Nowhere To Hide (1999) - 인정사정 볼 것 없다

2008/05/07 | Source | Permalink |  Digg |  del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Share this news

The 2008 Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul will introduce a competition section this year in a bid to expand its coverage and attract more foreign movies for local moviegoers, organizers said yesterday.

"The Chungmuro festival will feature the international feature film category as a competition section so that local fans can enjoy watching more quality foreign films", festival planning chief Cha Seung-jae said at a press conference at the Daehan Cinema in Chungmuro, Seoul, yesterday. "All the foreign films in the section will be Korean premieres, and four awards, including the Grand Award, will be presented".

The second edition of the fledgling film festival will be held Sept. 3-11, during which time about 170 films from 40 countries will be screened.

But a string of pre-festival events will start from June in Chungmuro, the symbolic center for Korean filmmakers and actors, and Myeong-dong, with an emphasis on participation by Seoul citizens, Cha said.

The Jun...

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2008/03/27 | Source | Permalink |  Digg |  del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Share this news

In the last few years, Korean films, TV dramas and pop music have become immensely popular abroad, a phenomenon known as the Korean Wave. This is the 28th in a series of essays by a select group of scholars and journalists looking at the spread of Korean pop culture in Southeast Asian countries and beyond. - Ed.

Ahn Seong-gi seems perennially calm and collected. A gentle smile on his face, he does not raise his voice even when he talks about the turbulent developments pummeling the Korean cinema in recent months. But his concerns are genuine because, in his view, the local film industry is in deep trouble and the future outlook remains gloomier than ever.

Ahn's perspective about the current state of Korean movies and filmmakers is hard to be discounted. The list of films in which he played a key role in the 1990s alone include "Two Cops" (1993), "The Taebaek Mountains" (1994), "Festival" (1996), "The Soul Guardians" (1998) and "Nowhere to Hide" (1999).

In the 2000s, he starred...

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2008/03/21 | Source | Permalink |  Digg |  del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Share this news

In the last few years, Korean films, TV dramas and pop music have become immensely popular abroad, a phenomenon known as the Korean Wave. This is the 25th in a series of essays by a select group of scholars and journalists looking at the spread of Korean pop culture in Southeast Asian countries and beyond. - Ed.

"Hallyu", or the Korean Wave, marks the long overdue re-emergence of Korean culture into the global arena. Korean culture's newfound international vogue situates South Korean cinema, TV melodramas, K-pop, and computer games as active participants in the transformation of world culture.

These "domestic" electronic audio-visual cultural creations are no longer limited to just the Korean peninsula and the global Korean diaspora despite that they are produced in the Korean language - a language that is not one of the globalized imperial languages such as English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese.

Despite this linguistic barrier, hallyu is now a recognized agent of gl...

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2007/12/24 | Source | Permalink |  Digg |  del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Share this news

The Korean movie industry got off to a shaky start this year, due to the weakened market position of local flicks versus Hollywood blockbusters, but it received a big shining ray of hope from director Lee Chang-dong's thought-provoking drama, "Secret Sunshine".

Jeon Do-yeon, the heroine of "Secret Sunshine", grabbed the prestigious Best Actress award at the 60th Cannes Film Festival in May, setting the upbeat tone for the domestic film industry.

The 34-year-old actress won international acclaim for her brave and inspiring depiction of a grieving Korean woman struggling to rebuild her life in a new city in "Secret Sunshine", the first picture in four years by Lee Chang-dong, a former Korean culture minister.

Despite the positive turn on the filmfest front, the local movie market faced increasing pressure this year. Although the market volume of the Korean film industry remains relatively solid, with 104 films released between January and November this year, the number of movieg...

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2007/11/01 | Source | Permalink |  Digg |  del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Share this news

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

In the highly stylistic psychodrama "M", director Lee Myeong-se explores a classic theme sought time after time by (particularly male) filmmakers here ― the haunting imprint of first love, romanticized in all its glory. Lee showcases one stunning mise-en-scene after another, but "M" proves to be a rather anticlimactic audiovisual experience.

It shows that throwing in all the visually pleasing ingredients available does not necessarily cook up a great movie.

Min-wu (Kang Dong-won) seems to have it all ― on top of being a best-selling author, he is blessed with good looks and a rich and beautiful fiancee (Kong Hyo-jin). But beneath it all, the poor guy is suffering from a serious case of writer's block and a family debt to take care of.

To make matters worse, Min-wu is seriously convinced someone is watching him and is plagued with daunting daydreams and hallucinations. But the writer manages to piece together fragments of the puzzle...

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