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Featured Events
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Monday, 23 July 2007 |
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I blinked and a whole month passed by, so to speak. While the blog was plunged in deep sleep, due to some translating duties and the writing of my first work of fiction, much has happened, particularly in the way of Asian film festivals. After Subway Cinema’s Asian Film Festival and “Japan Cuts”, after Asian CineVision’s Asian American International Film Festival (obviously, it takes some skill for the layman not to get confused between these super-subtle titular distinguos), and after sitting through more films than I thought was humanly possible, the New York Korean Film Festival team (or, NYKFF, since everybody uses abbreviations these days) will present its 7th incarnation: from Tuesday, August 21 to Sunday, September 2, a line-up of 15 award-winning contemporary films from Korea will be shown at Cinema Village, the IFC Center and the BAM Cinématek.
The team has selected:
- A couple of documentaries: Between, an intriguing exploration of Korean shamanism, and Our School, which chronicles a year in the life of senior students at a North Korean high school on Hokkaido island, in Japan.
- Bloody Ties. Bloody, brutal, a hardball noir film about corrupt cops, lowlifes and drugs in Pusan, literally electrified by the high-octane performances by Hwang Jeong-Min and Ryu Seung-Beom.
- A Dirty Carnival. One of my favorites of 2006, reviewed here. A Dirty Carnival practically redefines the whole gangster genre. Since then, Jo In-Seong’s performance has earned him recognition for his (new-found) talent as an actor (rather than pretty boy) and the fifth spot on the Chosun Ilbo’s list of stars with the greatest “pulling power”.
- Family Ties. An understated and ingenious melodrama. Excellent writing, excellent acting. As family melodramas go, this is probably the best you can get.
- Herb. A melodrama starring Kang Hye-Jeong, an habituée of madwomen-in-the-attic and other oddball characters… (Welcome to Dongmakgol, Rules of Dating, Love Phobia). She does excel at playing this kind of parts, and in Herb, she pulls off, once again, a most compelling performance (aside from the fact that she has a brand-new set of teeth in this)
- The King and the Clown. Historical, in every sense of the word, the film (released in December 2005) was one of South Korea’s biggest commercial and critical hits of all times. This superlative period piece was directed by Lee Joon-Ik.
- Radio Star. By the same director. Reviewed here.
- The Old Garden. Adapted from the novel by Hwang Sok-Yong, Im Sang-Soo’s film is both a fated love story and a fable of political dissidence set against the backdrop of the Gwangju uprising. Reviewed above.
- Once in a Summer. Romance in the summer of 1969, graced by the manly charms of Lee Byung-Hun and the beauty of Soo Ae (Best New Actress 2005 for A Family).
 
- You are My Sunshine. Harrowing melodrama with this year’s winner of Cannes’ Best Actress Award, Jeon Do-Yeon. One of her best performances to date.
- Paradise Murdered. Released in April of this year, Paradise Murdered/1986 is a tricky thriller set in the late 1980’s, about the sudden vanishing of 17 villagers on a remote island.
Written and directed by Kim Han-min, who will be present to introduce his work, the film, starring Park Hae-Il (The Host) and Park Sol-Mi, topped the Korean box office for three consecutive weeks.
- Tazza: The High Rollers. Superb stylish gambling film, reviewed in these pages: here.
- 200 Pound Beauty. A plastic-surgery pop comedy that brought Kim A-Joong stardom and all the things that go with it. Director Kim Yong-Hwa will be there to talk about his movie.
- Unstoppable Marriage. A hit comedy about two young lovers who struggle to get parental permission to tie the knot. A good occasion to watch the charming Eugene from S.E.S. (sigh), who has been quite low-profile since her glorious bygone pop days.
- A 5-film retrospective of veteran director Im Kwon-Taek, who has made his 100th work this year (the aptly named Across The Years, which will be shown in Toronto in September): Chunhyang, Festival, Seopyonje, Come Come Upward, The General’s Son.
- “Tartan Asia Extreme presents Korean Horror Day” - a collection of 7 films, courtesy of Tartan Asia.
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Featured Events
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Sunday, 01 July 2007 |
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A Petal: Jang Sun-Woo's controversial masterpiece
On Thursday, July 12 at 6:30 PM, there will be a special screening of Jang Sun-Woo’s A Petal (1996) and a Q&A Session with Actress Lee Young-Lan, Associate Professor of drama at Kyung Hee University.Voted one of the “Best 50 Korean Films” by the Chosun-Ilbo Newspaper (July 16, 1998), this very controversial film by the director of Lies, Timeless Bottomless Bad Movie and Resurrection of the Little Match Girl has never been released as a commercial DVD. The only extant version is from a private collection put out for research and promotional purposes, and is part of a series called The Varied Colors of Korean Cinema, distributed only to academic and diplomatic institutions.
