News: ROARING CURRENTS Lays Waste to Korean Box Office Records

By Pierce Conran

Roaring Currents has turned the Korean opening weekend record to rubble with 3.34 million admissions ($25.65 million) during its first weekend, which accounted for 65.7% of the marketplace. That represents a 41% increase over the former record, set by Transformers 3 in 2011 (2.37 million). The film has already banked 4.75 million viewers and $35.4 million since its debut five days ago.

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News: Korean Film Festival in Australia 2014 Lineup Announced!

By Hieu Chau

The Korean Film Festival in Australia returns for its fifth year, bringing with it a slate of the country’s must-see films from the past year. KOFFIA will be touring across six cities this year, and the festival will kick off in Sydney on August 31st and finish up in Adelaide in late September.

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Review - Cool KUNDO: AGE OF THE RAMPANT Has Some Swagger In Its Step

By Pierce Conran

With big stars and a hefty budget, Kundo: Age Of The Rampant marches into theaters with confidence and tongue planted firmly in cheek. This hybrid period film owes more to spaghetti westerns than the history of its Joseon Era setting and some may take umbrage at the film's excessive running time, but with a raucous charm and an array of well-mined genre tropes, it's sure to keep most spectators satisfied.

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Review: Bleak And Gripping, HAEMOO Prizes Character Over Spectacle

By Pierce Conran

To date, the summer of 2014 has seen the majority of mainstream Korean films fall into either of two categories: the noir thriller or the period blockbuster. While a handful of terrific genre pieces, namely A Hard Day and Confession, have succeeded in spite of this inertia, it's been high time for something a little different. Along comes Haemoo, a character-driven blockbuster set on a boat that is based on a play which is itself drawn from a real life incident.

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News: Korean Films At Melbourne International Film Festival 2014

By Hieu Chau

Australian fans of Korean cinema have much to be excited about as some of MKC's favourite films of the past year will be featured at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF).

As part of MIFF's yearly Accent on Asia program, organisers have selected four South Korean features for the annual film event: A Girl At My Door, A Hard Day, Han Gong-Ju and Our Sunhi.

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News: A GIRL AT MY DOOR acquired by UK's Peccadillo Pictures

By Hieu Chau

After an impressive showing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, July Jung’s film, A Girl At My Door (Doheeya), has been picked up by independent UK distributor Peccadillo Pictures, according to Screen Daily.

Competing in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, the film stars MKC favourite Bae Doo-na and Kim Sae-ron, with acclaimed auteur Lee Chang-dong serving as producer.

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Cannes 2014 Review: A HARD DAY Is Easy-to-Love Genre Cinema

By Pierce Conran

If you feel that tough genre fare in Korea has been spinning its wheels of late, you're not alone. While generally well made, the élan of yesteryear's hardboiled Korean thrillers has recently been replaced by a growing sense of familiarity and an alarming whiff of complacency. There have been exceptions, but by and large those have come from name directors afforded more creative freedom in an industry dominated by financiers unwilling to give new talent much autonomy. Things started to look a little better last year with the release of Cold Eyes and Hide and Seek and bucking the trend once more is A Hard Day, a terrific new mid-level genre offering that was invited to the Director's Fortnight sidebar at Cannes this year.

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