Review - DETECTIVE K: SECRET OF THE LOST ISLAND, Another Underwhelming Korean Period Action Comedy

By Pierce Conran

Detective Kim is back with his trusty sidekick Seo-pil in the follow up to 2011’s hit period action-comedy Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow. A hodgepodge of genres delivered at breakneck speed, this new instalment, subtitled Secret of the Lost Island, comes on the heels of a raft of period successes, and will again open during the busy Lunar New Year period.

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Coming Attractions: SOCIALPHOBIA Logs on to Korean Screens This March

By Rex Baylon

I love a good mystery and Hong Seok-jae's feature debut Socialphobia, opening in Korean theaters on March 12, has it in spades. Centering on a couple of police cadets played by Byun Yo-han and Lee Joo-seung sniffing around for clues about an online user with the handle Re-Na who made waves by posting a vicious comment about a dead soldier. These wannabe Hardy Boys eventually track her down, but before they can wring an apology out of her they are shocked to find something else.

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Review: THE CONTACT Provides a Glimpse of Romance at the Speed of the ‘90s

By Chris Horn

The romance genre is always teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice: an original plot and strong chemistry between the leads are the essential yet often elusive elements of successful romance. In 1997, Jang Yoon-hyeon struck gold, courting both viewer and critical approval with his hit romance The Contact. While it has its share of self-indulgence, it ultimately deserves its reputation as a refreshing genre film.

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Korean Box Office: Soft Opening for C'EST SI BON Ahead of Lunar New Year (2015 WK 6)

By Pierce Conran

In the warm up to holidays, 1.81 million people visited theaters as a Korean film reclaimed the top of the charts. Local films were dominant with 62% of the market.

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Reel Talk: Korea's Lunar New Year Contenders

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

The Lunar New Year, one of Korea's major holidays, takes place next Thursday so local studios are pitting their biggest releases against each other to capitalize on the busy theatergoing period. This week I talked about this year's holiday releases, C'est si bon and Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island.

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News: ODE TO MY FATHER Becomes 2nd Most Successful Korean Film of All Time

By Pierce Conran

Yesterday, JK Youn's Ode to My Father surpassed The Host (2006) and The Thieves (2012) to become the second most successful Korean film of all time. Still in third place on the charts in its eighth week, the blockbuster melodrama added 89,809 viewers on Saturday to bring its total to 13.02 million admissions ($92.16 million). Including foreign films, the film is in third place, behind Avatar's (2009) 13.62 million viewers.

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News: GANGNAM BLUES Targets Lee Min-ho Fans with New Edit for China

By Pierce Conran

Yoo Ha's gangster epic Gangnam Blues will be released in China next month but local viewers will be treated to a different cut of the film. In order to capitalize on star Lee Min-ho's big fan base in the region, changes were made affecting his character.

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Review: FUTURELESS THINGS, A Bright, Gleaming Comedy Well-Stocked With Laughs

By Rex Baylon

Towards the latter half of Kim Kyung-mook's Futureless Things, a niggling question kept popping into my head, "Why a convenience store? What makes a convenience store the perfect spot for this peculiar film?" I racked my brain trying to find an answer, hoping that maybe if I could discover the answer Kim's film might not be so muddled for me. Thinking about all the seemingly random events that transpired during the film's 105 minute runtime I came away with one thought: set anywhere else, this film, a not-so subtle commentary on the modern day South Korean psyche, would have been bogged down by a lot of dramatic cliches if it had been shot in an office, a classroom or even a cafe, in turn diluting a lot of the satire and replacing it with obtuse social commentary.

