New Korean Films: The Thin Line Between Film and Advertisement (2013 Week 18)

Born to Sing

(전국노래자랑)

Bong-nam, a man who lives only on the wages of his wife as one of her employees, dreams of becoming a renowned singer and enrolls in a famous televised song contest, hoping to win first prize. He will meet many opponents, including a energetic grandmother, a young woman and a little girl encouraged by her grandfather.

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New Korean Films: A Sexy Nap (2013 Week 17)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Dream Affection 2

(몽정애 2 - 기막힌 상상)

Jae-hoon, a man who recently resigned from his job, runs out of money. He is haunted in his dreams by a mysterious woman. Three women, Yuki, and Yujin Mini, do not feel secure enough in their apartment and are looking for a male roommate to help them. Jae-hoon finds this ad and respond only for the expectation of living with three beautiful women.

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New Korean Films: Free Way for the Indies (2013 Week 16)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Norigae

(노리개)

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New Korean Films: Punching Bags and Mannequins (2013 Week 15)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Fists of Legend

(전설 의 주먹)

 

A producer of a television fighting contest, Kyu-Min, is seeking amateurs to compete against professional athletes. She tries to persuade Lim Duk-Kyu, the tenant of a noodle restaurant, but he only agrees reluctantly because he needs the prize money to compensate the hospitalization of a girl her daughter beat up. He doesn't know yet that Kyu-Min has also fetched two of his high school friends for the competition.

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New Korean Films: US Companies Rush In (2013 Week 14)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Running Man

(런닝맨)

The one and only dream of Cha Jong-woo is to raise enough money to live under the same roof with his 17-year old son, who resulted from a youthful indiscretion. This is why he works in a garage by day and spends his nights as a taxi driver. One day, he suddenly realizes that that the rich client he was driving to his destination has been murdered, not understanding how this could have happen. By bad intuition, he decides to flee, and thus the next day becomes the prime suspect. Meanwhile, his son, not believing the news, is trying to find out what really happened.

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New Korean Films: The Shifting Sands of Indie Films (2013 Week 13)

(by Fabien Schneider)

This week is the calm before the storm: I have only two independent films to introduce to you, and both will only have limited distribution. But this is not a reason not to be interested in them, because they are two quite original projects.

Following Sand River

(모래가 흐르는 강)

 

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New Korean Films: Rememberance of the Lost Ones (2013 Week 12)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Eating, Talking, Faucking 

(생생활활) 

Eighteen characters are brought together in sketches with original situations, and the topics of all their discussions quickly turn to sex: a 70-year old man who returns to childhood by chatting with teenagers, a suicidal soldier and a serial killer, a naturist blind-date, or God trying to regulate the desire in his first two attempts at making humans, are only a few of these strange stories.

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New Korean Films: The Coming of New Indie Filmmakers (2013 Week 11)

(by Fabien Schneider)

This week is all to the glory of independent cinema since the Korean Academy of Art Films delivers two films from its students and a third debut movie completes the series. But don't get your hopes up, success will only smile upon My Paparoti, as this one has all the cards in hand to propel itself to the top of the box office. There is also a particular challenger that I decided not to include in my article despite being quite interesting for what it tells about the foreign interests in the Korean market: The Fifth Execution, a Russian film co-produced with South Korea and the U.S., where the main character is embodied by Kim Bo-seong, a famous actor of the 90s who starred in the trilogy of Two Cops, a few comedies and some soap operas.

Your Time is Up 

(누구나 제 명 에 죽고 싶다)

 

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New Korean Films: Is There Room For Yet Another Thriller? (2013 Week 10)

(by Fabien Schneider)

This week will probably see no new hit for Korean films and thus should maintain the established order at the box office. With a short movie for film buffs and a collection of independent short films in very limited distribution, only Psychometry has the ability to attract thousands of spectators, but finds itself in the worst possible situations, being released after two big successful thrillers.

Psychometry

(사이코메트리) 

 

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New Korean Films: Meta-Narratives and Binge Drinking (2013 Week 9)

(by Fabien Schneider)

The program for this week looks quite unique, with only two new films, but two independent productions that both have many similarities: they were screened in the Berlinale this month, and propose experiments with narrative. Nothing that could shake the top of the current box office of course, but it will be interesting to see which of these two movies will get the most endorsement from the public.

Nobody's Daughter Haewon  (누구의 딸도 아닌 해원)

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New Korean Films: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2013 Week 8)

(by Fabien Schneider)

This week will be very bloody and will features many deaths, both within these new films and between them at the box office. Two of the largest distributors in Korea, NEW and Lotte, will each propose a thriller full of promise. And although I will not dwell on this film because technically it isn't Korean, CJ Entertainment is also going to unsheathe The Last Stand by Kim Jee-woon. Three films not allowed for children, three films that seem to have each their strengths and weaknesses. Which one will manage to make it out alive?

New World (신세계)

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The 2012 Korean Cinema Blogathon

The Korean Cinema Blogathon will be back for its much anticipated 2nd edition from March 5-11.  This year the home base for the event will be last year's co-host cineAWESOME! while New Korean Cinema will be mirroring all of the links on its site.

In order to maximize the exposure of the already very popular Blogathon, a few sites have been brought in to the mix to act as hosts to all of the event's links.  Modern Korean Cinema is very proud to count itself among this group, along with Hangul Celluloid, KOFFIA, and VCinema.

Last year's Blogathon was the reason that MKC really got going, so I'm extremely excited to see it roll around again especially as this edition promises to be even better than the first!

Make sure to drop in come March 5th and don't be shy about submitting your own review, top 10, or article, this is what the Korean Cinema Blogathon is all about!  It's a fantastic way to share thoughts, discover great sites, and meet new people.

Check out the original press release after the jump for more information:

Following last years successful Korean Blogathon (thanks to everyone who joined us!) New Korean Cinema and cineAWESOME! will be hosting the event again this year from 5th to the 11th March.

What’s the Korean Blogathon?

It’s a way to try to encourage as many people – including YOU! – to share and discover opinions and ideas about Korean cinema. It’s open to anyone – wherever you are around the world and whichever language you speak.

For one week we try to encourage as many people as possible to get involved writing about Korean cinema. Anything you want. Over the course of the seven days this kicks up some really interesting posts – and, most importantly, people are able to read what you’ve written and discover films and ideas that they’ve never come across before, maybe learn a little about Korean film history, or maybe even discover websites and blogs they were previously unaware of.

Ideas for blog posts might include reviews, top tens, opinions on favorite directors / actors / genres, whatever you want – it just needs to be related to Korean cinema in some way. Last year we had fifty blogs participate, generating one hundred and fifty posts!

Check out the links for last years event here. This year the event will be hosted by cineAWESOME! and mirrored at New Korean Cinema.

All you need to do to join us is to write a post – or as many posts as you want over the seven days – on your blog or website during the week of 5th to the 11th of March then send an e-mail to [email protected] with your link to and we’ll post a link to you from the site. You can also post your own links on our Facebook page or we will do it for you, and we’ll Tweet links to your posts throughout the week: the Twitter tag for the week will be #koreablog.

If you want to use one of our ‘Korean Blogathon 2012’ banners they can be downloaded from here