Kwon Hae-hyo (권해효)

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

That special time of the year has come around, when South Korea's top filmmakers and actors turn into film festival programmers. The 4th Cinematheque Friends Film Festival will take place Jan. 29-March 1 in Seoul, and director Park Chan-wook and some 20 other cineastes will meet with the audience to show and discuss 26 movies they have personally selected.

"I don't think there is a film festival like the Cinematheque Friends Film Festival anywhere else in the world", Park told reporters last week in Seoul. "Where else can you see all the representative cineastes ― directors, critics and stars ― gather in one place to introduce, watch and discuss old movies with fans?"

"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" (1927) by F.W. Murnau will open the festival. Actors Kwon Hae-hyo and Ye Ji-won will host the opening event at Cinematheque Seoul Art Cinema in Jongno.

The country's singular "cinema library" will transform into "The Cinematheque of Happiness", a venue for screenings and live conversation. Festival programmers have chosen classic Hollywood mo...More

More than a month has passed since the death of actress Choi Jin-sil but tongues are still wagging.

Former pro baseball player Cho Sung-min, whom Choi married in 2002 and divorced in 2004, has been demanding that his parental and property rights be reinstated. Cho gave up custodial rights for his kids after he got divorced.

Some activists, mostly female, are mad. Actresses Son Sook and Kim Boo-seon, TV host and single mom Heo Soo-kyung plus actor ...More

By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter

MBC will air a new sitcom named "Kokkiri" from Jan. 21.

While the title of the sitcom, "Kokkiri" means elephant in Korean, however, this is not a sitcom about elephants. Breaking down the word "Ko" means nose in Korean and "kkiri" means together, and the show depicts the lives of a group of characters in the sitcom having nicknames ending with "ko".

Kwon Hae-hyo plays Guk Yeong-su (Psy"ko"), a high school Korean language teacher. He is on bad t...More

Viewers may find this a 'three-hankie' film

Kyu Hyun Kim (internews)

"Last Present" (2001) is a tragic romance so manipulative that you can almost hear its cogwheels and pulleys clicking and whirring like a well-oiled machine. Lee Jeong-jae ("Les Insurges", "The Last Witness") plays a two-bit gagman (as a stand-up comic is known in Korea, although what the gagmen do in this film is closer to vaudeville act, more Laurel and Hardy than Robin Williams) Yong-gi, whose marriage to Jeong-yeon (Lee Young-ae of "JSA - Joint Security Area" and "One Fine Spring Day") is falling apart. A leaf is turned when he accidentally finds out that Jeong-yeon is dying from an unspecified incurable disease.

Yong-gi, initially devastated, makes a resolution to win the TV gag contest at all costs, all the while hiding the fact that he is privy to his wife's secret. Intertwined with this sappy disease-of-the-month narrative are dollops of sepia-toned flashbacks concerning Jeong-yeon's object of childhood crush: Gee, who was that cute...More

This is the fifth part of a series of articles reviewing Korea's culture scene this year. - Ed.

By culture staff

Suicide of top actress

One of the most negative events that hit the country's movie industry this year was the death of Lee Eun-joo, a top actress known for her supporting role in the 2004 Korean blockbuster film "Taegukgi".

Her suicide sent shock waves through the film industry and a number of people including her friends, fans and other actors expressed deep sadness.

But a bigger problem came shortly after the local news media spotlighted her last role. She starred in "The Scarlet Letter", a provocative thriller, in 2004, and rumors swirled that she suffered from stresses involving the explicit scenes of the film.

In the movie, Lee plays Ka-hee, a secret lover for a ranking detective who seems to have everything he desires. But the story moves toward a tragic end at a precipitous pace, with the cop's complicated relationships touching off unforeseen events.

Although Lee had to get involved with some grisly scenes including a bloody one inside a car trunk, critics hailed her versatility as a top-tier actress who knew when to express strong emotions for making a better film.

Lee, in particular, left a lasting impression by playing the role of a woman who was multi-faceted and passionate enough to risk her life and move forward even though she sensed ominous signs in her secret relationships.

Her ardent fans were extremely upset as a handful of newspapers and magazines focused entirely on the last message she left, suggesting that she might have felt depressed over the role in "The Scarlet Letter", but there was no definitive evidence that the film indeed pushed the 25-year-old actress to commit suicide.

Critics said such rumors undermined Lee's reputation and some reports exaggerating the message were irresponsible.

Yet fans and critics didn't expect what would happen next. Jeon In-kwon, a 51-year-old singer, claimed that he was in love with Lee, shaking up the entertainment industry and sparking an uproar from her fans.

Lee, a divorcee, came under severe attack from the media and fans since his claim was not substantiated, and Lee's close friends argued Jeon was just a stalker.

The rate of suicide temporarily shot up in the wake of Lee's death, police reported, suggesting that some people might be tempted to imitate the death of such a famous actress.

Actors caught drunk driving

But bewildering cases indicating the frailty of human nature were never in...More