Review: Lame Leads Sink THE PIRATES

By Pierce Conran

Fast on the heels of Kundo: Age of the Rampant and Roaring Currents, the summer’s latest period blockbuster enters a crowded field in a market that has of late become oversaturated with similar fare. With lowbrow, poorly executed humor tucked into an uninspired medley of rote genre mechanics, The Pirates fares the worst among this year’s large-scale Korean productions.

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Review: Tone-deaf MONSTER Exhibits Unusual Cruelty Towards Women

Ingenue Kim Go-eun gets her first top billing in director Hwang In-ho’s uneven and sadistic revenge thriller Monster. Exhibiting the same irreverence towards genre as in his previous film Spellbound (2011) but with none of the panache, Hwang fails to keep things on track with a slow to start narrative, a young star out of her depth and a disturbing streak of misogyny.

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PiFan 2014 Review: Horror Comedy MOURNING GRAVE Aims Low But Hits Its Mark

By Pierce Conran

Korean horror has been in the midst of a rough streak for the past half decade. Relying on worn out themes, new works been have trotted out regularly every summer but even with lowered expectations, each year has put forth an increasingly lackluster and listless lineup of new films. Trying his best to buck the trend is the experienced short filmmaker Oh In-chun, who steps up to the feature-length plate with his horror-comedy debut Mourning Grave.

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Review: Strong Effects Play Second Fiddle to Patriotism in ROARING CURRENTS

By Pierce Conran

When making films based on significant milestones in a country’s history, nationalism can be a great asset in a filmmaker’s arsenal but it’s also a tool that must be handled carefully, as too much patriotic bombast can mar an otherwise captivating story. Alas, the new period epic Roaring Currents, which chronicles one of Korea’s most famed victorious, falls into that category. Formidable effects and a fascinating historical event, akin to a Korean version of 300 on boats, plays second fiddle to sensationalized heroism in this epic war reenactment.

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PiFan 2014 Review: MY ORDINARY LOVE STORY Is Not Your Ordinary Rom-Com

By Pierce Conran

Expectations play a large role in how we consume and react to cinema, particularly in the commercial realm. Genre formulas are so clearcut than any deviation is immediately noticeable. Some variation is required to prevent things from getting stale but anything too jarring and you run the risk of alienating your audience. The new Korean romcom (or is it?) My Ordinary Love Story takes such a risk as it veers way off course, but this is one gamble that pays off in spades.

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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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Cannes 2014 Review: A GIRL AT MY DOOR Is Korean Cinema At Its Finest

By Pierce Conran

Screening in the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section this year is A Girl at My Door, a film that is so well-wrought that one can't help but be swept up in its artistry, which effortlessly plunges us into an intellectual reverie. The film features the return of Bae Doo-na, following back-to-back Hollywood blockbusters, and teenage actress Kim Sae-ron. It also boasts Lee Chang-dong as a producer, whose influence over the film will not go unnoticed.

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Review: Lee Jang-ho's Mysterious and Magnificent THE MAN WITH THREE COFFINS

By Pierce Conran

Though oppressed by Chung Doo-hwan's administration throughout much of the decade, the Korean film industry was nevertheless able to produce some remarkable films in the 1980s. However, for all their social gravitas and literary refinement, rarely was it the case that films from this period were praised for their technical achievements. Classics from this time such as The Ball Shot by a Midget (1981), The Oldest Son (1985) and Chilsu and Mansu (1988) shone a sober and somber light on the nation's dark social realities but few sought to experiment with the medium. However, this past Sunday, following a special screening at the Korean Film Archive (KOFA), I discovered that within all the weighty and poignant films of the era, there were indeed some people attempting to redefine the boundaries of cinema.

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Review: Strong Scenes Doth Not a Narrative Make in Genre-Hopping COMMITMENT

By Pierce Conran

Following on from this year's Secretly Greatly, another action-drama featuring Korean idols playing young North Korean spies who stay undercover in the south only to be targeted by their homeland, Commitment announces itself as a medley of genres, as commonly witnessed in commercial Korean film. Both works hail from Korean studio Showbox, but while Secretly Greatly starts out as a neighborhood comedy-drama, this new effort reserves its opening beats strictly for the thriller genre.

After his father's failed mission in the South, Myung-hoon and his sister are sent to a prison camp in North Korea. Accepting his own mission as an undercover spy to protect his sister from further harm, Myung-hoon infiltrates the south, where he poses as a high school student. He ends up helping a bullied girl in his school while going out interrogating people to learn what happened to his father during his free time. Soon his government learns what he is up to and sends someone to kill him.