Lee Young-Lan, actress and academic
Lee Young-Lan, who won a Best Supporting Actress Award in 1996 at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival for her stirring performance, will talk with the audience about the making of the film, the impact its release had throughout Asia and the painful, lingering legacy of the Gwangju uprising, which has been described by some commentators as the “Korean Tienanmen”.
Lee Young-Lan stands right at the crossroads of theory and praxis, and in many ways, of East and West. An actress on the big screen and on stage, she is also one of Korea’s leading academics in her field. Her theatrical career favors one-person shows, large scale outdoor environmental theatrical happenings, and feminist works such as the annual Anti-Miss Korea Festival. She has also appeared in major feature films, like Kang Je-Gyu’s Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War. In 2005, she received the Critic’s Special Mention at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in Sara Jeanne. She began her tertiary education in dance at Ewha Woman’s University—Korea’s leading all female university that is similar to America’s Smith College. She then completed her M.A. in Performance Studies at New York University. She is at the tail end of completing her dissertation at Chungang University.
The following interview was conducted on June 12th, at The Korea Society.
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News
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Monday, 25 June 2007 |
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E. J-Yong's iconic one-eyed youngster
By an odd coincidence, while I was enjoying a rather delicious Chinese dinner (incidentally, the title of a little-known Japanese yakuza film) on Mott street last Friday, the NYAFF (New York Asian Film Festival) kicked off with a screening of Feng Xiaogang’s The Banquet (a sumptuous, if a bit self-indulgent take on Hamlet, wuxia style) at the IFC Center and a party sponsored by “John Woo Presents Stranglehold” (a very messy affair, apparently) and Kirin Beer.
This year, Goran Topalovic’s team has partnered with Korea’s Mise-en-scène’s Genres Film Festival (MGFF) to bring over a variety of horror, comedy, melodrama, sci-fi and action short films, selected by MGFF’s prestigious committee/jury members, including directors Park Chan-Wook, Ryu Seung-Wan, E. J-Yong (whom I had the pleasure and the honor to interview yesterday at the IFC Center’s café... our exchange will find its way on line pretty soon), Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), Kim Jee-Woon (A Bittersweet Life), and Jang Joon-Hwan (Save the Green Planet).
The festival offers a sizable, strong and eclectic selection of Korean films, which I guess owes a lot to chief programmer Grady Hendrix’s taste for Asian genre cinema and a penchant for oddball filmmaking and weirdness in general (which I partially share, if I may say so myself):
- Ryu Seung-wan’s The City of Violence (2006). Not his best work, but a decent action flick, strongly reminiscent of Hong Kong’s golden age (the early 90’s as well as the Shaw Brothers era). It feels a little derivative, but has a couple of long action sequences that are, in fact, so raw and intense that they make the film more than worth the price of the admission: the central piece where the main character, played by Jeong Du-Hong, is confronted with dozens (50? 100?) of hostile youths from all over the city, and the final showdown with the white-clad bodyguards in a Dragon Inn look-alike mansion, are anthology pieces. By the same director, I much preferred Crying Fist, a superb boxing film, and Arahan, a reworking of the wuxia in modern-day Seoul. Having said that, The City of Violence will certainly please audiences familiar with Chang Cheh's The Boxer from Shantung, among other films.
Him against the world... or at least, a whole bunch of juvenile deliquents
- Two gangster dramas, Cruel Winter Blues (2006) by Lee Jeong-Beom and The Show Must Go on (2007) by Han Jae-Rim, which both stand out of the standard neo-noir fare that has been all the rage for quite a while now, because of the performance of the main actors, Seol Gyeong-Gu (Peppermint Candy, Public Enemy, Oasis, etc.) and Song Kang-Ho, arguably South Korea’s most popular actor.
- A disorienting madhouse love story signed by Park Chan-wook, I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006). The film divided both critics and audiences in Korea (and elsewhere), but is still highly recommended for the visuals and the performance of the actors. Formally speaking, I thought it was a masterpiece. For the rest, it really is up to the sensibility of the viewer. Warning: UFO (Unidentified Film Object).
- Kim Dae-Seung’s mushy drama Trace of Love (2006). Not sure why they picked up this one.
- Yoon Jae-Kyeong’s unusual, bittersweet boxing/gangster/social comedy, Miracle on 1st Street (2007). A surprisingly good film, especially coming from the trio that was behind Sex Is Zero, which was not exactly a masterpiece of Korean cinema (but still a good piece of entertainment). And Ha Ji-Won is in it. Not to be missed.
