| Year of the thriller for Korean movies (Source) |
2010/01/12 |
Film insiders excited over new works by three star directors
Hits came from all quarters in Korean cinema last year, with big blockbusters "Take Off" and "Haeundae", auteur films "Thirst" and "Mother - 2009" and indie sleepers "Old Partner" and "Breathless" all filling seats.
Disaster flick "Haeundae" was the first locally made film to top 10 million tickets sold in three years. Industry-wide box office returns hit a record high of 1.08 trillion won ($964 million), about half from Korean-made films.
The state-funded Korean Film Council forecast in a recent report that the local movie market will continue its incremental growth over the next five years, and 2010 is expected to be another bonanza for the local film studios. But the most hotly anticipated movies inside the industry aren't quite as diverse as 2009's top sellers - on the contrary, they're all in a single genre: thriller.
Korea's thriller renaissance, kicked off by "The Chaser" in 2008 and continued by "Secret - ... |More
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| Lee Jeong-jae to star in "The Housemaid" with Jeon Do-yeon (Source) |
2009/12/28 |
Korean actor Lee Jeong-jae [Yedang Entertainment]
Korean actor Lee Jeong-jae has decided to play the main male role opposite actress Jeon Do-yeon in "The Housemaid - 2010", according to a press release on Monday.
Lee had been contemplating till last week on whether to take on the role in "The Housemaid - 2010", a remake of a 1960s classic Korean film of the same title which is about a middle-class family breaking apart when the husband has an affair with the maid.##
Cannes-winning actress Jeon Do-yeon has been cast as the housemaid while Seo Woo -- from the critically acclaimed film "Paju" -- will play the wife Hyera. Lee will portray the husband Hoon, who... |More
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| Lee Jeong-jae still in talks for film "The Housemaid - 2010" (Source) |
2009/12/24 |
Korean actor Lee Jeong-jae [Yedang Entertainment]
Korean actor Lee Jeong-jae is reconsidering his decision to appear in Jeon Do-yeon film "The Housemaid - 2010", agency Yedang Entertainment said a phone call with Asia Economic Daily on Thursday.
Yedang explained that although Lee had initially considered doing the film, he is currently "negotiating the details at the request of the producers" and that "a final decision will be made soon".
The film's producer Miro Vision also confirmed today that "nothing has been set" regarding Lee's participation in the movie.##
"The Housemaid - 2010", a remake of a 1960s classic film of the same title, is about a... |More
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| Two Korean Classics to be Remade (Source) |
2009/11/13 |
Two Korean classic films from 2 prolific Korean directors whose films were part of and contributed to the famous Golden Age of Korean cinema are about to be remade. This period between the 1960's and 1970's helped lay the ground work for many of today's modern directors. The original "Housemaid" (1960), a melodramatic, sexual thriller became a signature film for director KIM Ki-young known for his eclectic mix of genre combining anything from the above through intense psychological horror to realism. The careful manipulation of genre is a style now exemplified by many modern day directors such as BONG Joon-ho. The film concentrates on a family who take in a housemaid because of the wife's exhaustion working at a factory. Soon after, the housemaid starts to exhibit bizarre tendencies, catching rats with her hands, spying on the family and then finally seducing the husband who she becomes pregnant to. So starts a wicked journey of murder, intrigue and the break up of the family.
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| 2nd Chungmuro Int'l Film Fest Kicks Off Sept. 3rd (Source) |
2008/08/30 |
The second edition of the Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul (CHIFFS) will bring a mixture of old and new to screens September 3rd, opening fittingly with director HIGUCHI Shinji's 2008 remake of a classic 1958 KUROSAWA Akira film, The Hidden Fortress. The curtain raiser and closing film will screen at the National Theater of Korea with the rest of the fest's 175 films screening at various venues across Chungmuro district, the traditional center of the Korean film industry.
This year adds a competition section to CHIFFS, bringing 13 contemporary features from around the world to compete for US$ 40,000 in prizes. Korean feature, Happiness by director HEO Jin-ho will participate in this section alongside Johnny TO's Mad Detective (Hong Kong) , Qunshu GAO's Old Fish (China), and ten others. Guests on the international jury include director of The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino, and Korean director LIM Sang-soo.
Also of note is a special section celebrating the 40thannive... |More
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