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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.

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News: HAN GONG-JU Picks Up Three Awards At Deauville Asian Film Festival

By Patryk Czekaj

There's no stopping Han Gong-ju, a little South Korean indie that's taking the film festival circuit by storm. Since its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival last October, Lee Su-jin's debut feature has won many awards at major film festivals around the world, starting with the Citizen Reviewers' and CGV Movie Collage Award on native soil, at the aforementioned BIFF.

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News: SNOWPIERCER Alert! Mark Your Calendars for June 27th

By Pierce Conran

Snowpiercer is finally getting a stateside release. The internet is saying June 27th but CJ Entertainment is telling me June, with no day fixed as of yet. If it does open on the 27th it will have to contend with the new Transformers film (and my birthday). As previously reported the film will be screened uncut but rolled out in limited release. However, as The Weinstein Company will release through their label Radius-TWC it may well become available on VOD at the same time.

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News: Jeon Do-yeon And Kim Yoon-seok In Talks for New Lee Yoon-ki Film

By Rex Baylon

For those Korean film fans that have an affinity for quiet settings and slightly damaged female characters, the films of Lee Yoon-ki have acted as cinematic catnip. Having made a reputation for himself in the film festival circuit for Rohmerian style dramas featuring female protagonists muted by some tragic event in the past the director has been off the radar since 2011 after the release of his fourth feature, Come Rain Come Shine. There have been various rumors about forthcoming projects and though none have added up to much news has surfaced that award-winning actress Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine, 2007; Happy End, 1999) and superstar Kim Yoon-seok (Thieves, 2012; The Chaser, 2008) are in talks to star in Lee’s fifth feature, titled A Man and a Woman.

Produced by b.o.m Film with an agreement by CJ Entertainment to distribute the finished picture, the new project would reunite Lee with Jeon after their 2008 collaboration My Dear Enemy, which played at several festivals around the world and became a critical darling. The only thing confirmed about the script is that the film will focus on the passionate relationship of middle-aged lovers. Of course, all this pondering on the plot will be moot if the two actors can’t reach an agreement with Lee and the producers.

Though Jeon and Kim have shown strong interest in working with Lee on this project both actors already have full schedules this year with Jeon Do-yeon appearing with Lee Byung-heon in the period drama Memories of the Sword and Kim Yoon-seok pulling double duty on Sea Fog and the upcoming Tazza sequel.

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 Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Korean Reviews, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (Korean Standard Time).

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.

Review: HORROR STORIES 2 Slightly Improves Upon Its Predecessor

By Patryk Czekaj

At first glance, Horror Stories 2 looks like a more mature and self-conscious version of the original film. Though the chapters are still uneven and often come close to being simply absurd, the directors seem aware of the predecessors’ mistakes and ultimately create a gripping and penetrating atmosphere of terror, grounding their visions both in dreams and in a three-dimensional reality. This clarifies the structure of all the segments and gives them a much-needed touch of intrigue. Less cheap thrills based on jumps scares and nonsensical gore material makes Horror Stories 2 a serviceable allegory for the soul and its journey towards redemption.

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Review: THE BOOMERANG FAMILY Swings For Your Heart

By Rex Baylon

The concept and role of family has gone through several evolutions in the history of man. At first being just an institution for the birthing and raising of offspring. Back than, it took, as the old saying goes, a whole village to raise a child. As populations increased and values shifted away from group think into a more individualistic mode the definition of family became more constrained.

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Review: Hong Sang-soo's Beautiful But Slightly Strange OUR SUNHI

By John A. Riley

Some critics have characterised Hong Sang-soo's latest film as evidence of a prolific director running out of steam. In fact, Our Sunhi demonstrates a refinement and distillation of the director’s technique as he approaches an Ozu-like mastery of his craft.

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News: Three Wins for South Korean Cinema at this Year's Berlin Film Festival

By Rex Baylon

As the Berlin International Film Festival closes its doors for another year Korean cinema was not completely left out of the loop, even if no films from South Korea made it into the main festival competition. Two documentaries A Dream of Iron and Non Fiction Diary both took home a NETPAC Prize for Best Asian Film and Sprout was awarded the Crystal Bear for Best Short in the Generation Kplus section.

