Tag: London Korean Film Festival

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Features Live Action Movies

The Guest
(301호 모텔 살인사건)

Director – Yeon Je-gwang – 2023 – South Korea – LKFF Cert. 18 – 77m

***

An out-of-the-way motel, with numerous hidden cameras covertly recording the unwitting guests, becomes the site of multiple killings – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2024 which runs in cinemas from Friday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 13th

There’s an idea that the widespread presence of security cameras make the world a safer place, because things can be seen rather than hidden; equally, however, things can be recorded, turned into product and sold for profit. The Guest takes place in a familiar world of roads and car journeys and motels in the middle of nowhere at which the traveller can take a break. And all of it seems to be covered by security cameras.

That applies to the roads, where the cams are there for traffic enforcement (and, perhaps more pertinently, traffic tax raising or penalty charging) purposes. Why they are there, for good or ill, isn’t really discussed here. But their ubiquitous presence is inescapably noted.

It also applies in the seedy motel at the centre of this horror / drama / suspense / thriller. The loan shark Deuk-chan (Hyun Bong-sik) who owns the place employs two young staff members Min-cheol (Lee Joo-seung) and Young-gyu (Han Min) to run the place in a day-to-day basis both of whom are indebted to him and therefore have little choice other than to do whatever he asks, however unreasonable.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Handsome Guys
(Haenseomgaijeu,
핸섬가이즈)

Director – Nam Dong-hyub – 2024 – South Korea – LKFF Cert. 15 – 102m

****

A comedy of errors in horror genre clothing, features a house in which accidents keep occurring, and a demonic goat – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2024 which runs in cinemas from Friday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 13th

Half-brothers Kang Jae-pil (Lee Sung-min from this year’s South Korean Oscar entry 12.12: The Day, Kim Sung-su, 2023; The Man Standing Next, Woo Min-ho, 2020), Park Sang-goo (Lee Hee-jun from The Man Standing Next; 1987: When That Day Comes, 2017) and their dog Bong-gu have come to a rural area with the intent of buying their dream home, unaware that a demon was banished to hell in its basement two generations ago by British priest Father Baker (Jamie Horan) and can only be banished back there, should it arise from the grave, by one of those present at the time of the banishment.

A group of students runs into the half-brothers in a supermarket, the former drawing all the wrong conclusions from the latter’s unkempt appearance and shopping trolley of heavy-duty carpentry kit, snap judgements somewhat thrown by the undeniable cuteness of Bong-gu the dog, sitting in the front of their trolley.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Aimless Bullet
(Obaltan,
오발탄)

Director – Yu Hyun-mok – 1961 – South Korea – 110m

****

Former soldiers and others struggle with the effects of post-war economic depression in the newly constituted South Korea – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Made and released in the brief period of about a year between the collapse of one dictatorship and the rise of another, and the temporary relaxation of state censorship that accompanied it in South Korea, Aimless Bullet deals with the struggle to survive in that country amidst economic collapse. Men including demobbed soldiers and officers struggle to find work, others lucky enough to have jobs struggle to support their extended networks of loved ones while women drift into prostitution – or, if they’re really lucky, become movie stars.

It opens with crippled, former officer Gyeong-sik, constantly asking Sgt. Park and other drinking buddies not to call him “The Commander”, making a scene in a bar and smashing a glass door. Wandering through the streets at night alone afterwards, he’s accosted by former girlfriend Song Myeong-suk (Seo Ae-ja) who desperately wants him to fulfil his promise and marry her, but he won’t because as a cripple he feel an incomplete man.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Woman Judge
(Yeopansa,
여판사)

Director – Hong Eun-won – 1962 – South Korea – 87m

***

A woman becomes a judge at a time when the idea of women in such professions is unheard of – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank – from the London Korean Film Festival 2019

Heo Jin-suk (Moon Jeong-suk from Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok, 1961; The Devil’s Stairway, Lee Man-hee, 1964) wants to be a judge, traditionally a male profession. Her childhood sweetheart Wan Dong-hoon (Park Am from Promise of the Flesh, Kim Ki-young, 1975; The March of Fools, Ha Gil-jong, 1975) always assumed they were destined to be married. He too has entered the professions, in his case as a doctor. That’s okay for him, being a man, but for her, he thinks it will conflict with her duties as a wife and mother. So she dumps him. 

This looks like being a mistake since, on some level, his motives are pure. Instead, she ends up married to Chae Gye-sik (Kim Seok-hun) – not so much because of the man but because his social climber father, CEO of Sangyeon Construction Chae Sung-jin (Kim Seung-ho) thinks marrying off his son to one of the first female judges would be a really good idea, not least since it might put him in a useful position to be able easily bribe a member of the judiciary. … Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Tinker Ticker
(Deulgae,
들개,
lit. Wild Dog)

Director – Kim Jung-hoon – 2013 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 102m

*****

A university professor’s aide who in his spare time builds bombs and sends them to people free of charge connects with a spoiled student prepared to detonate them – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

High school student Park Jung-gu (Byun Yo-han) makes bombs as a hobby. Ten years later, he’s on the internet, sending bombs out free of charge to any interested parties. However, people who receive his bombs do nothing with them.

