Hand Phone (Movie - 2009)

46th Annual Daejong Film Awards Nominees

Source | 2009/10/23 | 0 comments | Permalink |

46th Annual Daejong Film Awards Nominees

- Best Movie: "Take Off", "Mother - 2009", "The Divine Weapon", "Sky and Sea", "Haeundae"

- Best Director : Kim Yong-hwa ("Take Off"), Yoon Je-kyoon ("Haeundae"), Jeon Yoon-soo ("Portrait of a Beauty"), Jeong Gi-hoon ("Ae-ja"), Bong Joon-ho ("Mother - 2009")

- Best Actor : Kim Myeong-min ("Closer to Heaven"), Kim Yoon-seok (Running Turtle), Seol Kyeong-gu ("Haeundae"), Jeong Jae-yeong ("The Divine Weapon"), Ha Jeong-woo ("Take Off")

- Best Actress : Kim Min-seon ("Portrait of a Beauty"), Kim Hye-ja ("Mother - 2009"), Soo-ae ("Sunny"), Jang Nara ("Sky and Sea"), Choi Kang-hee ("Ae-ja")

- Best Supporting Actor : Kim In-kwon ("Haeundae"), Jin Goo ("Mother - 2009"), Jeong Kyeong-ho ("Sunny"), Jang Geun-seok ("The Case of Itaewon Homicide"), Kim Nam-gil ("Modern Boy")

- Best Supporting Actress : Kim Bo-yeon ("Living Death"), Kim Hae-sook ("Thirst"), Kim Yeong-ae ("Ae-ja"), Choo Ja-hyeon ("Portrait of a Beauty"), Nam Neung-mi ("Clos...| More

Fast-paced thriller fails to make it past vibrate

Source | 2009/07/31 | 0 comments | Permalink |

Oh Seung-min is not a nice man. A manager for a TV starlet, Oh is involved with the mob, ignores his wife, threatens his employees, and just can't seem to chill out.

Then a model blackmails Oh (Eom Tae-woong) with a sex tape of his meal ticket Jin-a (Lee Se-na), and Oh leaves the cell phone with the video on it in a coffee shop. But losing the movie's MacGuffin and title - "Handphone" - has more implications than just the loss of Jin-a's innocent image when a customer service manager at an E-mart named Jung Lee-gyu (Park Yong-woo) finds it and decides to manipulate Oh into taking revenge on the snotty customers who mouth off to Jung every day.

At first, director Kim Han-nim avoids torture horror, the usual genre for this kind of punish-the-sinner plot, instead sticking to fast-paced suspense. It's a good decision, and the film's at its best when it keeps us guessing - why would Oh attack an old man he doesn't know? Whose car is that he's beating on with a baseball bat? It's all p...| More

Korea's First 3D Horror Project Soul Mate Announced

Source | 2009/07/31 | 0 comments | Permalink |

"Soul Mate - Movie", to be directed by KIM Ji-hwan resulted from KOFIC's Filmmaker's Development Lab (FDL) and took part in PIFAN's Network of Asian Fantastic Film's (NAFF). The production of such films underscores the growing importance of PIFAN not just as an exhibitor of genre films but as a catalyst of film production. The FDL on the other hand, is a programme that takes a number of film projects from up and coming Korean film makers (in and out of the country) and matches them with mentors from the film industry. This year there were 5 projects including Soul Mate.

The $2 million dollar film is to be created by Korean visual effects company 'Macrograph' and production company 'Entourage'. Macrograph for its part is no stranger to high profile movies after working on Korean films "The Forbidden Kingdom", "The Restless", and thriller "Hand Phone". The film has already secured development funds and the film's producers are in talks with local and one Singaporean company to s...| More

'Chaw' Explores Omnivore's Nightmare

Source | 2009/07/09 | 0 comments | Permalink |

The homicidal hog movie "Chaw" is one of those films that takes a seed of truth and grows it into Jack's beanstalk. This tall tale of horror and adventure proves to be a fine addition to the local stock of computer graphics-ridden monster flicks ― offering a believable, rather than realistic, experience that persuades the viewer with more than just flesh-gnawing gore.

Dubbed the Korean Tim Burton for the punk horror flick "To Catch a Virgin Ghost" ("Sisily 2km"), Sin Jeong-won transforms familiar settings into an atmospheric space, where the narrative is propelled by suspense, dramatic counterpoints and solid character development (including some spoofs by a most memorable madwoman).

In recent years, there have been news reports of how deforesting and dwindling food sources drove ravenous wild boars to ravage dead bodies in tombs and attack villages. It took three years to design and realize via CG ― provided by the creative team behind "Star Wars Episode I: The Phant...| More

Summer Action Flicks Are Coming

Source | 2009/06/30 | 0 comments | Permalink |

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

Every summer, big budget Hollywood movies flow in, and many worry about the potential threat to homegrown films. Recent trends, however, suggest that competition is healthy.

"The fact that such a comparison (between national and international franchises) is even possible is unique; there aren't so many countries around the world where domestic films can compete with American ones", Han Seung-hee, researcher at the Korean Film Council, told The Korea Times.

After the turn of the new millennium, the Korean film industry enjoyed rapid growth, with blockbusters rewriting box office history each year. But the market plummeted for the first time last year, and investment and production hit an all time low. Moviegoers even criticized films that fared well at the box office as being formulaic.

So far, 2009 looks better. The success of "A Frozen Flower" and "Scandal Makers" ("Speedy Scandal") opened up a promising new year. Although February and March...| More