya Shin, Director of “Easter”
A photograph of a young woman posing in a swimsuit with her friends at Dadaepo beach in the 1980s might not seem important, but for South Korean filmmaker Mokya Shin, it changed the direction of Easter, his first feature documentary. The woman in the photograph was Saekja, now 68, who had spent much of her…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Easter” Review
Sometimes, a photograph is all that remains of someone’s life, especially when their story was never considered important enough to be written down or remembered by others. Early in Mokya Shin’s Easter, Saekja sits with an old photo album, looking back at a younger version of herself and the women who once occupied that world…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Our Share of Sand” Review
Maya comes to India to spend time with her father, and soon finds herself being asked to protect him. For a twelve-year-old who has lived in Britain, the reunion brings the promise of getting to know a parent from whom she has been separated. In Shalini Adnani’s debut feature, Our Share of Sand, that promise…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “A Girl Unknown” Review
Giving a child a new name and expecting the old life to disappear with it is simply cruel. A name is supposed to tell us who somebody is, yet in Zou Jing’s A Girl Unknown, names become evidence of how often one young girl has been asked to begin again. Six years old when we…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Fruit Gathering” Review
Life does not offer San Kyi many choices, and although she sometimes thinks about leaving Yangon and returning to her village, she knows there may be very little work waiting for her there, which means the long days she spends in a garment factory are not simply something she can walk away from whenever she…
One Hell of a Voice: Nicotine Dolls Take on London – Concert Review
I knew very little about Nicotine Dolls before walking into Electric Brixton, London, but by the end of the night I wanted to go home and listen to everything they had released. There is a pleasure in discovering a band this way, hearing the songs for the first time with the musicians right in front…
Beyond Genre: K-Music Festival 2026 Opens in London – Concert Review
The 13th edition of the K-Music Festival opened in London on 28 September 2026 with a night that showed just how difficult contemporary Korean music can be to put into one box. Held at EartH Theatre in East London and curated by the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK), the opening night brought together artists with…
coldrain – “OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE” Album Review: Keep the Noise Human
Almost twenty years into their career, coldrain have watched the music industry change dramatically around them. Streaming changed how we listen, social media gave artists new ways to reach audiences, and now AI can write songs, imitate voices and create music in seconds. For five musicians whose work depends so heavily on real people playing,…
