Showing posts with label 3D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3D. Show all posts

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Review: Bat-Swinging Gorilla Feature MR GO Is Hit and Miss


By John A. Riley

The premise of Mr Go is that a trained gorilla from China becomes a major league baseball star in South Korea. On paper, this sounds like one of the parodic Troy McLure vehicles from The Simpsons. Mr. Go does indeed paint in broad strokes, seeking wide appeal. It’s a rare Korean film, and is also a co-production with China.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Review: The Philosophical Mystery A FISH


By Pierce Conran

Independent cinema in Korea has been gaining a lot of steam over the last few years, and now, as filmmakers become bolder or seek to distinguish themselves from the pack, stories are becoming more ambitious and the technical tools used to tell them more sophisticated. Case in point is A Fish, an elliptical shaman mystery shot in 3D. Unlike what we’ve come to expect from the format, this is a far cry from big-budget spectacle. It’s a slow art film with a metaphorical and sometimes impenetrable narrative.

A bold and ambitious debut, Park Hong-min’s A Fish is a challenging work that is certain to infuriate just as many viewers as it may enchant. I won’t pretend to have understood it particularly well, but I can say that I was swept up in the strange world it conjured up on a remote Korean island, full of intrigue, spirituality and unanswered questions. Many times I found myself drawing comparisons to David Lynch, whose dream-like narratives have long fascinated and delighted me. But Park’s film is no mere copy: it is a singular work from an exciting new talent in the field.

Monday, August 6, 2012

PiFan 2012: The Suicide Shop 3D (Le Magasin des Suicides, France) 2012


Part of MKC's coverage of the 16th Puchon International Film Festival.

Animation was featured quite prominently at this year’s PiFan, with Japanese works such as Gyo, Rainbow Fireflies, Blood C: The Last Dark, not to mention some retrospectives on the Space Battleship Yamamoto series and Czech animation. Sadly, by the end of the festival the only one I was able to see was The Suicide Shop 3D, a French offering from live-action filmmaker Patrice Leconte.

It looked to be a cross between the stylings of Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville, 2003; The Illusionist, 2008) and the playfully macabre storytelling of Tim Burton. In many ways the film was a combination of those aesthetics but what it lacked was what makes those filmmakers so successful in their craft: originality and heart. Burton may have lost his edge in recent years but his style, which itself was a combination of horror, vaudevillian and campy influences was fresh and invigorating when he burst onto the scenes 30 years ago.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Sector 7 (7-gwang-goo) 2011

Straight off the bat I can say that the most anticipated Korean blockbuster of 2011, aside from Christmas’ war epic My Way from Jang Je-gyu, is easily the worst film I’ve seen all year, no matter how you look at it.  It’s very easy to see what went wrong, one bad decision was made after another, with barely any right ones in between.  What is not so easy to understand is how things went wrong.  Though I would not label Sector 7’s filmmakers as the cream of the crop, they normally seem to know what they’re doing and consistently deliver solid, if overly sentimental fare.  They are endowed with a keen ability to whet Korea’s insatiable appetite for melodrama.

Oil rig bonding
Curiously, there is little to no melodrama in Sector 7.  It hints at it a few times but seems to abandon it in favor of concocting a copycat medley of rehashed Hollywood plot devices and production techniques.  It is truly a triumph of expectation over delivery as I cannot imagine any producer seeing a cut of this expensive bomb and proclaiming “We have a hit on our hands!”  The film’s pre-release exposure was enormous, everyone (at least in Korea and on the internet) knew about it being the first Korean 3D IMAX film, numerous posters and trailers were available, and the entertainment rags were all talking up Ha Ji-won’s arduous workout regimen.  When the day came, it opened very strong before the poisonous word of mouth pulled it right back out of theaters within weeks.

Clearly it was the intent of Yoon Je-kyoon (producer/writer) and Kim Ji-hoon (director) to copy every similar film that had met with a lot of success in the hope that their synthetic product would also be a big hit.  Ha Ji-won is basically an Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver’s iconic character in the Alien franchsie) stand-in, the oil rig is from Armageddon (1998), a major character’s death and resurrection is lifted from the first Lord of the Rings, the genesis of the monster is not dissimilar to Korea’s own The Host (2006), and the list goes on.

Ha Ji-won, tough as nails... apparently
In fact, the film is a veritable cornucopia of metanarratives.  Curiously, aside from lifting all of its plot elements, characters, set-pieces, and effects from other movies, it also has a link to the popular K-Drama Secret Garden (2010) which ends with Ha Ji-won’s stuntwoman character being given the script of Sector 7.  Clever synergy?  I suppose so.  Even stranger is that her characters in both the show and the film are identical.  Women that are physically strong but emotionally weak and incapable of making decisions.  Stranger still is that her tragically deceased father is incarnated by Jeong In-gi in both.  Everything about Sector 7 is constructed, even the sets aren’t real as most of it was shot on green screen.  As a result it barely feels like a film and the chief cause of this is just how badly it is made. 

