Eun Won-jae (은원재)

"Hansel and Gretel" in Canadian cinemas

Source | 2008/09/17 | Permalink |

LIM Pil-seong's fantasy thriller "Hansel and Gretel" will enjoy a limited theatrical release in Canada and a DVD release. Korea's Fine Cut sold the distribution rights to Canadian distributor Evokative Films.

The beautifully and intriguingly crafted Hansel and Gretel benefits greatly from the acting achievements of the three promising child actors SIM Eun-kyeong, JIN Ji-hee, and EUN Won-jae. They portray three children who seem to be family in a fairytale environment, away from the regular world, but who have a hidden dark past.

"Hansel and Gretel" was invited to Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan), where the European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals Jury bestowed it a special mention; it will be the closing film of Vancouver International Film Festival's Dragons and Tigers section; and it will screen at Sitges International Film Festival and London Film Festival.

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"Hansel and Gretel" ends the year on a high

Source | 2008/01/02 | Permalink |

Director Lim Pil-seong assembled a fine cast and a great team of experts, the result is a well-crafted film, finely calibrated on every level.

Production designer Ryoo Seong-hee's ("The Host", "A Bittersweet Life", "Memories of Murder", "Old Boy") fairy tale world is beautifully shot by director of photography KIM Jee-yong ("A Bittersweet Life"). The visual style is at times complemented and at times contrasted by the music of LEE Byeong-woo ("The King and the Clown", "Voice of Murderer"). The result is a warm fairy tale feeling; but some unsettling events are foreboded, tangibly in the air.

The palpable darker edges create tension early on and keep the viewers captivated. The child actors admirably sensed the particular atmosphere of the film and their awareness – in combination with acting skills – is another highly beneficial factor to the collaborative achievement that is "Hansel and Gretel".

The oldest of the three children is a boy with paranormal abilities played by E...| More

Cruel Innocence

Source | 2007/12/27 | Permalink |

The production company, as well as its director Lim Pil-seong ("Antarctic Journal", 2004), was concerned that the movie was "not scary enough", and kept emphasizing that the movie does not belong to the "horror" genre.

They are right. The move due to open today, "Hansel and Gretel", has "sadness" as its main theme. The movie is a cruel fairy tale and shows a role reversal unlike the original tale of Hansel and Gretel that we know. In the original tale, a witch captured the children, while the movie is about children spooking grown-ups.

Eun-soo (Cheon Jeong-myeong) wakes up after getting lost in the middle of a forest. He comes across a girl named Yeong-hee (Sim Eun-kyeong) and she takes him to a house where her older brother Manbok (Eun Won-jae) and younger sister Jeong-soon (Jin Ji-hee) live along with their parents. He arrives in a picturesque house but there is something strange about the family. He cannot find his way out of the forest, even though he tries hard to.

Ryoo S...| More

Hansel and Gretel: Lim's Dark Fantasy Opens

Source | 2007/12/26 | Permalink |

Director Lim Pil-seong is back with his second feature, Hansel and Gretel, a fantasy-horror loosely based on the famous Brothers Grimm's fairy tale and updated to modern day Korea. While his debut feature "Antarctic Journal" (2005) placed a group of men in an icy, barren polar landscape, where the human psyche preys on itself, in "Hansel and Gretel", director Lim uses a strange forest and house to explore even deeper recesses of the psyche and imagination.

It stars Cheon Jeong-myeong ("Les Formidables") as the Hansel figure, Eun Won-jae and Sim Eun-Kyeong. Cheon plays Eun-soo, a man who, while left wandering on a country road after an accident, meets a mysterious young girl and is led to her house in the middle of the forest. There, he meets her siblings and parents who live a fairytale-like life, eating cakes and sweets. The next day, when Eun-soo tries to leave, the forest brings him back again and he soon realizes he is trapped with the girl and her siblings who never age. Th...| More

Seasonal Movies Come to Screen

Source | 2007/12/11 | Permalink |

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

The winter holiday season is here, with decorative lights warming up the nippy evenings and carol tunes flowing out from record shops ― and of course, colorful movie posters adorning the faces of movie theaters. Here are several films to complete the year-end celebration.

"My Love"

Popular actors convene in this warm drama, which pieces together different love stories in the tradition of "Love Actually".

Subway engineer Se-jin (Kam Woo-seong) is madly in love with his free-spirited and spontaneous girlfriend, Ju-won (Choi Kang-hee), but his deep affection for her makes him feel increasingly insecure.

College student So-hyeon (Lee Yeon-hee) makes a big move on her love interest Ji-wu (Jeong Il-woo), by asking him to teach her the art of drinking.

Su-jeong (Lim Jeong-eun) is constantly rejected by Jeong-seok, a copywriter and widowed dad. But despite the damage to her pride, she perseveres.

Tree-hugging activist Jin-man (Eom Tae-...| More