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 While generally well made, the élan of yesteryear's hardboiled Korean thrillers has recently been replaced by a growing sense of familiarity and an alarming whiff of complacency.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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