Showing posts with label the yellow sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the yellow sea. Show all posts

Friday, April 27, 2012

Weekly Review Round-up (04/21-04/27, 2012)

A number reviews for My Way as it plays in limited release across the US and some reviews from the recent Terracotta Far East Film Festival and the current Udine Far East Film Festival.


RECENT RELEASES


(A Girl's Journey to the East, April 27, 2012)

(Cine Vue, April 22, 2012)

(Hangul Celluloid, April 24, 2012)

(London Korean Links, April 22, 2012)

(Seen in Jeonju, April 22, 2012)

Dancing Queen

(CUEAFS, April 22, 2012)

My Way

(The One One Four, April 22, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 26, 2012)

(Twitch, April 25, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

Silenced

(CUEAFS, April 25, 2012)

(Drama Beans, April 22, 2012)

(Salon, April 21, 2012)

(Rockets & Robots Are Go, April 21, 2012)

(Columbia Daily Tribune, April 26, 2012)

(myreviewer.com, April 27, 2012)


PAST FILMS


(Japan Cinema, April 27, 2012)

(Otherwhere, April 23, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, April 24, 2012)

Iodo, 1977
(Modern Korean Cinema, April 24, 2012)

Mr. Wacky, 2006
(VCinema Show, April 24, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

Pollen, 1972
(Modern Korean Cinema, April 24, 2012)

Rainy Days, 1979
(Modern Korean Cinema, April 25, 2012)

(mihansa.net, April 19, 2012)

(Korean Grindhouse, April 21, 2012)

(Aidy Revies, April 26, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 27, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, April 27, 2012)


The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office UpdateReviews 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.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Weekly Review Round-up (03/31-04/06, 2012)

Great cross-section of reviews this week including for a number of new releases.

Enjoy!


CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES


(Film Business Asia, April 6, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, April 5, 2012)

(Variety, March 29, 2012 - Paid Subscription)

Stateless Things


RECENT RELEASES


(Film in Asian, April 2, 2012)

(Digital Retribution, April 4, 2012)

(The One One Four, April 1, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, April 1, 2012)

(China.org.cn, March 30, 2012)

(Variety, March 30, 2012 - Paid Subscrition)

My Way

(hancinema.net, March 31, 2012)

The Yellow Sea


PAST FILMS


(Init_Scene, March 31, 2012)

(Korean Class Massive, April 2, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, March 30, 2012)

My Love, 2007
(Init_Scenes, April 1, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, April 5, 2012)

(Korean Grindhouse, March 31, 2012)

(Seen in Jeonju, April 1, 2012)


The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office UpdateReviews 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.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Weekly Review Round-up (03/24-03/30, 2012)

Lots of review for Na Hong-jin's The Yellow Sea which was released this past monday on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK by Eureka Entertainment.  Also special shout out to refresh_daemon who has been particularly productive this week over on his Init_Scenes site!


CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES


(Seongyong's Private Place, March 24, 2012)


RECENT RELEASES


(Beyond Hollywood, March 27, 2012)

(Film Business Asia, March 24, 2012)

(hancinema.net, March 24, 2012)

(Korean Candy, March 27, 2012)

(AsianCineFest, March 23, 2012)

(Beyond Hollywood, March 26, 2012)

(Hangul Celluloid, March 28, 2012)

The Yellow Sea


PAST FILMS


(Init_Scenes, March 26, 2012)

(Korean Grindhouse, March 25, 2012)

First Kiss, 1998
(Init_Scenes, March 29, 2012)

(Dramas Whoo!, March 26, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, March 27, 2012)

(North Korean Films, March 28, 2012)

Oldboy, 2003
(Init_Scenes, March 25, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, March 24, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, March 23, 2012)



The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office UpdateReviews 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.


Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Yellow Sea (황해, Hwang-hae) 2010


Since the days of the New Korean Wave of the late 80s and early 90s men in Korean cinema have frequently found themselves on the road in search of answers, a home and their identity.  In contemporary Korean cinema male characters are for the most part much more comfortably settled within the progressive society of modern Korea and yet their philosophical dilemmas still simmer under the surface, refusing to go away.