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New Korean Films: Tellement bon! (2015 Week 5)

C'est si bon

(쎄시봉)

By Fabien Schneider

At the end of the 60s, the “C’est si bon” music hall was the place where new trends in folk music were created. Every night, young people would gather there to discover the new hits of tomorrow, while many rookie artists would go on stage to put their songs to the test. Among them are Yoon Hyeong-Joo, “The Diabolic Sweet Voice”, and Song Chang-Sik, “The Gifted Musical Genius”, in competition with each other since the time they met. The manager of “C’est si bon” decides to introduce them with the trio that would take the name of his music hall. To fill the gap of the third musician, the producer hires Oh Geun-tae, a guy from Tongyeong, on the Southern coast, who has never played a guitar yet but has a wonderful baritone voice. Of course, the early days of this band are difficult, but when they all fall in love with Ja-young, they suddenly find the inspiration to write love songs.

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News: Record Sales & Slim Profits for Korean Film Industry in 2014

By Pierce Conran

South Korea's film industry topped the two trillion won mark for the first time in 2014, reaching 2.03 trillion won (USD 1.84 billion), which was a 7.6% improvement over the previous year. Growth was recorded overall in exhibition sales, the digital online market and overseas sales, yet within those figures Korean admissions, online streaming sales and film exports were all down. Worryingly, despite some record-breaking local hits, the return on investment rate for Korean films almost fell into negative figures.

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Review: Grand and Mysterious, THE AVIAN KIND Soars

By Pierce Conran

A great many gems have emerged from the Korean independent scene of late, but some worry that the milieu lacks the unique voices that it used to cultivate 10 to 15 years ago. Director Shin Yeon-shick may already be on his fifth film, but with his latest work The Avian Kind, the filmmaker has positioned himself as a fresh and distinct voice, challenging the realist aesthetic that defines the contemporary indie field.

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Review: CASA AMOR: EXCLUSIVE FOR LADIES, But Really Just a Man's World

By Pierce Conran

Every so often, Korean cinema presents us with a new film, filled with the promise of titillating erotica. Invariably, these turn out to be rather chaste affairs and Casa Amor: Exclusive for Ladies (the original title of which is Working Girl, in English but spelt in Korean), proves to be no exception. However, stylish though it may be, this new work proves more egregious than most, as it hints at the freedom of female sexuality yet ultimately sinks into woefully patriarchal archetypes.

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Review: The Past is Present in Lee Yoon-ki's THIS CHARMING GIRL

By Rex Baylon

We love to watch. It’s impossible to deny that fact as advances in technology has made people-watching a popular guilty pleasure. As more and more of our gadgets and software are built to not only connect everyone but also document every banal detail of our lives, it’s become quite easy to learn everything about someone without every meeting them face-to-face. In the realm of cinema, the concept of voyeurism has always been a popular topic for filmmakers. Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, the Maysles brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Michael Powell and many others have devoted entire films or, in rare cases, entire careers to utilizing voyeuristic techniques to arrive at some sort of truth.

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News: MEMORIES OF MURDER Coming to the Small Screen

By Pierce Conran

It looks like Snowpiercer isn't the only Bong Joon-ho film getting the remake treatment. I don't normally cover TV news but I thought I'd make an exception for this. Considered by many to be one of the greatest Korean films of all time (it's my favorite), Memories of Murder is heading to the small screen in Korea as Signal.

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Korean Box Office: Heroes Top Fathers and Gangsters (2015 WK 5)

By Pierce Conran

A Hollywood film topped the Korean box office for the first time in 2015 while a pair of Korean blockbusters battled for second place. Local films did hold a combined advantage though with a 55% market share in a weekend that saw 2.08 million spectators visit theaters.

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Coming Attractions: GRANNY'S GOT TALENT's Schtick Ain't Ready For Television

By Rex Baylon

Bawdy Korean comedies more often than not fall on deaf ears when they reach foreign audiences and Shin Han-sol's new film Granny's Got Talent is no different. Structured on the thinnest of premises, a swearing contest that has drawn various foul-mouthed individuals to compete for the title of master of cursing.

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Reel Talk: Busan City vs. Busan Film Festival

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

Just over a week ago, a controversy erupted when Busan City asked the director of the Busan International Film Festival to resign. Events have unfolded in quick fashion, and for this week's Reel Talk I talked about what has happened so far and the possible implications of the situation.

