Review: THE BACCHUS LADY Gracefully Explores Bounty of Taboo Subjects

By Pierce Conran

Veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung, star of such classics as Kim Ki-young's Woman of Fire and The Insect Woman, takes on perhaps her boldest role yet in The Bacchus Lady. Directed by E J-yong, appearing in the Berlinale program for the fifth time, this surprising 3D drama was made within the sanctuary of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA).

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Review: INSIDE MEN, A Political Thriller That Goes For The Jugular

By Pierce Conran

The year is almost up, the box office has been tallied and the people have spoken. Stories of greedy corporate heirs, crooked clergy, conniving journalists and dirty politicians have risen to the top of the pile, each more acerbic than the last. But 2015 ends with a bang and one of the darkest, most fiercely critical mainstream Korean films of recent memory. Woo Min-ho ably surpasses his previous efforts with third feature Inside Men, which also marks a comeback of sorts for the embattled star Lee Byung-hun, who has spent much of the year in tabloid columns for the wrong reasons.

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Busan 2017 Review: HOME Settles in for Pleasant if Predictable Family Drama

By Pierce Conran

Busan-set family melodrama Home doesn't stray from stock themes of Korean dramas yet its endearing young cast and genuine feelings make it a pleasant debut from newcomer Kim Jong-woo.

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Busan 2017 Review: BLUEBEARD, Ambitious Chiller Lacks Tension

By Pierce Conran

Much like her debut The Uninvited, Lee Soo-yeon's latest film Bluebeard teases a dark genre storyline before turning off into more psychological territory through several layered images and a protagonist who isn't quite what he seems, played by Cho Jin-woong of A Hard Day. Unlike her impressive 2003 horror film, her second work feels less fresh and a lot more contrived.

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Busan 2017 Review: TAKLAMAKAN, Introspective Drama Dashes Dreams

By Pierce Conran

Ko Eun-ki's sixth film Taklamakan, takes its name from a red desert in China which, as legend maintains, won't let you out once you step inside. In this dark and introspective drama, featuring characters that use the word as a metaphor for their everlasting love, we discover on a dusty hill that sets the stage for an irrevocable life choice that Taklamakan is in actuality a point of no return for the three main characters, played by Cho Seong-ha, Ha Yoon-kyung and Song Eun-ji in committed if dour performances.

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Review: FORGOTTEN Mislays Its Mystery after Strong Start

By Pierce Conran

Modern thrillers live or die by their twists, and while an unexpected and well-executed surprise can elevate a film from mundane to memorable, many filmmakers forget that it's the journey there that counts. In his latest film Forgotten, director Chang Hang-jun gets it half right, crafting an effortlessly intriguing mystery --- until he starts to lift the curtain. Once that happens around the halfway point, the film offers one expository scene after the next. These scenes manage to both build an extraordinarily convoluted ruse before boiling it down to wearily familiar points, all the while lifting wholesale from the most devilishly twisted Korean thriller of them all.

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Review: THE CHASE Leads Us Down Familiar Path

By Pierce Conran

An intriguing, if admittedly low-key twist on the Korean serial killer chiller never really comes together in the mediocre The Chase, the third film from The Con Artists helmer Kim Hong-sun. Leading man Baek Yoon-sik (of Save the Green Planet fame) lays on a heavy accent as he shuffles through an incongruous medley of gore and levity that rarely strays from its middle-of-the-road trajectory.

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Review: THE SWINDLERS Cons Viewers Out of Their Time

By Pierce Conran

Stars Hyun Bin and Yoo Ji-tae go toe-to-toe in this month's The Swindlers, a loose and jazzy caper thriller that mines Korea's abundant fascination with grifters. Or at least that's what it attempts to do, as this blatant ripoff of the work of director Choi Dong-hoon (Tazza: The High Rollers, The Thieves) is a grating star vehicle that smacks of smug ineptitude and a whole lot of cut corners.

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Review: GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM May Scare You Away from Hospitals for Good

By Pierce Conran

The history of Korean horror was rewritten this year by the most unlikely of contenders, as a low-budget found footage chiller became one of the top-selling K-horrors of all time. Without the benefit of any stars, Epitaph co-director Jung Bum-sik struck box office gold with Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, which fell shy of only Kim Jee-won's A Tale of Two Sisters on the all-time local horror chart.

