Im Yoo-cheol (임유철)

[DVD review]Underdogs united in football film

2007/12/10 | Source | Permalink |

A telling scene in the documentary "'Bi-sang' (Flying)" captures the character of Incheon United Football Club.
When the players are leaving for overseas training before the start of the new K-League season, they get held up in Istanbul during a layover. The team's marketing coordinator had bought cheap tickets to save money.
The exhausted players bum around on the airport benches, waiting nine hours for their next flight.
The scene summed up an enervated Incheon United FC, the underdog in the K-League, the national football league, until charismatic new Coach Chang Woe-ryong joined in 2005.
That year, the team, owned and supported by the citizens of Incheon, performed miracles.
They finished second in the K-League and reached the semifinals of the Korean FA Cup the following year.
Bi-sang started out when the original producers at Tube Pictures hired director Im Yoo-cheol to shoot a film about FC Seoul, the powerhouse of the K-League.
But a few days into filming, Lim deci...| More

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Showcase of Korean Movies in Japan

2007/11/28 | Source | Permalink |

The Korean Film Council will hold a showcase of Korean movies in Japan to introduce Korean cinematography in the neighboring country.

Nine outstanding films will be screened in Japan Dec. 8-14 under the auspices of the Japanese company Cinequanon, which has contributed greatly to promoting the Korean Wave.

The nine movies include "200 Pounds Beauty", which is to open in Japan Dec. 15, as well as "Family Ties" ("The Birth of a Family") by director Kim Tae-yong, "Paradise Murdered" ("Paradise 1986") by Kim Han-min, "Beyond the Years" by Im Kwon-taek, "Bunt" by Park Gyoo-tae, the documentary film "Flight" ("Bi-sang") by Im Yoo-cheol, Hwang Dong-hyeok's "My Father", Lee Hae-yeong and Lee Hae-joon's "Like a Virgin" and Kim Myeong-joon's documentary film "Our School".

A forum entitled "The Power of Movies Beyond National Boundaries" will be held Dec. 9 with Cinequanon CEO Lee Bong-woo in attendance....| More

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Bi-sang Breaks Documentary Record

2007/01/29 | Source | Permalink |

Director IM Yoo-cheol's football documentary "Bi-sang" has set a new record for Korean documentaries by attracting 25,000 viewers, according to its production company Emotion Pictures and the Korean Film Council confirmed that Bisang surpassed the previous record-holder "Between" (Sa-i-eseo) by filmmaker LEE Chang-jae.

Bisang follows the Korean football team Incheon United, a team in the lower ranks of the Korean Football League. Director IM was fortunate with the developments that season in the performance of the team and emotionally. The documentary coincides with the arrival of a new coach who sets the bar as high as the championship. The team does shape up and makesit to the playoffs. There they face the one team they don't want to lose against, a former employer who got rid of the Incheon coach and some players.

"Between" documents Shamanism in Korea. Both "Between" and "Bi-sang" were released in 2006. 2006 was a relative good year for documentaries in Korea with six releas...| More

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Documentary film "Flight" ("Bi-sang") attracts over 10,000 viewers

2006/12/20 | Source | Permalink |

The documentary film Flight ("Bi-sang") (Director: Im Yoo-Cheol, Production: Emotion Pictures), which was based on a Korean professional soccer team, succeeded in attracting 10,000 viewers, which is significant as the Korean movie-going public has been known to largely ignore the genre.

Having been previewed since Dec. 7 in special screenings on three theaters in Seoul and Incheon, such as CGV Sangam, Incheon, and Gyeyang, Flight is now being screened on nine theaters, such as CGV Gangbyeon, Jooan, Dongsuwon, Seomyeon, Film Forum, and Cine Cube, resulting in 13,000 viewers.

Based on the real story about the Incheon United FC, a professional soccer team in the Korean Soccer League, who ranked no. 1 in the league and went on to become the final champion last year after its establishment in 2004 and a couple of years of being in the low ranks, Flight shows the two-year struggle of a low-ranking soccer team to win the semi-finals along with various soccer games of the United FC from ...| More

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Football Film Shows Real Moments

2006/12/14 | Source | Permalink |

By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

Spectator sports are fun. But when one is playing professionally, it is neither fun nor easy to have to scrape out a living with pure grind and sweat.

"Pisang" ("Bi-sang") documents this well by following the lives of professional football players in South Korea. Director Im Yoo-cheol and his staff followed Incheon United club _ the underdogs of the Korean football league _ for nine months, taping very real and personal moments, in and out of the stadium.

The players and the coaches are shy actors, perhaps too shy sometimes. But the director manages to portray what was on their minds by taking advantage of eight digital camcorders, his personal relationships with them and a good sense of humor.

Lim later said that he selected Incheon for the film simply because they were one of the most miserable teams in the Korean professional sports leagues. Poorly educated and poorly paid, their moral is at the bottom and they have little trust in each oth...| More

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