Showing posts with label 김주혁. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 김주혁. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Review: BELIEVER, Explosive DRUG WAR Remake Puts Faith in Livewire Cast


By Pierce Conran

Korean noir gets an action makeover in Believer, the explosive and hugely entertaining local remake of Johnny To's mainland Chinese crime saga Drug War. A parade of Korean character actors sink their teeth into deliciously over-the-top characters, including the beloved Kim Joo-hyuk, in his final screen role (completed just before his death in a car crash last October), in a retelling that both improves on and falls short of the original.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

News: Actor Kim Joo-hyuk Dies in Traffic Accident


By Pierce Conran

It's with a heavy heart that we share the news of the untimely passing of actor Kim Joo-hyuk, who in a rich 20-year career appeared in works such as Singles, My Wife Got Married, The Truth Beneath and Yourself and Yours. He was just 45 years old.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Review: THE TOOTH AND THE NAIL Does't Quite Scratch the Itch


By Rex Baylon

A fedora and trenchcoat, a beguiling femme fatale, a city in the throes of corruption. All elements of the film noir genre and all present in the picture The Tooth and the Nail. Adapted from a crime novel by Bill Ballinger, an author criminally unknown by mass audiences now but whose work from the early 50s till the late 70s had a marked influence on TV and the crime mystery genre. The Tooth and the Nail is pure period pulp. Helmed by one of the directors of the equally stylish period horror film Epitaph, Jung Sik later quit during post-production due to creative differences with the production company and was replaced by Kim Hwi, whose credits include a list of horror and suspense-thrillers (The Neighbors, The Chosen: Forbidden Cave).

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Review: CONFIDENTIAL ASSIGNMENT, A Routine Action-Comedy for the Whole Family


By Pierce Conran

After taking a back seat to Joseon Era dramas and then Japanese Colonial Era films over the last few years, tales of North Korean spies are ramping up to make a big comeback on screens in 2017. The first of four big-budget Korean spy action-thrillers on the way, Confidential Assignment landed just in time for the busy Lunar New Year holiday and has proven to be another smash success for hit making production house JK Films. But like their previous efforts, the commercial calculation of this multi-genre gambit dilutes the effectiveness of its familiar moving pieces.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Review: THE TRUTH BENEATH Unearths Dark, Stylish Mysteries


By Pierce Conran

A great year for Korean genre cinema keeps getting better with the release of Lee Kyoung-mi's long time coming sophomore feature, the riveting The Truth Beneath, a sumptuous and anarchic political thriller, kidnap drama, suspenseful whodunnit and kaleidoscopic descent into delirium. Falling between the stylistic panache of Park Chan-wook's Lady Vengeance (2005), on which she was a scripter and assistant director, and the manic paranoia of Tetsuya Nakashima's Confessions (2010), Lee's latest features a career-best performance by Son Ye-jin in a narrative that occasionally gets mired in tonal vagaries.