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Review: THE RUNNING ACTRESS Dashes to Victory

By Pierce Conran

Ever since picking up a Best New Actor Prize from the Venice International Film Festival for Oasis in 2002, Moon So-ri has been known as one of the top performers in the Korean film industry. Now, after impressing viewers and critics alike over the years, in a range of indie and commercial fare, Moon proves herself to be equally adept behind the camera, following the release of her charming, hilarious and at times poignant feature debut The Running Actress.

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Review: BE WITH YOU, Pleasant Fantasy Drama Stays the Course

By Pierce Conran

The Korean fantasy romance, a genre that has spawned modern classics such as Il Mare and Ditto, has fallen on hard times in recent years but makes a strong case for a return to form with Be With You, an engaging new vehicle for stars Son Ye-jin and So Ji-sub.

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Review: LITTLE FOREST Will Have You Yearning for the Simple Life

By Pierce Conran

In Korean cinema, when characters retreat to the countryside things generally don't work out too well for them, but in Yim Soon-rye's new drama Little Forest, a young woman regains her spirit, and as she does so, many viewers will leave the theater with a desire for the simple life. This adaptation of a popular Japanese manga (already adapted into a two-part Japanese film) gives Kim Tae-ri her first lead role since her breakout part in Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden and offers a distinct Korean flavor in what is a cinematic love letter to 'slow living'.

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Jeonju 2018 Review: A GOOD BUSINESS, NK Defector Doc Poses Fascinating Ethical Quandaries

By Pierce Conran

Some of the best documentaries are those that don't tell you what to think but choose instead to explore a subject from different viewpoints and angles, let the images speak for themselves and give the viewer a chance to make up their own mind.

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Jeonju 2018 Review: WINTER'S NIGHT Takes a Colorful and Introspective Trip Down Memory Lane

By Pierce Conran

Returning with his third film to the festival where he picked up the top Korean Competition prize for his debut A Fresh Start, director Jang Woo-jin delivers his most carefully designed work to date with Winter's Night, one of this year's Jeonju Cinema Projects at the Jeonju International Film Festival. Yet for all its artistry and clear merit, a film with a strong opening act slowly loses its way as intriguing threads become muddled through thickly layered symbolic overtures that recall a great many similar Korean independent works, not to mention Jang's previous film Autumn, Autumn.

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Jeonju 2018 Review: GRADUATION Scores Top Marks for Its Young Director and Star

By Pierce Conran

Making films is hard anywhere, but in Korea, where so many youths dream of entering what is a successful yet relatively small industry, it's a particularly tricky proposition. Thus it comes as little surprise that so many debut features focus on the hardships of making films. Korean film festivals have provided a platform to many of these works over the years, including Lee Byoung-heon's Cheer Up, Mr. Lee, Park Joon-bum's Director's Cut and Baek Jae-ho's We Will Be OK. Jeonju featured another one this year, but Graduation, from the 23-year-old Hui Ji-ye, offers a unique and refreshing view on the subject, despising hewing to many similar themes.

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Jeonju 2018 Review: HELLO DAYOUNG, Korean Comedy Goes Full Chaplin

By Pierce Conran

For the third year on the trot, and after already receiving two prizes, director Ko Bong-soo returns to the Jeonju International Film Festival with his third work, Hello Dayoung. Largely working with the same troupe of actors, who are taking turns in the lead roles of his films, Ko's latest maintains the comic bent and sweetness of his prior works but this loving homage to silent comedy ditches his unique colloquial dialogue. Shot in black and white and sped up to achieve the accelerated frame rate of the silent era, this 62-minute romantic comedy is all heart but doesn't always work as a feature.

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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.

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Cannes 2018 Review: BURNING, a Slow Burn for the Ages

By Pierce Conran

Eight years after his phenomenal drama Poetry, Lee Chang-dong makes a long-awaited return to the Cannes competition with his sixth film Burning, an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story 'Barn Burning'. Dense with symbolism, this tour de force burrows towards the ineffable as it gradually builds palpable tension through a mystery that begins to consume its lead character. Yoo Ah-in and Steven Yeun both deliver career-best work while newcomer Jeon Jong-seo is a marvel as the girl who finds herself caught between them.

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Review: HUMAN, SPACE, TIME AND HUMAN aka Rape: The Movie

By Pierce Conran

The work of Kim Ki-duk has been contentious for many reasons over the years, with the rampant misogyny that permeates his films being a particular bone of contention amongst critics. His most recent outing doesn't so much add fuel to that fire as drop a bomb on it. Featuring rape at almost every turn, Human, Space, Time and Human is what happens when you feed an ego and allow its pathological violence to go unchecked for two decades. Savage chauvinism aside, Kim's latest is also a puerile and repetitive film from a voice that has long since given up trying to say anything worthwhile.