By day, Park works forBaek (Kim Jong-goo from Exit, Lee Sang-geun, 2019; Poetry, Lee Chang-dong, 2010; Nowhere To Hide, Le Myung-se, 1999), a lecturer in business studies at the local university, and watches arrogant, rich kid Lee Hyo-min (Park Jong-min from LKFF 2023 Closing Night Film Dr. Cheon And The Lost Talisman, Kim Seong-sik, 2023; Decision To Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022; Deliver Us From Evil, Hong Won-chan, 2020; Netflix series Hellbound, Yeon Sang-ho, 2021) argue coherently against Baek’s pro-consumerist lecture and get failed in the course for his trouble.… Read the rest

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Live Action Movies Shorts

Scissors

Director – Lee Gi-cheol – 1998 – South Korea – 15m
***

Master sergeant Kim tells the story of the framed scissors hanging on the wall of his barber’s shop – in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

A barber’s shop: seemingly a place where one comes to relax and have a refreshing haircut and / or shave. That’s not really the case in master sergeant Kim’s barber’s shop, though, as he tells his clientele about the pair of scissors framed on the wall. Among his listeners, a man gets fresh with a compliant woman, feeling her inside legs up as the Sergeant proceeds with his tale of past torture.

The short just about holds the attention on the strength of its quirky characters, but it’s pretty odd, to say the least.

Scissors plays in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th.

Categories
Live Action Movies Shorts

2001 Imagine

Director – Jang Joon-hwan – 1994 – South Korea – 31m

*****

Born on the date of John Lennon’s assassination, a man believes himself to be the former Beatle – in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

On the 8th December 1980, John Lennon is shot dead by Mark Robert Chapman in New York City. That same day, a child is born in South Korea. As the child grows into adulthood, he realises that he is the reincarnation of John Lennon. He grows his hair long and wears round lensed spectacles. Looking at him, you immediately think, John Lennon.

He tries to get record companies interested in his songs, but they don’t seem to grasp that he has the talent of John Lennon. Listening to him sing, and comparing the result to recordings of the first John Lennon playing on the soundtrack, neither do we.

His mother is confined to a hospital bed. He realises that if he reveals to her his true identity, i.e. he is John Lennon, then this would offer her hope and help cure her. This turns out to be a huge error of judgement on his part when he whispers the news in her ear, and she dies of shock on the spot.… Read the rest

Categories
Live Action Movies Shorts

Hz

Director – Bong Joon Young – 2016 – South Korea – 11m

****

Doesn’t anyone else hear those disturbing whines and explosions you do? – in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

It took me a while to work out – or at least hazard a guess – that the central character here is a girl: the actress has one of those androgynous faces that you can read as either male or female, and the character’s garb if anything suggests a young man rather than a young woman. Perhaps that contributes further to the eerie narrative as the character starts hearing noises – a series of brief whines getting higher and higher, which presage later sounds like fireworks or bombs going off. But there’s nothing to e seen to match these sounds; only the sounds themselves, And the character appears to be the only person on the bus who can hear them.

Well, not quite. A man is wearing headphones, and when he accosts her and insist she tries them on, she discovers that they can cut the sound down to quite some degree.… Read the rest

Categories
Live Action Movies Shorts

Love Glitch

Director – Lee Kwang-ho – 2019 – South Korea – 26m

*****

On their wedding day, a bride attempts to remove he groom’s memory of a previous girlfriend– in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

In a large van presumably on her way with her groom to the wedding reception, the bride has him rendered unconscious, so a device can be placed upon his head that will allow her, guided by representatives of the firm she’s hired, to tamper with his brain and erase what she considers undesirable memories, i.e. the memories of the previous girlfriend with whom he spent six years.

Her assistant has a handgun; she is given what appears to be a blue toy pistol. Entering her groom’s memories in this armed state, she is able to, for instance, enter a scenario in a restaurant and shoot at the woman who turns into increasingly large square blocks of pixels before vanishing from sight altogether. It turns out that the hardest image to erase is the final parting when they split up because this image carries with it more emotional pain and trauma than the previous ones.… Read the rest

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Animation Movies Shorts

Giant’ Room

Director – Kim Si-jin – 2012 – South Korea – 11m

***1/2

A man enters a mysterious room and eats a cooked chicken… – in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

A man enters a room he should probably not have entered. Inside, on a table, is a cooked chicken under a protective metal lattice net. Periodically, the net rises and he eats some of the tasty chicken. He’s devoured maybe 80% of it in several binges of consumption when it starts moving of its own volition, recalling the moving chicken dinner in Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977).

Then the situation changes as a giant arrives and sits at the table, and our protagonist finds himself under the protective metal lattice net.

All this gains a strange, otherworldly, surreal quality through being wrought in stop-frame animation with striking puppets.

Giant’ Room plays in the KAFA Shorts: A Midsummer’s Fantasia programme from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th.