Kim Joon-seong (김준성)

Director Explores Korean-American Identity

2007/11/20 | Source | Permalink |

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

By bringing to Korea "West 32nd" ― a gritty, street-style crime film that delves deep into the underworld of New York Koreatown ― director Michael Kang explores the Korean-American identity, including his own. It is a continuation of the directorial concerns from his feature debut piece "The Motel"

"I needed this much time to get the film made, I needed `West 32nd' to be my second film. I think it was a personal journey, and it was a personal challenge, too, to make the film", Kang told The Korea Times in a recent interview in Seoul.

Growing up in the suburbs of New England, the award-winning director had never been exposed to such a large Korean community until he moved to New York for college.

"It was very jarring to me, my relationship with that community. I would walk around in Flushing (Queens, New York) and look like anybody else but I felt like I didn't belong there. That's what I very much wanted to explore (in `West 32nd'...| More

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"West 32nd" Breaks Down NY Koreatown

2007/11/15 | Source | Permalink |

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

It gets down-and-dirty like the gritty streets of New York. In "West 32nd", Korean-American director Michael Kang gives the classic detective genre a fresh twist as he tells the untold story of a Korea that exists in the heart of the Big Apple.

West 32nd Street is the geographic location of New York Koreatown (K-town) near the Empire State Building. But even those who are familiar with the "noraebang" (karaoke), stationary stores and "seoleongtang" (Korean beef broth) restaurants lining the strip will be shocked to know that there lies a whole new world beneath it all -- where Korean gangsters and "organized" mayhem reign.

While snippets of Koreatown have began to appear (fleetingly) as an exotic backdrop in Hollywood films like "Collateral" (2004) and "Shoot 'Em Up" (2007), it remained a relatively unexplored territory, and "West 32nd" breaks it down, once and for all.

In the dark corner of K-town, a bar owner Jin-ho (Jeong Joon-ho) is shot t...| More

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A Fresh Look at Korean-American Issues

2007/11/09 | Source | Permalink |

You may start to watch "West 32nd", a new film by Korean-American director Michael Kang, without much expectation, sitting comfortably in your chair. But at a certain point you will find yourself on the edge, realizing that this is not the sort of independent art movie where the ethnic Korean director tries to identify his roots as an eternal outsider.

Whether you call them "diaspora films" or simply Korean-American movies, these films usually appeal only to a minority of fans. These ethnic Koreans belong to the mainstream neither in Korea nor America. To break down that barrier, Michael Kang has decided to make a thriller.

Three gunshots ring out from a Korean bar on New York's West 32nd Street. A 14-year-old Korean-American boy is arrested on the spot for killing the manager of the bar, played by Jeong Joon-ho. The boy's sister Lila (Grace Park) tries to prove her brother's innocence, and second-generation Korean American lawyer John Kim (John Cho) takes the case as a way to ge...| More

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