Korean Box Office: Detectives and Spies Lead Lunar New Year Weekend (2015 WK 8)

By Pierce Conran

Business shot up 70% over last week, as 3.88 million holiday spectators flooded the theaters, however that figure was over a million lower than last year's Lunar New Year weekend. Granted it's not exactly as fair comparison as LNY itself fell on Friday in 2014 and fell just before the weekend this year. Against stiff competition from British films and foreign animation, local films barely maintained their market share with 50.2%.

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Review: WAIKIKI BROTHERS, A True Korean Classic

By Pierce Conran

Yim Soonrye could lay claim to being the first female director to forge a lasting career in the Korean film industry. Indeed, she has one of the most varied filmographies among current filmmakers, yet ironically, or perhaps necessarily, she rose to prominence by making a pair of films that explored Korean masculinity far more successfully than the majority of her male contemporaries. 14 years on, her second feature Waikiki Brothers (2001) stands up as one of the best works of contemporary Korean cinema. Though the movement is generally considered to have ended with Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy in 1999, it’s also a film that could easily be included among the best of the Korean New Wave. 

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Coming Attractions: CHINATOWN to Battle In Theaters This April

By Rex Baylon

It seems that almost every trailer I write about ends up being an upcoming thriller or crime picture and this time is no different. Han Jun-hee, screenwriter for the 2013 thriller The Gifted Hands, debuts as director this April with Chinatown, or for people who've been paying attention, Coin Locker Girl. Starring Kim Hye-soo, of The Thieves (2012) fame, and Kim Go-eun, who you might remember from the erotic drama Eungyo (2012), Han's picture seems to be a gangster-cum-family melodrama with Kim Hye-soo playing a stern and powerful Chinatown gang boss and Kim Go-eun as her troubled adopted daughter.

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Review: THE KING AND THE CLOWN is a Bawdy, Heartfelt Period Classic

By Chris Horn

There’s no question that Korean period films have continued to increase in popularity in recent years as three of the top ten grossing Korean films by ticket admissions are set during the Joseon dynasty. As Korean studios allocate increasing resources to the next big period films they would do well to study Lee Joon-ik’s masterful The King and the Clown. Not only does Lee capture a thematically interesting story rounded out by compelling performances, but The King and the Clown is brilliant in its sympathetic look at all levels of Joseon society.

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Reel Talk: The Thriving, Yet Embattled Korean Indie Scene

Every Friday I appear on a segment called Reel Talk for Arirang TV on the 2 o'clock news, mostly covering Korean cinema.

There's plenty to celebrate in Korea's contemporary indie scene, with fascinating new works appearing year-round and across the world's biggest festivals, yet few viewers in Korea are getting a chance to see them. In the most recent Reel Talk I preview a few of the films that will get limited runs in Korea soon as well as the challenges the industry faces.

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Korean Box Office: DETECTIVE K 2 Opens Over Original (2015 WK 7)

By Pierce Conran

2.25 million spectators shuffled into theaters during the weekend before the Lunar New Year holiday, which was better than last week but still far behind the comparable weekend last year, when Frozen and Miss Granny led the market. Local films maintained a slim majority with a 50.7% screening share.

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News: Golden Bear for Korean Short HOSANNA

By Pierce Conran

For the second time in five years, a Korean film has walked away with the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear for Short Film. Na Young-kil trumphed with Hosanna four years after brothers Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-kyong took home the same award for Night Fishing.

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