Four years ago, Na Hong-jin burst onto the scene with one of the most remarkable debuts in modern times.  The Chaser was an under-the-radar genre effort from a rookie director with two mid-level stars, and yet it became one of the highest grossing films of the year and along with The Good, the Bad and the Weird was also one of Korea’s most popular exports.  Today, in the spring of 2012, Na and his two stars Kim Yun-seok and Ha Jung-woo are among the heavyweights of the Korean film industry.  Kim’s last five films have all attracted well over 2 million admissions; in fact most of them have soared over the 5 million mark (The Chaser; Woochi, 2009; Punch, 2011), a enormous benchmark in the Korean industry that few films have reached.  The charismatic Ha is now one of the country’s top leading men, indeed two of his films topped the box office last month alone (Nameless Gangster, Love Fiction).


For Na’s sophomore feature, the gang got back together again and delivered another worldwide hit in The Yellow Sea, originally released in Korea in December 2010 and presented internationally at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2011.  Just like his first film, Na’s follow up is firmly rooted in genre but disassembles and reconstructs it to further his own ends.  Beginning as an ominous rumble in the distance, the film accelerates to the point that it becomes a heart-pumping descent into despair. 

Ha Jung-woo plays Goo-nam, a down on his luck cab driver in the Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture of Northeast China who loses at mahjong every night as he hopelessly tries to earn enough money to pay off the loan sharks who funded his wife’s passage to Korea.  He’s offered a job to clear his debt by Jeong-hak (Kim Yun-seok), which sees him smuggled into Seoul in order to kill a man.  He has a week to carry out the contract and while on the peninsula will try to track down his wife whom he hasn’t heard from since she left.


Na’s mise-en-scene is downbeat, gritty and very evocative.  We follow Goo-nam around Yanji, a dirty city full of forgotten souls.  It operates like a lawless border town, steeped in vice and hopelessness.  The film is split into a few chapters which each up the stakes over the last.  Goo-nam’s debasement is the key narrative point for much of the film and more than anything, what defines this is his fractured identity.

Throughout most of The Yellow Sea he find himself in transit or on the run.  He is preyed upon and taken advantage of from the outset; his lack of clear national identity is also the source of his lack of confidence.  There is an early scene which features stray dogs and it quickly becomes clear that this is what he is.  He only fights back through the basest instincts of survival.  Much of the action takes place in boats, buses, cars, ports and roads and Goo-nam is always in danger.  Like the emasculated males that found themselves wandering the roads of earlier Korean cinema, he seeks his identity through lines of transportation but in modern Korea, a country that often seeks to forget about its past, he is not welcome.  He is a visible and painful reminder of an oppressive and traumatic recent history.  Whether jumping off a boat, apprehended on a bus, chased on the street or crashed into while driving a car, he is forced into the wild, away from civilization.  Conversely it is only in these scenes, high up in the mountains, that the threat dissipates.  Despite the looming danger, he is safe in the untouched and austere calm of the outdoors.


The Yellow Sea begins as a gritty drama and thriller, and then turns into a suspense film for its second chapter but then becomes an unapologetic and propulsive action film for the significant remainder of the running time which, though 140 minutes long, is breathless.  It’s an exhausting and sometimes morbid experience to be sure, but the pure energy and raw vitality of the set pieces are exceptionally effective.  Much of the pulsating back half of the film had me short of breath.

Just like in The Chaser, Ha and Kim are exceptional.  Though their roles as protagonist and antagonist are reversed, they are remarkably engaging.  Ha truly embodies Goo-nam’s despair while Kim, despite his dead eyes and listless mumble is one of the most ferocious and animalistic cinema villains of recent times.

I will say that The Yellow Sea is best enjoyed as a genre effort as held under close dramatic scrutiny, it may turn up some unsatisfying conclusions.  A small price to pay in my eyes for what was one of the most invigorating cinematic experiences of the last few years.  While Korean cinema may have a lot more to offer than its thrillers, when a film like this comes along, it’s easy to see what all the fuss is about.

The Yellow Sea is out on DVD/Blu-ray in the UK on March 26th, from Eureka Entertainment.

★★★★☆



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.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Weekly Review Round-up (03/10-03/16, 2012)

Another huge Weekly Review Round-up as the Korean blogathon came to an end.  A great wealth of films covered stretching across every time, genre and style you could imagine.

Enjoy!


CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES


(The One One Four, March 14, 2012)

(Scene in Korea, March 9, 2012)

(hancinema.net, March 10, 2012)

(Scene in Korea, March 10, 2012)


RECENT RELEASES


(Unseen Films, March 10, 2012)

Blind

(We Eat Lemon, March 10, 2012)

(Film in Asian, March 12, 2012)

(cineAWESOME!, March 11, 2012)

(VCinema, March 9, 2012)

(Unseen Films, March 11, 2012)

(Far East Films, March 11, 2012)

(KOFFIA Blog, March 11, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, March 13, 2012)

(Unseen Films, March 10, 2012)

(Hangul Celluloid, March 10, 2012)

(YAM Magazine, March 11, 2012)

(The Montreal Gazette, March 8, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, March 13, 2012)

The Yellow Sea

War of the Arrows


PAST FILMS


(YAM Magazine, March 11, 2012)

A Bittersweet Life, 2005

(Flying Guillotine, March 8, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

Bad Guy, 2001
(Next Projection, March 12, 2012)

(We Eat Lemon, March 10, 2012)

Dream, 2008
(Next Projection, March 13, 2012)

Duelist, 2005
(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Epitaph, 2007
(VCinema, March 8, 2012)

Haeundae, 2009
(Hong Kong Rewind, March 9, 2012)

(Orion's Ramblings, March 11, 2012)

(Podcasts Without Honor and Humanity, March 9, 2012)

(Unseen Films, March 9, 2012)

M, 2007
(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Marathon, 2005

Mother, 2009
(At the Cinema, March 11, 2012)

(Unseens Films, March 11, 2012)

(Korean Grindhouse, March 5, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies 7, 2012)

Oasis, 2002
(Rainy Day Movies 8, 2012)

Oishii Man, 2008
(Podcasts Without Honor and Humanity, March 6, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies 8, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies 9, 2012)

Rikidozan, 2004
(VCinema, March 11, 2012)

Sky Blue, 2003
(VCinema, March 9, 2012)

(Greetings From Movie City, March 8, 2012)

(Oriental Film House, March 10, 2012)

Tigresses, 1977
(Planet Choco Zine, March 9, 2012)

Time, 2006
(Next Projection, March 11, 2012)

Truck, 2007
(Unseen Films, March 9, 2012)



The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office UpdateReviews 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.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Top 10 Korean Films of 2010


2010 was a great year for Korean cinema and as here at Modern Korean Cinema I'm going back through Korean film to get a sense of what were the best and most important films through the years.  I'm thrilled to present my top 10 for the year to coincide with the Korean Cinema Blogathon.  I have seen a lot of films from 2010 and the only major omission is Cafe Noir which has yet to find a DVD release, here's hoping there'll be one!

This follows on from January's Top 10 Films of 2011 and I hope to make my way back through to the 90s.

Without further ado, scroll through the top 10 below, followed by some honourable mentions and the year's biggest turkeys:

Intro - 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 - Best of the Rest

Top 10 Lists

Year  20202019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016
2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010

2010s (Top 50) - All Time (Top 25)

Genre

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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


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 pretty solid number which is spread over an impressive array of worldwide broadsheets, film websites, and a panoply of blogs.  I was also surprised to see over 30 films make it onto these diverse lists, a reflection of the depth of Korean cinema, from thrillers, horrors, and action films, all the way to melodramas and a large selection of low-budget indies.


The results of this ranking are in no way supposed to reflect some sort of objective standpoint of the best Korean films of last year.  For one thing, only a handful of films got any decent kind of exposure in the west and they were by and large 2010 releases.  Some of 2011's best films were only featured on a smattering of lists as they have not really been seen outside of Korea.  As I've said this is just a little bit of fun!

The system used for the below ranking is very simple.  1 point for making it onto a top 10 list (or the odd top 11), 2 points for a top 5 finish, and 3 points for taking first place.  The lists are available below, divided into Korean-only and international lists.  If you are aware of anything I've missed by all means let me know either here, on twitter, or by e-mailing me at pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com.