Having both premiered at last year’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) Non Fiction Diary, a harrowing documentary about South Korea in the early 1990s when true democracy was still in its infancy, won the Mecenat award for Best Documentary and Sprout, a charming tale of a little girl’s quest to get some bean sprouts for her grandfather’s funerary rites, received a special mention for the Sonje Award. While A Dream of Iron, a stylishly done picture about the POSCO steelmaking factory in Pohang, had its world premier at this year’s Berlinale Forum section.

Last year, other South Korean films like Cheong, Shin Su-won’s Pluto (2012), Hong Sang-soo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon have all received awards and accolades at the Berlin Film Festival and this year continues the trend, proving that South Korea’s indie film scene is still going strong.

Source:

Korean Docs Split Berlinale's NETPAC Prize

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 Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Korean Reviews, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (Korean Standard Time).

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.

News: Kino Lorber Purchases Tartan 'Asia Extreme' Catalog

By Rex Baylon

For film fans of the early aughts their first introduction to the violent but beautiful world of Korean genre cinema most often came from the UK-based DVD label Tartan Films. Known for their Asia Extreme sub-label in the early days of DVD the company curated a unique catalog that showcased various genres and talent from all over Asia. From South Korea, Tartan was responsible for being the first English language company to release films by Park Chan-wook, Kim Jee-woon and Kim Ki-duk as well as titles such as Memento Mori (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999). By 2008 though, the company facing financial trouble sold most of its catalog to the Palisades Media Group and its Asia Extreme catalog was left to go out of print.

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Review: BETWEEN THE KNEES Lies Korea's Sexual Awakening

By Pierce Conran

While eastern and western sensibilities co-exist somewhat happily in Korea these days, this wasn't always the case. Faced with independence after a long spell of colonial rule in 1945, albeit divided from the Soviet-controlled North, South Korea, through the presence of the US military, was presented with the trappings of the West for the very first time. Ever since then, there has been an uneasy relationship between respect for established local tradition and cravings for imported comforts.

Many films have examined this dichotomy, including Early Rain (1966). However few have done so as aggressively as Lee Jang-ho's Between the Knees (1984), a fascinating and frustratingly paradoxical work from the Korean New Wave. Both progressive and surprisingly conservative, it's a little hard to peg exactly what director Lee's angle is at different points of his film.

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Berlinale 2014 Review: SPROUT's Short and Sweet Seoul Odyssey

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the 18th Busan International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

A little girl’s trip to the market becomes a charming journey through modern Korea in Yoon Ga-eun’s delightful short film Sprout, which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival last October. Korean indie cinema often makes a point of demonstrating what’s wrong with society while many of the values most prized by citizens are typically found in the nation’s commercial output, albeit through rose-tinted windows. Thus it has been treat to see some younger, low-budget filmmakers explore the positives of their country in recent years. Films like Koala (2012) have not forgotten the realities of the society they inhabit, but they have also placed the good right alongside the bad.

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Berlinale 2014 Review: NON-FICTION DIARY Offers Captivating Glimpse of 1990s Korea

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the 18th Busan International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

I stepped onto Korean soil for the first time almost 13 years after the end of the 1990s but there's no arguing the otherworldliness of that time, which can still be picked up on today by sampling the available media from that era. These days, some Koreans even reminisce about that special, indefinable feeling if a certain 90s song pops on in a basement bar.

Though a fan of documentaries, I've remained somewhat on the periphery concerning those from Korea despite my keen interest for the rest of the industry's output. A number of the subjects that they embark on are captivating, even essential at times, but they haven't always been made in the most gripping fashion. Mind you, I'm loath to admit that I still haven't seen some of the major recent successes, such as Talking Architect (2011) and Planet of Snail.

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Berlinale 2014 Review: Grand and Hypnotic, A DREAM OF IRON Won't Soon Be Forgotten

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

Early on in A Dream of Iron, a new documentary premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this year, director Kelvin Kyung Kun Park shows us images of whales moving through the vast blue expanse of the ocean - enormous creatures that were once considered grand and mysterious. Soon after, Park brings us to the expansive POSCO steel-making plant on the coast of Southern Korea and proceeds to show us the process of shipbuilding through a series of arresting visual tableaux. Gargantuan in size, these vessels demonstrate the soaring ambition of the human race, as enormous components are each readied for assembly with minuscule laborers dotting their surface.