Unlike Yoon’s previous blockbuster, the tsunami-themed Haeundae (2009), Sector 7 spares little time for scene-setting and character development. A brief underwater intro features a pair of oil drillers setting in place a pipe.  A couple of little glowing creatures swim around them, suddenly they attack and one of the men falls to his death.  Fast forward to the present where we are directly introduced to the hardy (but strangely Spartan) crew of an oil rig.  They are battling with a malfunctioning pipe and being doused in brute petroleum, no doubt reinforcing the intrinsic bond between them.  Cha Hae-joon (Ha Ji-won) is pretty but tough as nails and shows grit alongside the men.  A couple of scenes explore the relationships between the rig’s crewmen (and woman), which is to say that nothing happens.  One of those glowing creatures is found and then Anh Suh-kee (Hae-joon’s mentor) comes aboard to aid the exploration of the new underwater oil fields.  Of course he knows more than he lets on and blah blah blah blah blah…

The first of many oil rig bike scenes
What is it that can make a film go oh so wrong?  B-movies, as I’ve explored in my I Am a Dad review, benefit from lowered expectations.  Conversely, when you suffocate the nation’s media outlets for a month, touting your bigger-than-anything-you’ve-ever-seen-before-it blockbuster, you suffer from heightened expectations.  When you go down the latter route but produce a film on par (or below, as is the case) with the former course, you’re left with a big problem that is pretty much irreparable.  You’ve promised something spectacular and eventful but have completely failed to deliver.  Worse than a bad filmmaker, this makes you a liar.

More than anything else, and there’s a lot, two things bothered me the most about Sector 7.  One is the incomprehensibly bad rear-projection technique used in the bike sequences, of which there are four… on an oil rig.  The quality is what you would expect from the 30s or 40s not 2011, worse still is watching Ha Ji-won madly rev the bike and swoop down to her left and right sides, she actually looks like a little 6-year-old boy pretending to ride in a Grand Prix. Yoon, who also produced this summer’s Quick, seems to have a bike fetish.

Sacrifice: LOTR style
The second, and perhaps more upsetting point, is the film’s latent mysoginy.  Hae-joon embodies both male and female traits, the problem is that the male traits are the hero ones, and the female traits are all ugly stereotypes.  Additionally, for a film that attempts to make Ha Ji-won a consummate action star by pitting her as a conquering heroine against a vicious antagonist, the heroics are mostly reserved for the men.  Throughout the film, they are repeatedly sacrificing themselves, one of the characters does so twice! Another does so to save his friend, in what I’m assuming is supposed to be an emotional scene (no such luck).  After he does so, his friend remains rooted to the spot, whimpering, not trying to escape and is then quickly impaled.  In more able hands this might have been a clever send-up but no such attempt is made here, which begs the question, what was the point?

If you decide to get on board Sector 7, here’s what you can expect: wild lapses in logic, rampant misogyny, numerous laughably atrocious rear-projection motorcycle sequences, complete disregard for the natural laws of physiques, risible dialogue and matching delivery, an ugly monster that is never hidden from view, and perpetual references to superior films that it could never hope to match.  Your choice…


Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office UpdateKorean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Korean Cinema News (10/06-10/12, 2011)

Lots of news stemming from the Busan International Film Festival, which is currently underway and will wrap up on Friday.  Also a number of great features and analyses peppered throughout. 


KOREAN CINEMA NEWS

In Review: 2011 Busan International Film Festival
The 2011 Busan International Film Festival (now known as BIFF) began last Thursday and continues until this Friday.  I was able to attend 12 films over the course of the weekend, catching many of the movies I most wanted to see.  Overall the quality was quite strong, with a number of great films that will certainly be among my favorites in what has already been a very good year in world cinema.  (The One One Four, October 12, 2011)

Han Ga-in Returns After Seven Years With Architectural Theory
Actress Han Ga-in, who hasn't starred in a film since Once Upon a Time in High School (2004), will make her comeback with Architectural Theory, the new film from the director of Possessed (2009), Lee Yong-joo-I.  (hancinema.net, October 11, 2011)

Asia’s Directors Embracing 3-D
A 3-D horror movie set in a public toilet block is part of a revolution underway in the Asian film industry as low-budget 3-D productions take on the big studios at their own game.  At the 16th Busan International Film Festival, audiences have been lining up to see the likes of multimillion dollar 3-D productions The Three Musketeers and the reimaged version of the local monster hit The Host (2006).  (Joong Ang Daily, October 12, 2011)