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Coming Attractions: THE AVIAN KIND is a Brooding Kind of Film Fowl

By Rex Baylon

Shin Youn-sik is back with a new film in February titled The Avian Kind. Over the last few years, Shin got quite a bit of attention for a pair of films that both premiered at the Busan Film Festival, the contemplative mystery drama The Russian Novel (2012) and the art-meets-life gangster picture Rough Play (2013).

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New Korean Films: Trampled Flowers (2015 Week 4)

Shoot Me in the Heart

(내 심장을 쏴라)

By Fabien Schneider

Soo-Myung witnessed the traumatic experience of his mother’s suicide, and has since become a regular of a psychiatric hospital for the last six years. He has developed a form of schizophrenia, but he’s as honest as possible. One day, a new patient comes to share his room: Seung-Min is sound of mind, but has been sent here for no reason by some relatives of his. His only wish is to run away from this place as soon as possible.

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News: All Aboard! SNOWPIERCER Spoof Coming This Year

By Pierce Conran

The most well known Korean film of the last few years is coming back to screens, reimagined as an erotic parody. Bong Man-dae, the director of Cinderella (2006) and Playboy Bong (2013), though most well known as a purveyor of softcore erotica, is turning Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer into Rice Cake Soup Train (Ddeok-gook-yeol-cha, 떡국열차). That title's a bit of a mouthful (sorry, had to do it) but it makes more sense in Korean. If and when they decide this could target a foreign audience, I'm sure they'll come up with something better.

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Review: Stylish And Well Performed, SCARLET INNOCENCE Surprises And Delights

By Pierce Conran

Adapted from a Korean folk tale and starting off as a softly lensed romantic melodrama, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Scarlet Innocence, the latest work from noted visual stylist Yim Pil-sung, must be primed for a local audience. Yet this surprising genre-bending effort, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, holds off from showing its true colors until it has lulled you into a comfortable reverie. A successful exercise in subverting expectations, Scarlet Innocence may also prove a watershed moment for Yim, an acclaimed director whose high profile and gorgeously designed works have so far failed to translate into box office returns.

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News: BIFF Director Stays on, Censorship Concerns Linger

By Pierce Conran

Click here to read about the events leading up to this story.

It appears that Busan Film Festival director Lee Yong-kwan will not be leaving his post for the moment. Lee and BIFF executive programmer Kim Ji-seok met with Busan City mayor Suh Byung-soo and culture and tourism bureau director-general Kim Kwang-hee on Tuesday.

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Review: GYEONGJU, Not Just a Place But an Idea

By Rex Baylon

“You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

- Thomas Wolfe

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News: Lotte Picks up TERMINATOR, Still No Release for MEMORIES OF THE SWORD

By Pierce Conran

In an unusual move, Paramount announced earlier this month that their summer tentpole Terminator: Genisys would not be distributed by their usual partner CJ Entertainment in Korea. That position has now been filled by Lotte Entertainment, which will release the film in July.

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Coming Attractions: Can EMPIRE OF LUST Keep the Fires of the Period Drama Burning?

By Rex Baylon

The period drama boom in the Korean film industry seems to show no signs of abating as March will see the release of Empire of Lust, Ahn Sang-hoon's third feature after Arang (2006) and Blind (2011). The film stars Shin Ha-kyun (Save the Green Planet, 2003), playing Kim Min-jae, the supreme commander of the Joseon dynasty, Jang Hyuk (The Flu, 2013) as the king's son, and Kang Ha-neul (Mourning Grave) as Min-jae's hedonistic son.

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News: Bong Joon-ho to Sit on Berlinale International Jury

By Pierce Conran

The Berlin International Film Festival just held a press conference to announced the full jury for the international competition of its 65th edition next month. Bong is also part of this year's Berlinale Talents, where he will give a talk on transnational filmmaking. His last film Snowpiercer was screened at Berlinale in 2014.

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