Modern Korean Cinema

Weekly Review Round-up (02/02-0210, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:54:00 +0000

A pair of reviews for the hotly anticipated thriller Howling this week which will be opening on the 16th in Korea. Many more reviews of past and current films also on offer from a wide range of sources. CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES Howling (The Korea Herald, February 8, 2012) (Yonhap News Agency, February 9, 2012) Nameless Gangster (Seonyeong's Private Place, February 4, 2012) RECENT FILMS Always (Hanguk Yeonghwa, February 7, 2012) Blind (YAM Mag, February 9, 2012) Couples (Beyond Hollywood, February 6, 2012) Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow (Init_Scenes, February 3, 2012) Haunters (Init_Scenes, February 5, 2012) Head (Seen in Jeonju, February 3,...

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Korean Cinema News (02/02-02/08, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:41:00 +0000

The big news this week is the announcement of this year's Korean Blogathon which is being presented by cineAWESOME! and New Korean Cinema and will this year be hosted on Modern Korean Cinema and a number of other sites, visit the press release below for more information. 2012 KOREAN BLOGATHON Join Us For ‘Korean Blogathon 2012′ Last year New Korean Cinema played host to the Korean Blogathon – a week which was used to try to shine the spotlight on Korean films and the people who are writing about them online. The response blew us away – over the seven days many great articles emerged from some brilliant writers and this created some interesting discussions about many varied aspects of Korean film and filmmakers. It...

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The Client (박희순, Eui-roi-in) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:26:00 +0000

There are few things more satisfying than a well-performed and thoughtfully structured courtroom drama. I for one have pleasantly idled away many a Sunday afternoon whisked away into the heady wood-paneled halls of justice. The beauty of legal dramas or thrillers is that by way of their conceit they are already confined, for the most part, to one location and as viewers we accept this fact. More than most genres, with courtroom films we largely know what we’re getting ourselves into. So what makes these films so popular when they are so constrained by their design? Their narratives typically do not require the presence of too many characters and often eschew subplots which may otherwise seem contrived. ...

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Korean Box Office Update (02/03-02/05, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:33:00 +0000

Nameless Gangster Leads the Charge as Local Films Clean Out the Competition Title Release Date Market Share Weekend Total Screens 1 Nameless Gangster 2/2/12 38.90% 917,379 1,092,987 701 2 Unbowed 1/18/12 16.40% 406,646 2,642,340 454 3 Dancing Queen 1/18/12 12.80% 322,688 2,734,699 436 4 Tarbosaurus 3D 1/26/12 11.20% 219,930 662,139 320 5 Papa 2/1/12 7.90% 213,946 292,295 414 6 Happy Feet 2 2/2/12 4.40% 99,405 109,141 312 7 Puss in Boots 1/12/12 3.50% 83,013 2,005,691 247 8 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 1/19/12 1.40% 36,000 1,119,487 174 9 I Don't Know How She...

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Weekly Review Round-up (01/28-02/03, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:09:00 +0000

A couple of reviews of current films, including the hotly anticipated Nameless Gangster and lots of reviews for past films this week, including a trio concerning Lee Myeong-se's gorgeous Duelist (2005), which was screened in London with a Q&A from Lee himself as part of the KCCUK's 12 Korean Directors program of 2012. CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES Dancing Queen (hancinema.net, January 28, 2012) Nameless Gangster (enewsworld.com, January 27, 2012) RECENT FILMS Children... (Korean Candy, February 1, 2012) Couples (Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 28, 2012) Death Bell: Bloody Camp (Twitch, February 2, 2012) Hanji (Hanguk Yeonghwa, February 2, 2012) Hindsight (Modern Korean Cinema, January 30,...

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Top 10 Korean Films of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

All in all 2011 was a bit of a disappointing year for Korean cinema, at least as far as commercial cinema was concerned. On the other hand, independent films continued to build on their success of the last few years. However, I'm not overly worried about the state of the industry because at the end of the day it doesn't produce a huge amount of films and is more susceptible to the ebbs and flows of projects than a larger filmmaking centre like Hollywood. In any case, 2012 looks to be a much stronger year for Korean film. For a while I was getting very worried about what my top 10 for the year would like, a month ago I'd only seen four of the films listed here. Thankfully a number of more recent releases became...