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Review: 1987: WHEN THE DAY COMES Offers Timely and Powerful History Lesson

By Pierce Conran

Save the Green Planet director Jang Joon-hwan mobilizes dozens of familiar faces, including The Chaser and The Yellow Sea stars Kim Yun-seok and Ha Jung-woo, for a weighty and powerful dramatization of the birth of Korean democracy. Following a slew of other politically-minded films, the sprawling protest drama 1987: When the Day Comes caps off what has been a tumultuous year for Korea that began with millions on the streets and resulted in the scandalous downfall of a polarizing head of state.

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Review: ALONG WITH THE GODS: THE TWO WORLDS, Ambitious Fantasy Epic Indulges in Cheesy Backdrops and Melodrama

By Pierce Conran

Riding in on a wave of curiosity and anticipation, popular webcomic adaptation Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, the opener of Korea's first simultaneously filmed two-part series, represents one of the biggest gambles in Korean film history. No Korean film has ever relied on so much VFX work and at a cost of roughly $36 million, failure would spell certain doom for the people behind it.

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Review: STEEL RAIN, Bombastic Action-Drama Ponders Nuclear Armageddon

By Pierce Conran

The first of a trio of major end-of-year releases in Korea this winter, Steel Rain is the third North Korea-themed action-thriller of 2017 (following Confidential Assignment and V.I.P.) and easily its most bombastic. From The Attorney helmer Yang Woo-suk, who adapts his own webtoon of the same name, the threat of nuclear armageddon on the Korean peninsula has never been so great in a film that is as ambitious as it is disjointed. Leads Jung Woo-sung and Kwak Do-kwon reunite just over a year after Asura: The City of Madness.

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Top 15 Korean Films of 2017

By Pierce Conran

Following what turned out to be one of the all-time best years of Korean cinema, 2017 had its work cut out for it, and, sure enough, it fell well short of 2016’s benchmark. Yet what could have been a placeholder year was saved by an array of important titles that signalled a changing current in the industry, particularly the mainstream.

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Busan 2017 Review: ECOLOGY IN CONCRETE Explores the Heart of Modern Seoul

By Pierce Conran

Following her Talking Architect films, director Jeong Jae-eun once again explores the complicated systems behind Seoul's urban planning, a field which encompasses both fascinating sociological insights and frustrating political obstacles. In Jeong's hands, this exploration of the growth of Seoul's residential planning is enthralling yet the journey is at times difficult through its detailed mid-section, especially for those not familiar with the city's unique architectural landscape.

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Busan 2017 Review: OLD LOVE Mourns Life's Missed Opportunities

By Pierce Conran

20 years after his debut Motel Cactus, Park Ki-yong returns with his 8th feature Old Joy, a contemplative work that proves to be director's strongest since his early days as one of the pioneers of the nascent Korea indie filmmaking scene.

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Busan 2017 Review: ROMANS 8:37, a Difficult Theological Tale

By Pierce Conran

Writer-director Shin Yeon-shick returns to Busan for the fifth time with Romans 8:37, a thoughtful if not exactly thought-provoking theological tale of faith, suffering and coverups. Focusing exclusively on the complicated inner workings and relationships of a Korean church, this lengthy film will prove challenging for some viewers, particularly those outside the faith.

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Busan 2017 Review: BUTTERFLY SLEEP Flutters Gracefully Over a Well-Worn Path

By Pierce Conran

It's been a full 12 years since director Jeong Jae-eun helmed a narrative feature and the Japan-set Butterfly Sleep is a welcome return, if not a patch on her 2001 debut Take Care of My Cat, still her best work.

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Busan 2017 Review: PARK HWA-YOUNG Lashes Out with Foul and Excessive Misery

By Pierce Conran

Among the dozens of local indie films that wind up at the Busan International Film Festival every year, a number tend to be dark social dramas that explore the worst aspects of society. Often set in winter (likely due to the festival's spring submission dates), they can make for heavy viewing but can also be extremely rewarding.

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Review: HEART BLACKENED, Well-Acted SILENT WITNESS Remake Emits Cool Pulse

By Pierce Conran

Chinese court thriller Silent Witness gets a sober and effective Korean update with Heart Blackened, a polished new offering from Eungyo director Jung Ji-woo that features an unflappable Choi Min-sik leading a strong cast. More serious and thus more drawn out than its rapid fire original, the film packs a solid emotional punch in its twisty climax.