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Berlinale 2014 Review: Subdued yet Powerful, NIGHT FLIGHT Soars

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

LeeSong Hee-il returns to Berlin a year after White Night (2012) with his fourth feature Night Flight. While his last film was a subdued but powerful work about lingering memories of homophobia in modern Seoul, his new feature is his most ambitious yet. Retaining queer themes, Night Flight goes beyond the scope of his past works by weaving a wider tapestry of social motifs that touch on many of the issues facing youths and minorities in contemporary Korea.

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Berlinale 2014 Review: Bong Joon-ho's SNOWPIERCER Delivers the Goods

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

Cinema is a medium of motion and if anyone understands this, it appears to be Bong Joon-ho, whose visionary new work is a demented and stunning thrillride. In his first production outside his native South Korea, Bong has delivered his most ambitious project yet, and proves more than capable of handling an international, multilingual cast and a large budget.

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News: New Wildflower Awards Recognize Independent Korean Cinema

By Pierce Conran

The Wildflower Film Awards (들꽃영화상), a new audience-led initiative to recognize achievements in independent Korean cinema, is getting underway this month. Launched by Korean film expert and koreanfilm.org founder Darcy Paquet, the awards will be handed out each February to outstanding contributions in Korean cinema's low-budget realm. Winners will be selected in categories for Best Film, Director, Documentary, Actor, Actress, New Actor, New Actress, New Director and Cinematography, in addition to a Documentary Jury Prize.

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News: SNOWPIERCER Stays Uncut but Release Downsized

By Pierce Conran

Deadline has just broken the news that Bong Joon-ho and The Weinstein Company have finally reached on agreement on Snowpiercer. The good news is that it appears the director's cut that Bong had been fighting for has been retained. The bad news is that depending on where you live, you may not get a chance to see it.

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Berlinale 2014: Overview - Strong Korean Lineup in Berlin

Part of MKC's coverage of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the 18th Busan International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

Long recognized as one of the bastions of independent and foreign cinema, the Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale, will kick off its 64th edition later today. Korean cinema has become an increasingly prominent fixture at the event and in recent years has featured in Berlinale lineups with anywhere up to a dozen titles. This year there will be seven Korean films on show, one short and six features, which is a little below average. Yet, in this writer's opinion, it is also one of Korea's strongest lineups to feature at the fest.

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Review: Jang Joon-hwan Returns With Dark Thriller HWAYI: A MONSTER BOY

By Pierce Conran

Korean cinema has become known for its thrillers, and though the genre is one that is popular around the world, there is one particular take on the genre that Korea has excelled at: let's call it the emotional thriller. By blending thriller and action elements with melodrama, a cultural mainstay, the emotional thriller is something we come across time and again in Korean films. Characters in these films are often scarred by their pasts, which are invariably colored by events from Korea's dark contemporary history. Coinciding with narrative elements, these backstories invariably play a central role and prime the gears for enormous emotional releases in the final act.

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Review: THE SUSPECT Eschews Drama for Action, and Lots of It

By Pierce Conran

Thinking back to Shiri (1999) and Secret Reunion (2010), North Korean spies have a history of success at the Korean box office. Local producers have been especially keen to capitalize on their appeal this year with no less than four big budget spy thrillers infiltrating screens. Of the three released to date, two of them (The Berlin File and Secretly Greatly) were big hits (around seven million admissions a piece) while last month's Commitment failed to generate much buzz (barely one million viewers). On Christmas Eve, The Suspect will bring its high-octane cocktail of action and intrigue to theaters, bringing the count to four.

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News: Ha Ji-won Cast in Ha Jung-woo's CHRONICLE OF A BLOOD MERCHANT

By Pierce Conran

Before he makes a decision on his offer to potentially star alongside Lee Jung-jae and Jun Ji-hyun in Choi Dong-hoon's 30s-set blockbuster thriller Assassination, Ha Jung-woo is going to spend some time both before and behind the camera with his sophomore directing gig Chronicle a of Blood Merchant. Joining him in this adaptation of a 1995 novel by Chinese writer Yu Hua will be Ha Ji-won, the actress known for her spunky action roles in Duelist (2005) and Sector 7 (2011).

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Review: THE SATELLITE GIRL AND MILK COW Shows Promise for Korean Animation

By Pierce Conran

There is no shortage of skilled animators in Korea but following the floundering of the local animation industry in the 1970s, most of that talent went into domestic TV production or were sucked into the outsourced contracts of far more lucrative foreign shows such as The Simpsons. Over the last few years, a handful of new feature animations have cropped up in Korean cinema and are serving as embers for what will hopefully become a full-fledged industry in the coming years. 2014 has a few Korean animations in store and the first of those to hit theaters will be The Satellite Girl and Milk Cow, the feature-length debut of Jang Hyung-yun, who previously made a number of acclaimed shorts including A Coffee Vending Machine and Its Sword (2007).

