Kim Ho-jeong (김호정)

[MOVIE REVIEW] Upbeat spin on Korean men

2007/08/30 | Source | Permalink |

For the family. For the company. For the future. There is almost always some excuse for not doing something that we really want to do. We proudly call it "sacrifice" that is necessary for our happiness. After all, our true wishes will be realized some day if we gladly persevere present suffering.

The only embarrassing truth is that such a dream-come-true, suffering-well-endured day never comes for working-class people who are often forced to confront one painful challenge after another.

"The Happy Life", directed by Lee Joon-ik ("The King and the Clown" and "Radio Star") starts off to a slow start, toying with the idea of the sadness and loneliness that grip middle-aged Korean men beset by a variety of troubles at home and in the workplace.

Worse, Ki-young (Jeong Jin-yeong) does not have a workplace to complain about. He's laid off from a financial company and has to get by on just 10 bucks a day, a meager allowance from his wife Sun-mi (Kim Ho-jeong). Even his teenage daughte...| More

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Korean actresses cleaning up at filmfests

2007/05/28 | Source | Permalink |

However, she was not alone in making the foundation on which the Korean film industry stands at the moment.

Since Kang Soo-yeon became the first Korean actress to win a major international award in 1987 with "The Surrogate Mother", the local movie industry has gone through dramatic improvement over the past 20 years.

Kang, then 21, was chosen best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role as "Sibaji", a Korean word for surrogate mother, in the movie produced by Korea's master film director Im Kwon-Taek.

In 1989, Kang reaffirmed her global fame as she won best actress at the Moscow Film Festival for her role in Im's Buddhist movie, "Aje Aje Bara Aje", which translates into "Come, come, come upward".

At the heart of the global acclaim poured on Korean movies for the past two decades were a dozen of other actresses, armed with passion for acting and superb performance.

Im's another movie, "Sopyonje", garnered much international acclaim in 1993, giving the best actres...| More

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A seducer's story is back, and audiences love it

2006/04/19 | Source | Permalink |

A beauty seduces a royal male figure. The man falls madly in love with her. She then uses her charms to manipulate him. She finally becomes the ruler herself.
It is a storyline told for centuries and in many countries, but the plot never seems to disappoint ― especially if the characters are based on historical figures.
Such was the case of Misil (AD 549-606), a girl mentioned briefly in a manuscript on ancient warriors from the 6th century Korean Peninsula. She had supposedly won the hearts of several young handsome knights and eventually even that of three powerful Silla kings.
In the manuscript called Hwarang Segi, or the Annals of the Hwarang (a martial class similar to European knights), her visage was compared to the "everlasting beauty of a hundred kinds of flowers". But she is also described as an ambitious figure who used her good looks to control as many as five noble knights and three Silla kings.
There had been several novels, comic books and plays that dealt with...| More

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