Lim Pil-seong's visual feast "
Hansel and Gretel" won Fantasporto Fantasy competition's Special prize, and Orient express' Best film award. LIM's fantasy film was in the running for three awards in the competitions: Fantasy, Directors week, and Orient express.
All of the three major fantastic film festivals – 2008 Ssitges International Film Festival of Catalonia (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), and Fantasporto (Oporto, Portugal) – have selected "
Hansel and Gretel". The film also played at 2008 Vancouver International Film Festival, 2008 Filmasia Film Festival, 2008 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, and 2008 The Times BFI London Fi...
More
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...
More
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 combinati...
More
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 (...
More
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,...
More