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Korean Box Office: MISS GRANNY, FROZEN Lead Korea's Biggest Weekend

By Pierce Conran

It was a huge weekend for theaters during this year's Lunar New Year, the biggest in fact, with around five million tickets sold. This was above the 3.5 million recording during last year's Lunar Year frame and significantly above the previous 4.5 million viewer record set during late summer last year when Snowpiercer and The Terror Live duked it out. What's more, a surprisingly close battle for first place took place as the two leading pictures swapped places a few times over the course of the week. With Lunar New Year falling on a Friday this year, the holiday stretched over Thursday to Saturday. Figures below are for the standard three-day frame.

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News: HAN GONG-JU Picks Up Yet Another Award in Rotterdam

By Pierce Conran

Following its debut at the Busan International Film Festival last October, Lee Su-jin's film Han Gong-ju has been blazing a trail on the international film festival circuit ever since. It's most recent win came last night at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it picked up the coveted Tiger Award. It is the fifth time a Korean film has picked up the prize in the last 18 years.

After picking up the Citizen Reviewers' and CGV Movie Collage Award in Busan, Lee's film went on to win a minor award at the Seoul Independent Film Festival and the Marrakesh International Film Festival's top prize, the Golden Star, in December. Han Gong-ju also screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival last month.

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Feature: Girls and Dolls - The Many Faces of Bae Doo-na

By Hieu Chau

Emerging from South Korea as one of the country’s brightest and talented stars, actress Bae Doo-na has built a reputable career for herself with diverse roles in both her home country and abroad. Often praised for her naturalistic and sometimes demure approach towards acting, Bae Doo-na has worked with a plethora of talented individuals in her acting career, scoring the chance to work with several esteemed directors including the likes of Bong Joon-ho and Koreeda Hirokazu.

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Review: THE HUNTRESSES Misfire in Poorly-Plotted Blunder

By Pierce Conran

Following the recent hits Masquerade (2012) and last year’s The Face Reader, period films are set to make a big push into the Korean market in 2014 with at least six big Joseon era films poised to flood the market. Getting the ball rolling in the new year is the action comedy The Huntresses, a film initially set to debut last spring but rescheduled by distributor Showbox when the project needed more time to complete digital work in post-production. Entering a crowded Lunar New Year field alongside Miss Granny, Man in Love and Hot Young Bloods, the film is hoping to draw in family crowds with its fun premise and trio of female stars.

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Review: Underappreciated THE DEVIL'S STAIRWAY Is a Sinister Psychological Horror

By Patryk Czekaj

Lee Man-hee’s 1964 film The Devil's Stairway is a strikingly sinister psychological horror that, even after all these years, possesses the ability to frighten even the most devoted fans of the genre. What’s unreasonable to me is that the picture never got enough attention and its darkly sensuous powers somehow failed to garner it the critical attention this hallucinatory work truly deserves. Why The Devil's Stairway to this day remains an underwatched gem of Korean cinema is a mystery. Thus, by writing a bit about its many strong points I’d really like to encourage everyone to see (it’s available for free on Korean Film Archive’s YouTube channel) and experience this eerily inviting film.

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News: AVENGERS 2 to Shoot in Korea, Local Actress Cast as Villain

By Pierce Conran

Joss Whedon's blockbuster sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron is planning to shoot some sequences in and around Seoul later this year. When news surfaced and caught fire in Korea last week it seemed like it might have been a rumor as actor Mark Ruffalo denied the news on his twitter account and Disney reps in Korea followed suit. However, now a local actress has been cast in a villain role and Incheon City (a satellite of Seoul) has confirmed that it will be used as a location in the upcoming film.

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Review: Electric Song Kang-ho Leads Courtroom Drama THE ATTORNEY

By Pierce Conran

The combination of politics and cinema has led to some of the most incendiary films the medium has ever produced. Though a tricky balancing act that requires a deft handling of ideologies and a sensitive navigation of contemporary political climates, political works have the potential to transcend both the artistic and diversionary aims of cinema. Be they wake-up calls or calls to arms, or even painful reminders of moments of history that should not be allowed to slip into anonymity, this is one of the few ‘genres,’ for lack of a better term, that can have a real impact on society.

