Ahn Byeong-ki (안병기)

Director Ahn Byeong-ki's 2002 horror hit "Phone" is being reworked into an English-language version for the North American market, in an announced co-production between Seoul-based Mirovision and LA-based Imprint Entertainment. Original director AHN is attached to direct the remake, with principle shooting to take place in Korea.

In the wake of a slew of Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films such as The Ring, The Grudge, One Missed Call, and Dark Water, having profitably tested the waters, the new co-production is expected to follow in their success.

The original "Phone" drew 2.2 million admissions at the l...More

Director Ryoo Jang-ha is adapting the popular internet manwha (Korean equivalent of Japanese manga) Soonjeong Manwha by Kang Pool (real name: KANG Do-young), the English title will be "Hello Schoolgirl". The titular role will be played by Lee Yeon-hee and her love interest is a role by Yoo Ji-tae.

The story is about a high school girl (LEE) who every morning sees a shy thirty-year-old businessman (YOO) at the elevator. The girl is not afraid to express her feelings for the man who is the first she feels romantic feelings for.

The young actress LEE is still mostly acting the roles of young women encountering their first love. She is currently also...More

Kyu Hyun Kim (qhyunkim)

The second installment in the You Il-han and Ahn Byeong-ki team-up horror series concerns a young working mother Min-young (Kim Seo-hyeong, the victimized teacher in "Voice Letter"), who moves into an "office-tel" room (a studio flat that doubles as a workplace) with a kindergarten-age daughter (Kim Yoo-jeong). Of course, the office-tel turns out to be spooked by the spirit of another young mother, whose attacks are responsible for a series of mysterious deaths. Soon it is uncovered that the building originally had another floor (the "fourth floor", which, like the thirteenth floor in the West, is considered bad luck and usually absent in Korean buildings). When the vengeful spirit seeks to possess Min-young's daughter, she decides to uncover the sordid past of the office-tel building.

Written and directed by Kwon Il-soon, who received notice due to his short "Hide and Seek" (2001) that, not coincidentally, explores a young child's feelings of loss of her mother, "Forbidden Floor - 4 Horror Tales" unfortunately suffers from overly familiar setups. As I have been lamenting on these and other pages, Korean and Japanese horror films have long been infested by the pointless Sadako clones (PSC), which in ironic ways have fulfilled the fictional promise of Suzuki Koji's o...More

[DVD Review] You Il-han's horror short given a lackluster adaptation

Kyu Hyun Kim (qhyunkim)

"4 Horror Tales" was the 2006 summer season's top-line experiment of producing four horror movies based on Yoo Il-han's short stories on the cheap in high definition video. The tab was picked up by CJ Entertainment and TV station SBS. Yoo himself was involved as executive producer, teaming up with Korea's resident horror specialist Ahn Byeong-ki ("Phone", "A.P.T", among others) and giving opportunities to four young directors to scare up the audience in theaters as well as on TV screens.

The first installment "February 29 - 4 Horror Tales" might be of interest to the fans of "Dae Jang Geum" ("Jewel in the Palace"), a mega-hit Korean TV drama, since two among its main cast members, Im Ho (who played the Choseon monarch Joongjong) and Park Eun-hye (Jang-geum's friend Yeon-saeng), star in the movie.

Park plays Ji-yeon, who we first see in a padded cell claiming to a skeptical journalist that a ghost of a female serial killer is responsible for a slew of killings on February 29, four years ago. In the main story, we find her working as a tollgate attendant. First she encounters a cryptic driver who keeps giving her blood-soaked tickets, and then someone who is dressed just like her b...More

Two of last year's big budget fantasy thrillers have been invited to compete at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (BIFFF), set to run April 5th – 17th, 2007 in Belgium. Bong Joon-ho's record-smashing monster film "The Host" and Jo Dong-oh's purgatorial fantasy "The Restless" will vie for the top international prize in the program.

Other Korean films selected to participate in the non-competition categor...More