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Korean Cinema News (01/26-02/01, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:23:00 +0000

NY's Korean Film Festival is back and the KCCUK is holding 12 mini director's retrospectives through 2012 in London, so it's a good time to be a Korean film fan (at least if you live in a major metropolis). Lots of interviews, including three for Lee Myeung-se, trailers, posters, and box office news this week. Don't miss MKC's own feature on How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists. KOREAN CINEMA NEWS Popular New Film Gives Hope to Independent Filmmakers “Should I put the word ‘arrowhead’ in a movie title?” joked a film producer during a recent meeting with the Hankyoreh. The producer’s company certainly hit their target at the box office. The follow-up to last year’s hit War of the...

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How Korean Cinema Fared on 2011's Year-end Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:21:00 +0000

Top 10 or end-of-year lists are one of my great guilty pleasures. I know that ultimately they don't really mean very much and are guaranteed to be subjective, arbitrary, and divisive. Yet I am always eager to discover other people's lists come year's end. To see how my favorites films fared, to discover some things I may have missed and to generally scrutinize the palaver of this enduring critic's ritual. I thought it would be fun to see how Korean films did on 2011's lists, if only to see what and how many Korean films generated international attention. So I went ahead and tracked down every list I could find which featured a Korean film. I found 70, including 7 which only considered Korean cinema, a...

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Hindsight (푸른 소금, Poo-reun-so-geum) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:47:00 +0000

A few days ago, I saw Lee Hyeon-seung’s new film Hindsight and as I’m sitting at my computer, trying to gather my thoughts on it, I’m beginning to realize just how conflicted I am about it. As a result I’m having a little trouble figuring out how to begin this review. I suppose I could start off by saying that it was an admirable effort. The film is a curious concoction of tropes and devices which are individually recognizable but combine into an unfamiliar whole. I love to cook and I am a keen admirer of beautiful cinematography so the film already ticks a few boxes for me. What’s more, it has some incredible moments and above all ambition. Hindsight was mostly derided upon its release, in large part due...

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Korean Box Office Update (01/27-01/29, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:04:00 +0000

Unbowed Shoots to the Top During Big Weekend for Korean Film Title Release Date Market Share Weekend Total Screens 1 Unbowed 1/18/12 28.0 % 717,580 1,874,338 528 2 Dancing Queen 1/18/12 23.0 % 598,192 2,100,968 543 3 Tarbosaurus 1/26/12 15.6 % 330,411 366,523 454 4 Puss in Boots (us) 1/11/12 10.7 % 260,898 1,852,530 375 5 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (us) 1/19/12 9.2 % 216,196 1,029,499 369 6 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (us) 12/15/11 3.7 % 92,673 7,490,425 259 7 Pacemaker 1/18/12 2.3 % 60,634 429,413 309 8 We Bought a Zoo...

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Weekly Review Round-up (01/21-01/27, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:48:00 +0000

Another slew of The Front Line reviews and much else besides including a number for current Korean films and the longest review of Penny Pinchers that is ever likely to be written! This edition of the Weekly Review Round-up marks the 6-month anniversary of the weekly feature and I'm happy that it has met with such a strong reception over that time. Thank you all for supporting it! CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES Jam Docu Gangjung (The Jeju Weekly, January 20, 2012) Perfect Game (Seongyong's Private Place, December 24, 2012) Unbowed (Seongyong's Private Place, January 18, 2012) RECENT RELEASES Cyrano Agency (Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 22, 2012) From Seoul to Varanasi (Film Business Asia,...

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The Day He Arrives (북촌 방향, Book-chon Bang-hyang) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:58:00 +0000

As far as the critical discourse of Korean cinema goes, few filmmakers have a more commanding presence than Hong Sang-soo, whose flowing narratives often feel like chapters in the same grand story. In a sense, his body of work reminds me of some of the 19th century’s most prolific French writers, such as Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola whose main outputs consisted of The Human Comedy and the Rougon-Macquart cycles, which consisted of 91 and 20 volumes respectively. In these exceedingly rich opuses, the French wordsmiths crafted dense worlds, which mirrored the societies they lived in and repeated the same themes and concerns through similar stories and with large casts of revolving characters. Hong’s output is much less...

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Korean Cinema News (01/19-01/25, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:35:00 +0000

More casting news for Snow Piercer this week as Jamie Bell and John Hurt are added (though MKC originally reported the latter a few weeks ago). A number of great features this week including one from VCinema (a site to which I contribute). Another big piece of news is the status of Korean films at the local box office which broke the 50% mark last year, more on this in the box office section. Finally a new section detailing Upcoming Releases of Korean films (which can be found in the above tabs) has been added to MKC and will be updated regularly. The Celluloid Traveler: In Search of The Host on the Han River The Han River splits the city of Seoul neatly in two. North of the river lies the city’s past: huge,...