Falling into this new category, or rather bursting into it after swiftly cracking the ten million viewers barrier in Korea, is The Attorney, the promising debut film of Yang Woo-suk, which follows in the footsteps of recent courtroom thrillers Silenced (2011) and Unbowed (2011). The films stars Song Kang-ho, who, following an enormous 2013 that also saw him star in Snowpiercer and The Face Reader, has reclaimed his title as Korea’s biggest star. Fictionalizing the early years of the late President Roh Moo-hyun, when he was a lawyer in the 1980s, this new film, part character drama and courtroom thriller, delicate handles its sensitive subject.

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News: Ha Jung-woo, Jun Ji-hyun and Lee Jung-jae Circling 30s Thriller ASSASSINATION

By Pierce Conran

Korean hitmaker Choi Dong-hoon is back at it again with a new 1930s set action thriller purported to be in the $12 million budget range. Titled Assassination, the project is eyeing some big talent for leading roles. Ha Jung-woo, Jun Ji-hyun and Lee Jung-jae are also considering major parts in Choi's follow-up to The Thieves, the 2012 hit caper film that became the second most viewed Korean film of all time by accruing almost 13 million admissions domestically.

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Review: Endearing Cast Boosts Cross-Generational Comedy MISS GRANNY

By Pierce Conran

Three years after making a big splash in Sunny (2011), young actress Shim Eun-kyung returns in the Lunar New Year's (Seollal) holiday crowd-pleaser Miss Granny, a film that will be looking to sate the same demand that Miracle in Cell No. 7 filled this time last year.

Oh Ma-soon is a grandmother working in an old-timers café who lives with her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. As she nags her family to the end of their wits, they gradually grow tired of her. Then, one night, Mal-soon happens upon a photo shop with a mysterious owner. Shortly after her shot is taken, she catches a reflection of herself and sees that she's suddenly become 50 years younger. Choosing to hide her sudden transformation from her family she takes the new name Doo-ri and ends up staying as a boarder with her café co-worker, whom she harbors a crush for, though he is unaware of her identity. Before long she finds herself in her grandson's band and is scouted by a music show producer who is attracted by more than just her dulcet tones.

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Busan 2013 Review: Personal and Subdued PASCHA Resonates

Part of MKC's coverage of the 18th Busan International Film Festival.

By Pierce Conran

Life has a habit of moving on, whether we'd like it to or not. Moments of joy are fleeting and even our most crushing lows are washed away by the waves of time. Our present always leaves us, replaced to perpetuity with new realities: it's gone but never quite forgotten. The new Korean indie Pascha shows us that small moments can be hard to bare and smaller ones still may often be worth cherishing, but it also reminds us that nothing every truly disappears, particularly when it concerns (what else?) love.

Anyone who has kept an eye on Korean cinema over the last few years will likely have encountered more than his or her fair share or bleak narratives, particularly in the independent realm. Though they're not always fun, there is a need for this kind of cinema at the moment. In the midst of Korea's technological advances, it's easy to forget that other areas of the country are in desperate need of attention. That said, a few of the more dour offerings that have come our way could do worse than take a leaf out of Pascha's book, as it explores some of the less salient sides of Korean society in a sublimely low-key fashion.

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Review: One-Stop Korean Revenge Shop THE FIVES Is a Bloody Good Time

By Pierce Conran

Aside from the greats of Korean cinema - the Bong Joon-hos, Lee Chang-dongs, Im Kwon-taeks and Kim Ki-youngs - years ago, after I first immersed myself in the country's cinema, there were few things that I preferred doing than putting on a mid-level Korean genre film after a long day. Their thrillers, in particular, weren't always great (in fact a number were bad) but their production values and hard-boiled style were always a wonderful escape for me, even, strangely, a source of comfort. These days the industry still churns out a great number of thrillers, and though many are very strong, they're a different breed from those I would wile away my time with back in those days.

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Review: Delightful Retro Comedy HOT YOUNG BLOODS Runs Out of Steam

By Pierce Conran

Just as the taste of a madeleine triggers a rush of childhood memories for the protagonist in Marcel Proust’s magnum opus In Search of Lost Time, smells, sounds and images can transport all of us to different times in our lives. This is a trick that can be especially effective in cinema, as it can turn a film into a communal experience for theatergoers. With Lunar New Year just around the corner, the 80s rural-set high school film Hot Young Bloods, the return of Running Turtle (2009) director Lee Yeon-woo, is hoping to do just that.

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