What's Missing from Busan This Year? Hollywood
Notice anything different about the Busan International Film Festival this year?  Actually, there are many changes.  There's a new festival director, Lee Yong-kwan; there's a new venue, the Busan Cinema Center; and the Asian Film Market has moved to the Busan Exhibition and Convention Centre.  But amid all the changes, something's missing: Hollywood.  (The Hollywood Reporter, October 9, 2011)

Korea Contents Fund Showcase at Busan
At the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and the 6th Asian Film Market, fund managers presented a variety of options for filmmakers at the Korea Contents Fund Showcase yesterday.  BIFF Festival Director LEE Yong Kwan opened the event with a message of welcome and thanks.  “It’s a wonderful thing to have these leading investment funds presenting here at the Busan International Film Festival today.  It is one of our goals to support filmmakers to find financing and distribution means, in addition to screening their films in our festival.”  (KOBIZ, October 12, 2011)

BIFF Closing Ceremony Selects Hosts
Director Jang Jin and actress Ryu Hyun-kyung will host the closing ceremony for this year’s Busan International Film Festival.  The ceremony will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday and will signal the end of the nine-day event, now Asia’s largest film festival.  The festival’s opening ceremony was hosted by two actresses, Ye Ji-won and Um Ji-won - representing the first time in history two women had hosted the opening event.  (Joong Ang Daily, October 12, 2011)

Ordinary people presented iPhone-made shorts on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival over the weekend, demonstrating even a 12-year-old can venture into filmmaking as the high-tech handset lowers the age threshold.  Despite featuring no film luminaries and drawing much smaller audiences than the festival’s official selections, these smartphone flicks show how amateurs can take advantage of technology to turn their mundane life into cinematic art.  (Joong Ang Daily, October 12, 2011)

Chapman University Presents The Busan West Asian Film Festival Nov. 11-13, 2011 in Orange, CA
Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, recognized as one of the premiere film schools in the United States, in continued partnership with South Korea's Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), Asia's largest film festival, is proud to announce the Busan West Asian Film Festival, November 11-13 in Orange, Calif.  Busan West presents a unique filmmaker showcase that brings select Asian films and filmmakers from BIFF to the U.S. to create a new platform for heightened recognition outside of Asia.  This year the festival organizers are excited to welcome internationally acclaimed writer/director Bong Joon-ho (Mother, 2009; The Host, 2006; Memories of Murder, 2003), as the Busan West Icon Award recipient.  (hancinema.net, October 10, 2011)

Busan’s Asian Film Market Opens at New Venue
The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF)’s Asian Film Market opened yesterday for the first time in its new venue at the Busan Exhibition Convention Center (BEXCO). The market has reported a 67% increase in sales booths and a 24% increase in participant registration since last year.  (KOBIZ, October 11, 2011)

Little Wonders - The Child Actors of South Korea
The way people perceive of child actors can be guessed by the term itself. "Child actor" instead of "actor", as it is for everyone else.  Whether the world likes it or not, Western cinema, and mainly Hollywood, is the one that is available everywhere and so in our faces that we are often having trouble finding anything else.  So the usual idea people have about child actors as well, comes from Hollywood.  (Orion 21, October 9, 2011)

Showbox Sells Busan Opening Film Always to Japan
Major Korean distributor Showbox/Mediaplex has sold Song Il-gon’s melodrama Always, the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opening film, to Japan’s Pony Canyon.  The film tells the fatal story of a former boxer and a blind girl who fall in love. It stars heartthrob So Ji-sub, who has built a fan-base in Asia after the hit TV series I Am Sorry, I Love You and Jang Hun’s debut feature Rough Cut (2008).  Opposite him stars Han Hyo-joo who swept up drama awards last year for her performance in the TV series Dong-Yi.  (KOBIZ, October 9, 2011)
Two months after the fact, it has been revealed that actress Han Chae-won killed herself on Aug. 25 at her home in Yeonhui-dong, central Seoul. Han was 31 years old.  The Seoul Seodaemun Police Station announced Saturday that Han appeared to have committed suicide since they discovered no signs of murder at the scene.  They did, however, report a suicide note, which said, “I want to die. I’m really sorry for my parents.”   (Joong Ang Daily, October 10, 2011)

Netflix Expanding Asian Movie Selection in Deal with Korea's Top Studio CJ E&M
CJ E&M today announced an agreement to feature twenty of its acclaimed Asian movies on Netflix, the world's leading Internet subscription service for enjoying movies and TV shows.  Beginning in October 2011, Netflix members in the US will be able to instantly watch the twenty titles multiple platforms, including TVs, popular tablets, key gaming consoles, computers and mobile phones.  (hancinema.net, October 7, 2011)