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Busan 2017 Review: METHOD Gets Booed Off the Stage

By Pierce Conran

Bang Eun-jin scales things down significantly for her fourth work, the theater world forbidden love story Method. Lacking any chemistry between its leads, this facile mirrored narrative proves to be Bang's least impressive work as it trudges through thinly drawn and tired themes.

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Busan 2017 Review: MICROHABITAT, a Poignant and Lively Debut

By Pierce Conran

Perhaps the most impressive Korean debut at Busan this year, the thoughtful and entertaining Microhabitat is a convincing showcase for star Esom and and an even more impressive calling card for director Jeon Go-woon, who becomes the first woman in the Gwanghwamun Cinema group to helm a feature, and her debut may well be the collective's best yet.

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Busan 2017 Review: MERMAID UNLIMITED Offers Limited Chuckles

By Pierce Conran

Indie filmmaker O Muel has been churning out films for around a decade on his native Jeju Island, which each explore the history and society of the popular getaway in different ways but always from the perspective of the local community. For the majority of his career he's vacillated between low-key, parochial comedies and more soberly artistic fare and with Mermaid Unlimited, following 2015's somewhat impenetrable art piece Eyelids, he's firmly back in the former camp, albeit with a little more social examination than his other light offerings.

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Review: THE FORTRESS, Sublime Political Allegory Closes Its Doors to the Uninitiated

By Pierce Conran

One of the most impressive casts of the year lines up in the austere and languid period siege drama The Fortress. Led by Lee Byung-hun, Kim Yun-seok and Park Hae-il, performances are strong all around in this magnificently shot and movingly scored but admittedly unhurried meditation on the nature of duty and hierarchy in Korean society. Heavy on political metaphors, this powerful film has found favor with local critics but may prove difficult for the uninitiated.

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Busan 2017 Review: LAST CHILD, a Powerful Tale of Guilt and Grief

By Pierce Conran

Grief and guilt get a thorough review in Shin Dong-seok's debut film Last Child, one of three Korean films competing in this year's New Currents competition in Busan. A trio of powerful performances ground this emotionally gritty tale and lure us into a complex web of suffering but while the director for the most part avoids the overly depressing aura of similar stories, a shoddy climax undermines the measured work that precedes it.

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Review: I CAN SPEAK Should Keep It Down

By Pierce Conran

A pleasant comedy-drama makes way for bald-faced histrionics in Kim Hyun-seok's overly calculated new offering I Can Speak. Veteran name Na Moon-hee and younger star Lee Je-hoon are an engaging pair at the film's center but when the story's true intentions are revealed nothing is safe from the manipulative wrangling taking place behind the scenes, which seeks to elicit a strong emotional reaction from local viewers.

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Busan 2017 Review: MISSING, a Compelling Women-Led Kidnap Drama

By Pierce Conran

The kidnap thriller is a popular genre in Korea but E.Oni's Missing proves to be a refreshing addition to the crowded genre, buoyed by a pair of fine performances by Uhm Ji-won and Gong Hyo-jin in a story forged by compelling and twisting themes of female identity and motherhood in a patriarchal society. The film ends on a slightly disappointing note with a soft climax but the buildup and characters make the journey there more than worthwhile during its svelte 100 minute running time.

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Busan 2017 Review: AFTER MY DEATH Breathlessly Ponders High School Suicide

By Pierce Conran

The New Currents competition gets a jolt of energy with Kim Ui-seok's livewire debut After My Death. Much like fellow competition title Last Child, the grief and guilt surrounding a high schooler's death also forms the crux of this film, but what separates them is a focus on the group rather than individual characters and punchier pacing that drives towards an intriguing finish.

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Review: A SPECIAL LADY, the Wrong Kind of Remarkable

By Pierce Conran

Two years after Coin Locker Girl, Kim Hye-soo returns as a woman gang boss with a bold wig in Lee An-gyu's debut A Special Lady. Unfortunately, the freshness of her earlier gang saga makes way for an abundance of hollow flash in this tired and frustrating genre pic.

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Busan 2017 Review: HIT THE NIGHT Flips Genders in Talky Game of Cat and Mouse

By Pierce Conran

Following quickly on the heels of her surprising debut Bitch on the Beach, which bowed at the Seoul Independent Film Festival last year, Jeong Ga-young gets her first Busan berth with Hit the Night, which once again features the director in the lead as a curious, loquacious and sexually aggressive young woman.