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Korean Box Office Update (01/20-01/22, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Dancing Queen Waltzes to First Place During Busy Lunar New Year Weekend Title Release Date Market Share Weekend Total Screens 1 Dancing Queen 1/18/12 23.30% 508,463 632,457 520 2 Unbowed 1/18/12 17.60% 384,102 477,465 399 3 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (us) 1/19/12 16.70% 327,053 373,288 392 4 Puss in Boots (us) 1/11/12 14.40% 287,000 1,199,347 450 5 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us) 12/15/11 7.20% 151,106 7,186,748 276 6 Pacemaker 1/18/12 5.70% 126,629 193,025 418 7 The Neverending Story 1/18/12 3.90% 88,741 139,138 267 8 We Bought a Zoo (us) ...

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Weekly Review Round-up (01/14-01/20, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:00 +0000

Lots of reviews this week with The Front Line being released in the US. Four movies also came out this week in Korea though as of yet only review has surfaced, expect more to come. CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES Dancing Queen (The Korea Times, January 19 2012) My Way (hancinema.net, January 14, 2012) RECENT RELEASES A Better Tomorrow (Varied Celluloid, January 13, 2012) Bedevilled (Init_Scenes, January 18, 2012) Choked (Film Business Asia, January 16, 2012) Come Rain, Come Shine (Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 13, 2012) Countdown (Modern Korean Cinema, January 19, 2012) I Saw the Devil (examiner.com, January 14, 2012) Moby Dick (Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 16, 2012) Mother Is a...

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Countdown (카운트다운, 2011) and the Rise and Fall of the Korean Star System

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:46:00 +0000

Around the same time that South Korea emerged as a global economic force in the early 1990s as it went about the process of shaking off the gloom from decades of authoritarian oppression, the film industry began to see a lot of changes. Large corporations began to fund some projects and film production rapidly modernized. The quality and budgets of films rose. Another aspect of the industry that began to take shape was the star system. Given the low market share of Korean films at that point, there weren’t many household names in the local film industry since the larger public would not have been aware of the films much less the stars. As the 1990s progressed however, a few names became known to local film...

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Korean Cinema News (01/12-01/18, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:33:00 +0000

Lots of great features this week and a few more 2011 wrap-ups. Also some casting news for Bong Joon-ho's hotly anticipated Snow Piercer, I certainly the Tilda Swinton piece materializes! Some great trailers and more also featured featured this week. KOREAN CINEMA NEWS Korean Cinema 2011: the View from Here How do you introduce new Korean films to an American audience? US-based author and curator of film at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC, Tom VICK shares his views on recent trends he has noticed programming their Korean film festival. Korea’s film industry produces a deluge of commercial and independent releases. But recent years have brought a proliferation of young,...

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Korean Box Office Update (01/13-01/15, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:02:00 +0000

Puss in Boots Holds Local Films at Bay Title Release Date Market Share Weekend Total Screens 1 Puss in Boots (us) 1/11/12 33.80% 590,740 704,725 593 2 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us) 12/15/11 18.00% 362,326 6,914,588 461 3 Love On-Air 1/5/12 10.80% 225,174 781,810 358 4 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (us) 1/11/12 9.50% 185,758 228,385 321 5 Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (us) 12/21/11 7.70% 154,399 2,160,333 270 6 Perfect Game 12/21/11 6.40% 128,734 1,392,738 266 7 The Outback 1/12/12 3.30% 70,297 87,383 234 8 White Vengeance (hk) 1/11/12 2.70% 55,498 ...

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Weekly Review Round-up (01/07-01/13, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:24:00 +0000

A pair of reviews for last year's breakout debut Bleak Night and a number of writeups for various independent and classic Korean film to boot. RECENT RELEASES Bleak Night (Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 8, 2012) (Modern Korean Cinema, January 8, 2012) Fighting Spirit (Modern Korean Cinema, January 10, 2012) Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild (hancinema.net, January 7, 2012) Moss (Flickering Myth, January 9, 2012) Passerby #3 (Rainy Day Movies, January 9, 2012) Quick (Modern Korean Cinema, January 12, 2012) Re-encounter (Hangul Celluloid, January 9, 2012) Sector 7 (Beyond Hollywood, January 10, 2012) Sunny (Rainy Day Movies, January 11, 2011) The Servant (Asian Movie Web, January 9,...