- Joe Beom-Jin’s scatological post-apocalyptic animation Aachi and Ssipak (2006).
- E. J-Yong’s socio-sexual black comedy Dasepo Naughty Girls (2006), voted “worst Korean movie ever” by the peninsula’s netizen community, and to my mind, the best work of this year’s Korean selection and a bizarrerie destined to become, sooner or later, a cult classic.
- The sci-fi oddity Never Belongs to Me (2005) by Nam Ki-Woong.
Check out Subway Cinema's NYAFF calendar here
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News
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Monday, 25 June 2007 |
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The movie version of the best-selling Tokyopop manhwa title, Hyung Min-Woo’s Priest, possibly the darkest, bloodiest story ever pencilled by a Korean comic book artist, will finally see the light of day... very shortly. Sony’s Screen Gems will take care of the distribution, while production will be placed in the adept hands of ex-horror master Sam Raimi (director of the three Spiderman), and his company, Ghost House Pictures (he produced Shimizu Takashi’ remakes of his own Grudges movies). The movie is set to start shooting on October 1st under the direction of Andrew Douglas (Amytiville Horror, the 2004 version of the classic horror film).
The series follows the tragic steps of Ivan Isaacs, a priest who traded half his soul to the devil Belial, in exchange for the power to come back from the dead and wreak his vengeance on the mad angel that caused the death of his beloved. The fallen scholar-ecclesiastic becomes an enraged killing machine and starts waging an unholy war on a legion of demons and other damned flesh-eating creatures in an imaginary Wild West that looks literally like hell, or perhaps, like one of the six Buddhist worlds: the realm of the ashura, where permanent war is the natural state of things. An elaborate epic, full of sound and fury, with abundant and complex theological twists and turns, this manhwa is certainly not the story of the genre that lends itself the best to an adaptation for the silver screen, but visually, it was practically begging for Hollywood to exploit (butcher?) it, and it is the first South Korean series to be licensed for a major feature film.
The script, penned by a newcomer, Cory Goodman, describes the adaptation as a “vampire western” that tells the story of “a warrior priest who disobeys church law by teaming with a young sheriff and a priestess to track down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped his niece.” Which already sounds a little worrying (and quite far from the original material), but why not? Wait and see…
Rumor has it that Gerald Butler (King Leonidas in Spaaaarta!, oops... 300) could be cast as the main character.
The manhwa is worth the read, but is not for the squeamish:
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Portraits
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Saturday, 09 June 2007 |
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Jeon Do-Yeon, getting the baise-main from Alain Delon
May 27th 2007: Jeon Do-Yeon, wearing a silver lamé evening gown, walks to the stage to receive Europe’s top acting prize from the hands of legendary French actor Alain Delon; she is walking in the footsteps of Kang Soo-Yeon, who won the Best Actress Prize at the Venice Film Festival twenty years ago (for her role in Im Kwon-Taek’s Sibaji/The Surrogate Womb) and Moon So-Ri, who won Best New Performer at the same festival last year (for her part in Oasis, directed by Chang-Dong, who also worked with Jeon on Secret Sunshine, which is hardly a coincidence).
As Pusan International Film Festival director Kim Dong-Ho put it, after the award ceremony: “It’s a monumental achievement for an Asian actress to win the Best Actress award at Cannes.”
Jeon is indeed the first Korean and second Asian actress to win this title at the Cannes Film Festival. Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, who was on the jury this year, won in 2004 with Clean, under the direction of Olivier Assayas.
Jeon Do-Yeon, 34 years old: the apex of her career?
Predictably, Jeon’s distinction hit the headlines of the national Korean press and drew congratulations from President Roh Moo-Hyun. One of the most prominent figures of South-Korean cinema, the actress has nevertheless known very little international exposure until this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Jeon’s achievement shows that Korean cinema still fares very well in the international film festival circuit, while it does not necessarily translate into massive sales in the global movie industry. Since 2000, Korean directors Im Kwon-Taek (with Chihwaseon in 2002), Lee Chang-dong (with Oasis in 2002), Park Chan-Wook (with Old Boy in 2004) and Kim Ki-Duk (with Samaria and 3-Iron in 2004) have won best director and the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals. But the Korean actress is the first one from the peninsula to be honored for her exceptional skills on screen – a well-timed ray of sunshine in the recent media industry doom and gloom. As Jeon herself commented, there were many outstanding actresses in competition this year in Cannes, including Romanian Anamaria Marinca in Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (which won the supreme distinction: la Palme d’Or) and Russia’s Galina Vishnevskaya with Alexandra.
Now seems a timely moment to evoke a few important stages of Jeon’s career.
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