Will she be dancing or not?
After Eugene (Kim Eu-gene -
Yoo Jin), an original member of the dance trio S.E.S., fractured a rib during practice, no one knew whether she would be able to do her new Latin spins on stage during the Korean musical "Dancing Princess".
But there is no need for worry, the spokesperson for Culture Cap Media said Wednesday, adding that the pop singer would only delay her musical debut by a few days.
She was initially planning to take the stage tomorrow night, but instead she will appear starting April 4.
Until then, Yang So-min, with whom she shares the role, will appear in every performance.
"
Innocent Steps", adapted from a 2...
MoreA record 11 Korean features will be shown in the official selection of this years 9th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) to take place June 17th to the 25th. Among them
PARK Jin-pyo's 2005 film You Are My Sunshine will run in the official competition section for the Jin Jue Award. Another Korean film,
Jo Chang-ho's The Peter Pan Formula has been selected as a candidate for the Asian New Talent Award.
Two Korean directors
KWAK Gyeong-Taek (
Friend, "Typhoon") and
BONG Joon-ho (...
MoreThe Samsung Korea Film Fest Begins
Florence March 31 to April 10 the fourth edition of the South Korean Cinematography festival in Italy
Florence - Return to the Korea Film Fest, the traditional spring appointment with South Korean cinematography, coming together this year for it's fourth edition. The Festival, strengthened by renewed collaboration with Samsung Electronics Italia, will assume, for the 2006 edition, the name 'Samsung Korea Film Fest' (www.koreafilmfest.com http://www.koreafilmfest.com ). The Festival - organized by artistic director Riccardo Gelli, president of the association 'Taegukgi' - Exchange of Tuscan and Korean Cultures, in collaboration with Stensen Cinema - will take place in Florence from march 31 to april 10 in three halls: Auditorium Stensen (march 31-april 6), Alfieri Atelier (april 6-9), Cineteca di Firenze (april 10). Among the main viewings and contemporary classics, the festival, the only of it's type in all of Italy, will offer another 20 films, 30 short films, a span of target South Korean cultural proposals and 3 retrospectives from the principle teachers of Korean Cinematography,
Park Chan-wook,
Kim Ji-woon and
Song Il-gon.
Kim Ji-woon and
Song Il-gon will be present at the festival.
In one of the not-to-be-missed retrospectives, there will be a film proposal about the "cursed" director
Park Chan-Wook - of the uncertain and dark films that began his career, from The Moon is
The Sun's Dream (1992) and Trio (1997) to the surprising political mystery JSA - Joint Security Area, a success that became at once one of the classics of contemporary production. The retrospective will also discuss the great success of the extreme Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the film that profoundly divided the Korean public but became a cult classic presented in numerous international festivals. It is the first chapter in a seductive trilogy about vendetta, full of unexpected surprises, called Old Boy, that in 2004 won the Gran Premio della Giuria (Grand Prize of the Jury) at the Festival di Cannes, and for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, from the concourse at the 62nd Mostra del Cinema di Venezia.
The retrospective for
Kim Ji-woon will start from the debłts of 1998 with the black commedy The Quiet Family and, through her second full-length film, The Foul King, and the film Coming Out, will propose the celebrated collective horror project Three, for which Ji-woon created the episode Memories. Don't miss the two films that were affirmed in the international panorama: A Tale of Two Sisters and the noir A Bittersweet Life, outdoor concourse at the 58th Festival di Cannes....
MoreA dramatic dispute between film directors and film stars highlights how soaring guaranteed payments for actors could cripple Korea's film industry -already struggling with a shrinking share of the domestic market - and taint the image of the Korean Wave, an Asia-wide surge in the popularity of Korean culture.
Not long ago, Korean filmmaking was touted as a thriving business, with locally made high-quality films outsmarting Hollywood blockbusters at the box office and grabbing awards in the world's major film festivals. Korea's film industry is valued at 717 billion won and
boasts an 18-percent annualized growth rate, but in recent months, the market share of Korean movies has declined amid an overall slump in ticket sales.
Korean movies' share in the local box office hit a new low of 43.6 percent in June, down from 59 percent in May and 69.8 percent in April, according to the Korean Film Council and IM Pictures. The figure is respectable compared with other foreign cinema markets where Hollywood flicks dominate, but given that Korean films accounted for 51.1 percent of the market in June 2003 and has outpaced Hollywood competitors in the past couple of years, recent signs of weakness are sending alarms. This year, only a couple of Korean movies including director
Jeong Yoon-cheol's "Running Boy" - "Marathon", director
Park Yeong-hoon's "Innocent Steps" and director
Choo Chang-min's comedy "Mapado" turned a profit.
Now, to add to industry woes, producers and actors are locked in an emotional turf war over profit-sharing, marring their own public image and credibility. The row began on June 24 when
Kang Woo-seok, one of the most influential filmmakers in Korea, known for the 2004 blockbuster spy flick "Silmido", publicly criticized some star agencies and actors for demanding excessive fees and profit sharing. Kang alleged this led to outsized production costs and placed an unfair burden on producers. Kang's remark sent shock waves throughout the film industry, as he has built a strong position in Korea through Cinema Service, a major film distributor and investment company. In ...
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