Local Heroes Heed the Call
Films from South Korea had a quietly successful year in the first eight months of 2011, despite a lack of high-profile titles on the international stage.  The industry is set to finish the last quarter in strength with a series of high profile releases.  For the first eight months of the year, local films enjoyed a 49% market share by admissions (47% by box office), a steady increase on the 42% (and 39%) achieved in the first eight months of 2010.  Overall admissions during the period were fractionally up at 107 million with box office at W838 million ($735m).  (Film Business Asia, October 10, 2011)
With a new name, a new venue and an emphasis on actors and directors from lesser-known parts of Asia, this South Korean port city is moving decisively to assert its status as the region's pre-eminent film industry destination.  (Reuters, October 10, 2011)

Kim Kee-duk Back in Director’s Chair
Kim Kee-duk, the 1960s cineaste who is not to be confused with the younger film maverick Kim Ki-duk (Arirang), was honored with a special award from Hermes Korea, Friday.  Kim appeared thoroughly moved as he received the Hermes Director’s Chair, a handsome piece of luxurious leather furniture monogrammed with his name.  (The Hollywood Reporter, October 8, 2011)

Bong Joon-ho’s The Host Gets Converted Into 3D, Sequel Still In The Works
While it’s never been a better time for the crossover of Asian cinema to audiences on this side of the ocean, none have been quite as big as Bong Joon-ho‘s The Host.  The 2006 film became a sensation, not only smashing box office records at home in South Korea, but becoming a must see film stateside, breaking out of its genre niche and finding a larger audience than this kind of flick normally would.  It seems that producers around the world all share the common trait of milking a hit movie for all it’s worth, as not only is there a long gestating sequel to the movie still on the table, until that arrives, The Host has gotten a brand new 3D makeover.  (indieWIRE, October 11, 2011)

Actors Buy 1,000 BIFF Tickets for Underprivileged
Actress Kong Hyo-jin and actor Cha Seung-won purchased 1,000 tickets to the Busan International Film Festival and donated them to organizers to hand out to socially marginalized groups.  (The Chosun Ilbo, October 12, 2011)

Korean WWII Film Promises Big Action, Bigger Drama
A new World War II action drama with an Asian perspective promises never before-seen battle scenes rife with humanist messages.  After holding a large-scale press junket at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the makers of My Way held the first Asian media showcase in Busan on Saturday.  Footages of the 28 billion-won Korea-China co-production were revealed during the event, featuring exquisite period details of 1930s Seoul to bloody battle sequences on European battlegrounds.  (The Hollywood Reporter, October 8, 2011)

Korean Animators Face Screen, Financing Barriers
Leafie, A Hen into the Wild was nicknamed “the emperor of the matinee” in Korea when the film first hit theaters this summer.  An animated film directed by Oh Seong-yoon with the budget of 3 billion won ($2.5 million), it is one of the few Korean animated films that broke 2.5 million admissions domestically. Still, theater owners refused to screen the film during the evening hours.  And when it did, the film was given screens left over by 3D Korean blockbusters such as Sector 7.  (The Hollywood Reporter, October 11, 2011)

Korean Summer Box Office Analysis
It was a summer of higher expectations than ever before.  People wondered if this year might be one that produced another film that clocked up the watershed number of 10 million admissions.  This year, an impressive number of big-scale Korean films were making their debut, including Quick and Sector 7, produced by Haeundae director J.K. Youn; The Front Line directed by Jang Hun, who had shot to stardom with popular films Rough Cut (2008) and Secret Reunion (2010), and War of the Arrows (a.k.a. Arrow, The Ultimate Weapon) by Kim Han-min (Paradise Murdered, 2007;  Handphone, 2009).  (Korean Cinema Today, October 7, 2011)


INTERVIEWS
Actor Song Kang-ho
Not many would dispute the statement that actor Song Kang-ho is one of the best, if not the best actor currently working in the Korean film industry.  He’s always met our expectations and Hindsight is no exception.  Du-heon (Song) has left a gang to start a new life by opening a restaurant when a girl comes into his life.  (Korean Cinema Today, October 7, 2011)

Always Busan Q&A
Press conference took place after a press screening of Always at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival on October 6, 2011.  Appearing as speakers are the movie's director Song Il-Gon, lead actress Han Hyo-Joo and lead actor So Ji-Sub.  AsianMediaWiki editor Ki Mun was there and transcribed/translated the session.  (asianmediawiki, October 6, 2011)


TRAILERS







POSTERS


You Pet


(Modern Korean Cinema, October 10, 2011)


Korean Cinema News is a weekly feature which provides wide-ranging news coverage on Korean cinema, including but not limited to: features; festival news; interviews; industry news; trailers; posters; and box office. It appears every Wednesday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update and the Weekly Review Round-upReviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.