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Quick (퀵, Kwik) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:40:00 +0000

Bikes Having more or less caught up with all of the this past summer’s major Korean releases, the first thing that comes to mind is that if I ever see a motorbike in a Korean film again, it will be far, far too soon. The two main culprits in my eyes are Sector 7 and Quick, and the thing that they share in common is Yoon Je-kyoon, the producer who was also the director behind such hits as My Boss, My Hero (2001), Sex Is Zero (2002), Miracle on 1st Street (2007), and Haeundae (2009). Not too long ago I decided to savage Sector 7 in my review as I felt it was a disaster that needed to be called out for the contempt it showed its audience, thinking moviegoers would be content with novel 3D effects at the expense of a solid story and...

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Korean Cinema News (01/05-01/11, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:08:00 +0000

Still not too much news at the beginning of the year but there a few pieces looking at the year ahead and the one just past as well as a brand new English trailer for The Front Line as it gets ready to bow in the US courtesy of Well Go Entertainment. KOREAN CINEMA NEWS Big-Budget Films to Open in 2012 While 2011 saw the release of some novel, genre-defying works, not many local films aside from Sunny and War of the Arrows (a.k.a. Arrow, The Ultimate Weapon) managed to draw crowds at the box office. This year, a lineup of big-budget films featuring the return of big stars await moviegoers. (The Korea Times, January 5, 2012) Best News Stories of the Year Twitch, in its annual best news stories feature, ranked...

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Fighting Spirit (투혼, Too-hon) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000

Baseball film? Think again. Kim Sang-jin is one of the biggest names of modern Korean cinema. He got his start with early films such as Money in the Account (1995), Gangster Lessons (1996), and Two Cops 3 (1998) but always as a contracted director behind a big producer like Kang Woo-suk. It wasn’t until 1999 that he got his real start with the anarchic hit Attack the Gas Station, which was stamped with Kim’s signature style that has since led to hit after hit. He’s not the first name that comes to mind when considering the box office clout of Korean directors, but you would be hard pressed to name a director who has been a more consistent and impressive force on the Korean box office charts. Attack the Gas...

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Korean Box Office Update (01/06-01/08, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:09:00 +0000

MI4 Takes Fourth Victory Lap, Closes in on Record Title Release Date Weekend Total 1 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us) 12/15/11 477,851 6,243,796 2 Wonderful Radio 1/5/12 281,296 334,855 3 Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (us) 12/21/11 223,500 1,862,606 4 Perfect Game 12/21/11 133,580 1,155,313 5 Friends: Naki on Monster Island (jp) 12/29/11 118,342 407,958 6 My Way 12/21/11 112,905 2,002,323 7 The Darkest Hour (us) 1/5/12 82,684 98,450 8 Lion King 3D (us) 7/9/94 46,257 270,993 9 Spellbound 12/1/11 46,231 2,945,469 10 Pokemon: White - Victini and Zekrom (jp) 12/22/11 30,116 ...

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Bleak Night (파수꾼, Pa-soo-ggoon) 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:02:00 +0000

It’s amazing to witness what can be done with little resources and in 2011, a year filled with high-falutin, hollow, and very disappointing blockbusters, there were many films that did just that. One in particular managed to do the most with the least. The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has been training some of the peninsula’s best talent since the 1980s, including Bong Joon-ho, Im Sang-soo, and Kim Tae-gyun, and these days, as it produces four feature-length projects per year, it looks set to develop an even larger pool of talent. Not long ago I discussed the importance of Korean film schools in a piece on the Korean National University of Arts (K’Arts) short Metamorpheses. The technical competence of Korean...

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Weekly Review Round-up (12/31, 2011 - 01/06, 2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Pierce Conran) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:28:00 +0000

For the first WEEKLY REVIEW ROUND-UP of 2012, a few reviews for new releases in Korea and a lot of pieces on older Korean films which is always nice to see. CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES Pacemaker (The Korea Times, January 4, 2012) Spellbound (8Asians, January 4, 2012) (The One One Four, January 2, 2012) Wonderful Radio (The Korea Times, December 29, 2011) RECENT RELEASES A Better Tomorrow (joblo.com, January 4, 2012) GLove (Modern Korean Cinema, January 5, 2012) Mama (Modern Korean Cinema, January 3, 2012) Man of Vendetta (Rainy Day Movies, January 3, 2012) No Doubt (Init_Scenes, January 4, 2012) Poongsan (Asian Movie Web, January 2, 2012) Rolling Home With a...

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