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Review: THE OUTLAWS, Familiar but Punchy Thriller Shows Us New Side of Seoul

By Pierce Conran

Buff and lovable star Ma Dong-seok takes on his best leading role to date in the gritty crime tale The Outlaws, which adds laughs and punch to a modest story framed around Chinese-Korean hoods and local law in a low-rent Seoul neighborhood. First time director Kang Yoon-sung keeps things simple and on-track but knows when to juice up the tempo to avoid any slack in this surprisingly effective Chuseok holiday offering.

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Busan 2017 Review: A TIGER IN WINTER Hunts Our Individual Fears

By Pierce Conran

Following his wonderfully droll indies Romance Joe and A Matter of Interpretation, both of which also debuted at Busan, director Lee Kwang-kuk is back with A Tiger in Winter.

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Busan 2017 Review: GLASS GARDEN, Spoiled yet Soiled by Ravishing Imagery

By Pierce Conran

One of Korea's foremost indie voices returns with a fable couched in verdant imagery but marred by a sense of deja vu. Shin Su-won's fourth feature Glass Garden, the opening film of this year's Busan International Film Festival, feels like a metaphorical anecdote winged with familiar side plots and stretched out to feature length.

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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.

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News: Hong Sangsoo and Kim Min-hee Start Filming 5th Collaboration

By Pierce Conran

Hong Sangsoo and Kim Min-hee are teaming up for the fifth time on a new project that began filming earlier this month. As usual their are no plot details for what is simply Hong Sangsoo's Untitled 22nd Project for now. The film comes amidst a busy year that saw Hong release three films, all with Kim, and will co-star Jung Jin-young (seen in Claire's Camera), Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim Sae-byuk (both in The Day After).

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Short Watch: JOHNNYEXPRESS Delivers Devilishly Dark Laughs

Short Watch is a weekly feature dedicated to highlighting important short films from emerging and established filmmakers. Check back each Tuesday to watch a free and subtitled Korean short on MKC.

By Pierce Conran

This week on Short Watch, we invite you to check out the hilarious short animation JohnnyExpress. From director Kyungmin Woo, the tale involves a lazy intergalactic delivery man who causes quite a stir on his latest run.

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News: Newcomer Jeon Jong-seo Cast in LEE Chang-dong's Murakami Adaptation BURNING

By Pierce Conran

Auditions appear to have wrapped up for Lee Chang-dong's sixth film Burning as it was announced today that newcomer Jeon Jong-seo will take on the lead female role in the adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story Barn Burning, originally published in The New Yorker.

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Review: OPERATION CHROMITE, A Soulless, Calculated Cashgrab

By Pierce Conran

Summer in Korea guarantees a few things, hot humid days, the loud whir of cicadas and the guaranteed release of a jingoistic cashgrab. Recent summers have gifted us with Roaring Currents and Northern Limit Line and last year followed suit by treating us to Operation Chromite. Featuring a tacked on performance by global star Liam Neeson, this Korean War offering might have been more egregious had its clearly venal nature not been so readily apparent the moment the project was announced.

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Review: OUR LOVE STORY Offers Authentic, Modern and Compelling Romance

By Pierce Conran

2016 has seen Korean cinema make a big push to focus its narratives on characters from all walks of life, and particularly of different sexual orientations, with several major queer films bowing at festivals from Berlin to Busan. In between those events, one unassuming independent feature from a film school may have stolen the spotlight from the rest.

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Short Watch: DEER FLOWER Will Bloom in Your Nightmares

Deer Flower from KANGMIN KIM on Vimeo.

Short Watch is a weekly feature dedicated to highlighting important short films from emerging and established filmmakers. Check back each Tuesday to watch a free and subtitled Korean short on MKC.

By Pierce Conran

Screened and awarded around the world since it debuted at Sundance last year, Kim Kang-min's deranged and remarkably original short animation Deer Flower deserves all the attention it has and continues to receive.

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News: A TAXI DRIVER Enter Oscar Race and All Time Top 10 at Korean Box Office

By Pierce Conran

In addition to becoming the year's biggest film, Jang Hoon's Gwangju drama A Taxi Driver will now be hoping for Oscar glory as it has been selected as this year's Korean submission to the foreign language category of next year's Academy Awards. Meanwhile, the film overtook Taegugki to enter the all time top ten Korean films at the box office over the weekend. To date, the film has brought in 11.89 million viewers ($82.78 million).

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