Double Agent (2002) - 이중간첩

The Korean Gangland Is 'a Dirty Carnival'

Source | 2008/05/26 | Permalink |

Yoo Ha's searing crime melodrama deserves kudos

Kyu Hyun Kim (qhyunkim)

Byung-Doo, lanky and adorable, (played by TV drama star Jo In-Seong from "Something Happened in Bali") is a 29-year-old career criminal working for the middle-rank enforcer Sang-Chul (Yoon Je-Moon, a Molotov-cocktail-loving vagrant in "The Host"). Burdened with a terminally ill mother and taking care of younger siblings, Byung-Doo is feeling financial pressure as a substitute patriarch. When the big boss President Hwang (Cheon Ho-Jin, "The Big Swindle", "Crying Fist") is cornered by a corrupt prosecutor, Byung-Doo volunteers for a whack job and wins the man's trust. However, his real trouble begins when friend Min-Ho (Nam Goong-min), an aspiring movie director, asks him to be a "consultant" for the latter's debut film, a gangster epic not unlike "Dirty Carnival".

Yoo Ha's follow-up to the successful "Once Upon a Tim...| More

Kim Tae-hee VS Seol Kyeong-gu

Source | 2007/11/07 | Permalink |

Han Ji-seung is directing Kim Tae-hee and Seol Kyeong-gu in the action comedy "Fight" ("Venus and Mars") . The two stars play characters who were once a loving couple, but now Kim's character is battling Seol's character as she ended up hating him.

Kim is popular as she combines good looks with brains. She has experience with action scenes because of her role in the big budget film "The Restless".

Seol is one of korea's experienced top actors. His acting talent led to roles ranging from Lee Chang-dong's "Peppermint Candy" and "Oasis", to blockbuster action films like "Silmido".

Han directed "A day" in 2000. "A day" is a drama featuring ko so-young ("Double Agent") and lee seong-jae ("Daisy").

Yi Ch'ang-ho (Kofic)...| More

Ko So-young looks for image change

Source | 2006/12/21 | Permalink |

Ko So-young has spent a long time building up her luxurious image. Since her debut in the early 1990s, she has been identified as a beautiful actress with a radiant smile and a classy posture. No wonder she recently won a lucrative advertising contract for an upscale apartment complex advertisement.

Ko is now betting that she can overhaul her image, at least on the silver screen anyway. In "Eonniga ganda (Project Makeover)" ("Go Go Sister"), directed by Kim Chang-rae, she plays an average Korean girl in her 30s who wants to redesign her complicated life.

The challenge: Ko is far from an average woman by any account. Her overall image does not have any "average" quality. But the character she plays in the film is, well, average.

Na Jeong-ju, played by Ko, is an assistant designer who believes her first love destroyed her entire life. Back in 1994 - at the tender age of 18 - Jeong-ju fell in love with Cho Ha-nui (Kim Jung-min), a high school kid who wanted to become a top singer...| More

Surprising Comeback of a Reserved Star

Source | 2006/06/29 | Permalink |

The first prejudice people have against actress Ko So-young is that she is a trend-surfer. The second is that she is a snob who will marry into the owner family of one of Korea's big conglomerates. She shrugs off the first, declaring herself "oblivious" to trends. But the other charge clearly rankles. "I just can't cope with that. I want a man who is ordinary and takes good care of his family, and who stays faithful to me his whole life", she says.

Back after a hiatus since her 2002 movie "Double Agent", Ko is promoting the new horror movie "Apartment" ("A.P.T".) due out on July 6. The Chosun Ilbo caught up with her at a café in Seoul's not un-trendy Cheongdam-dong this week. "I wanted to play in a genre movie", Ko explains. She plays Sejin, who tries to solve the mystery of serial killings incidents, in the movie based on a comic book by Kang Pool.

Ko says she is like a character in a romantic comedy, not the melodrama she has often been cast in. Thus she stayed up all night w...| More

Korean Horror Moves to New Haunted Territory

Source | 2006/06/27 | Permalink |

There is something afoot in Korean horror movies. From "Arang", to be released on June 28, via "Apartment" ("A.P.T".) out in July, to "To Sir With Love", "Cinderella" and "Untold Story - The Red Forest" all to be released in August, indigenous horror movies have evolved to a higher level. In an effort to wash away the cheap shocker taint, the budgets are growing and the casts are becoming stellar. This summer, even moviegoers with sophisticated tastes are bound to find one good enough for them.

Quality Horror

Horror films have long been a gateway to success for new directors due to their relatively low budgets. If a W2-3 billion (US$1=958) investment including marketing costs lured more than 1 million viewers, the movie was considered to have hit the jackpot. But the new slew of horror films are betting on quality. "To Sir, With Love" cost W4.2 billion, "Apartment" W4 billion, "Arang" W4 billion' and "Cinderella" W3.6 billion -- all pretty close to the average for Korean movies, ...| More