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


1. Poetry (53)
2. I Saw the Devil (34)
3. The Yellow Sea (17)
4. Sunny (12)
5. The Day He Arrives (10)
6. The Journals of Musan (9)
7. Bleak Night (8)
8. Silenced (5)
9. Night Fishing (5)
10. Arirang (4)
10. King of Pigs (4)
10. Re-encounter (4)

13. Poongsan (3)
13. Punch (3)
15. Bedevilled (2)
15. Come Rain, Come Shine (2)
15. Dangerously Excited (2)
15. Pong Ddol (2)
15. Quick (2)
15. The Front Line (2)
21. Animal Town (1)
21. Barbie (1)
21. Blind (1)
21. Dooman River (1)
21. Haunters (1)
21. Invasion of Alien Bikini (1)
21. Late Autumn (1)
21. Late Blossom (2)
21. Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild (1)
21. Moby Dick (1)
21. Mother Is a Whore (2)
21. Out of the Cave (1)
21. Romantic Heaven (1)
21. War of the Arrows (1)


Lists of Korean Films

Asia Pacific Arts - Rowena Santos Aquino
Complex - Jaeki Cho
koreanfilm.org - Darcy Paquet
Modern Korean Cinema - Pierce Conran
Seen in Jeonju - Tom Giammarco

Lists Featuring Korean Films

Boston Globe - Wesley Morris
Chicago Reader - Ben Sachs
Chicago Tribune - Michael Phillips
Cineawesome! - Jeff
Cinema Salem - Kereth
Cinema Salem - Peter
Cinetology - Luke
Cleveland Plain Dealer - Clint O'Connor
CNN - Tom Charity
College Times - Aaron Tavena
Culture Mob - Matthew Wayt
Dad's Big Plan - Mr. Sparkles
Film Freak Central - Angelo Muredda
Film Freak Central - Walter Chaw
Film School Rejects - Brian Salisbury
Film School Rejects - Luke Mullen
Film School Rejects - Rob Hunter
Film Threat - Don Lewis
Film Threat - John Wildman
Film Threat - Mark Bell
Film Threat - Noah Lee
firstshowing.net - Jeremy Kirk
Front Room Cinema - Tom Bielby
Hollywood Hubbub - Frantic Monkey
Hydra Mag - Jose-Luis Moctezuma
indieWire - Anne Thompson
insidepulse - Robert Sutton
Left Field Cinema - M. Dawson
Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan
Living in Cinema - Michael Phillips
Miami Herald - Rene Rodriguez
Mile High Cinema - Jason Cangialosi
MSN Movies - Sean Axmaker
NOW Magazine - Radheyan Simonpillai
Palo Alto Online - Susan Tavernetti
playbackstl.com - Pete Timmermann
playbackstl.com - Sean Lass
Rich on Film - Rich
Salon - Andrew O'Hehir
Shock Till You Drop - Jeff Alard
Slant - Diego Costa
Slant - Nick Schager
Sounds Like Cinema - Greg Bennett
southcoasttoday.com - Alexis Hauk
St. Louis Today - Joe Williams
The Austin Chronicle - Marc Savlov
The Daily Texan - Alex Williams
the-dispatch.com - Matthew Lucas
The Globe and Mail - Liam Lacey and Rick Groen
The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw
The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy
The Montreal Gazette - T'cha Dunlevy
The New York Times - Manohla Dargis
The Screening Room - Mark Humphreys
Time Out New York - Keith Uhlich
Total Film - Sam Ashurst
Twitch - James Marsh
Twitch - Kwenton Bellette
Wildgrounds - Ki Mun


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.

Friday, January 6, 2012

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

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


(The Korea Times, January 4, 2012)

Spellbound

(The Korea Times, December 29, 2011)


RECENT RELEASES


(joblo.com, January 4, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 5, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 3, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies, January 3, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, January 4, 2012)

(Asian Movie Web, January 2, 2012)

(Init_Scenes, January 3, 2012)

(New Korean Cinema, January 4, 2012)

Sunny

(Asian Movie Pulse, January 3, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 4, 2012)


PAST FILMS


(Init_Scenes, December 31, 2011)

(UnitedKpop, December 31, 2011)

Death Bell, 2008
(Twitch, January 4, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 2, 2012)

(North Korean Films, January 3, 2012)

(koreanfilm.org, January 1, 2012)

Silmido, 2003
(gwangjublog.com, January 3, 2012)

Taegugki, 2004
(Nerdlocker, January 5, 2012)

(Rainy Day Movies, January 4, 2012)

The Host, 2006
(Film in Asian, January 4, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 5, 2012)


The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office UpdateReviews 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.