Tag: London East Asia Film Festival

A monk invites a filmmaker friend to a remote farm in the Tibetan mountain region where a snow leopard trapped in a sheep pen has killed nine sheep – the late Pema Tseden’s final completed film is out in UK cinemas from Friday, November 22nd

Film maker Dradul (Genden Phuntsok) has been informed by his friend Nyima the Snow Leopard Monk (Tseten Tashi) of an incident and so sets out for the region of the Tibetan Mountains with a small crew in his car. Following roads in the freezing wilderness, the car arrives at a remote farm which consists basically of a stone farmhouse and a sheep pen where the Snow Leopard Monk awaits them, along with the old farmer and his family.

The sheep pen has been breached by a snow leopard, a rare animal that’s a protected species in Tibet, and the old farmer’s adult son Jinpa (Jinpa) is furious that it has killed nine sheep. Confronted with the camera, he argues vociferously that man must live with the snow leopard, and that a small number of kills would be acceptable, but an amount as large as nine is most definitely not okay.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Escape
(Talju,
탈주)

Director – Lee Jong-Pil – 2024 – South Korea – LEAFF Cert. 18 – 94m

*****

An army sergeant is caught attempting to escape from North to South Korea, but then a second chance presents itself – played as the Opening Gala at the 2024 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 23rd to Sunday, November 3rd

North Korea. Sgt. Lim Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) is stationed at the edge of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North from South Korea, a smart but frustrated soldier who knows he’s never going to rise up the chain of command riddled as it is with nepotism and privilege. Nights, when the rest of his unit is asleep, and inspired by his treasured book of the explorer Edmund Amundsen, he sneaks out of the barracks to map a section of the minefield in the DMZ.

His plan is to escape through that minefield and reach South Korea to defect before the monsoon arrives in four days time and the water moves all the mines around, making his map useless. Then he learns that the bad weather is coming two days earlier than expected. So he must move the date of his escape forward.… Read the rest

Tags alleged heroism, Amundsen, army, bad weather, blood, blown up, bomb disposal, book, captured, cat and mouse, caught, chain of command, checkpoint, childhood friends, classical music, concert, cover, dance, defect, defector, demarcation line, deserter, dig, DMZ, dress uniform, drive, drunk, edification, effect of monsoon, elegance, escape, escape attempt, escape tunnel, explorer, explosion, explosive, fake death, freedom, from the lavish officer’s mess ball, gay, gender balance, hazard, head for the border, headquarters, Hero of the People, heroism, Hong Xa-bin, imprison, intimidation, investigate, Koo Kyo-hwan, Korea, Korean Demilitarized Zone, ladies; off-grid, LEAFF, LEAFF 2024, Lee Je Hoon, Lee Jong-pil, London East Asia Film Festival, London East Asia Film Festival 2024, malnourishment, map, military, military aide, mine clearance, minefield, monsoon, move date forward, music, national security, nepotism, North Korea, officer, officers and men, passenger, perimeter fence, piano, privilege, propaganda, rain, rainfall, rank, reschedule, scrubland, self-serving, sergeant, slogan, South Korea, speech, spotted, superior officer, survival, Tannoy, the great and the good, thriller, torture, under fire, uniform, well dressed, well groomed, wild boars, wilderness, wildlife

Features Live Action Movies

Perfect Days

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 23 February 2024
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Director – Wim Wenders – 2023 – Germany, Japan – Cert. PG – 123m

*****

A cleaner for The Tokyo Toilet Company takes great pleasure in his everyday routine – out on UK Blu-ray and DVD from Monday, June 10th

There is a pecking order in society. Right at the lowest level is anything to do with human waste. Nowhere is this more evident than towards the end of this film when his sister, who drives a large, impressive looking car and is making a rare visit to her sibling, asks, incredulously, “are you really cleaning toilets?”

In this remarkable film, Wenders turns this notion on its head. Welcome to the world of Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), employee of The Tokyo Toilet Company, who has been doing the job for five or six years and takes great pride in it. He is part of a two-person detail, however his young co-worker Takashi (Tokio Emoto) doesn’t share his enthusiasm, often arriving late for his shift and looking at his mobile phone on the job.

Hirayama drives a small van and has invested in various tools to help him carry out the job; Takashi rides a motor scooter. Hirayama takes great pleasure in his audio cassette collection (The Animals, Lou Reed, Patti Smith) which he listens to on his van’s cassette player driving to and from work.… Read the rest

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Concrete Utopia
(Konkeuriteu Yutopia,
콘크리트 유토피아)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 April 2024
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(Konkeuriteu Yutopia,
콘크리트 유토피아)
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Director – Eom Tae-hwa – 2023 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 130m

****1/2

A massive earthquake makes the residents of the sole Seoul apartment block still standing close their doors to survivors outside – out on UK digital platforms on Monday, April 1st

Concrete: a structural material made of aggregate, cement, and water. (Definition from Encyclopedia Britannica.) Harsh. Unyielding. Impenetrable. Opaque. Not alive. Commonly used in today’s world in the manufacture of buildings, and associated with Brutalist architecture.

Utopia: an ideal community whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions. (Definition from Encyclopedia Britannica.) The English word derives from two Greek words, the compound meaning of which is nowhere. Hence, “seemingly”. Utopias tend to have some fatal flaw. If they didn’t, any story about them would lack dramatic conflict. Thus, the word carries within it a degree of irony.

The eponymous montage of these two words pits them against each other: an unyielding, dead physicality confronts the optimism of a better world. The title evokes JG Ballard’s novels Concrete Island (1974) and High-Rise (1975), the former about a stranded motorist struggling to survive on a spaghetti junction after a car accident, the latter about a newly built block of flats in which the residents descend through social breakdown towards a new order.… Read the rest

Tags Anti-Crime Force, apartment, apartment block, architecture, block of flats, brutalism, Brutalist architecture, buildings, city, community, compassion, con, concrete, congressman, construction, couple, crime, decision-making, decision-making process, delegate, devastation, dystopia, earthquake, Eom Tae-hwa, extinguish, family unit, fire, food, foot in the door, freezing, freezing weather, homeless, hose, identity theft, jet of water, JG Ballard, Kim Sun-young, LEAFF, LEAFF 2023, Lee Byung-hun, London East Asia Film Festival, London East Asia Film Festival 2023, murder mystery, neighbour, new order, Park Bo-young, Park Ji-hu, Park Seo-joon, payment, people, representative, residents, scam, schoolgirl, search for food, selfish, selfishness, sentenced to death, Seoul, social breakdown, South Korea, special effects, steal, survival, survive, survivors, Taxi Driver, theft, thriller, Tremors, urban, utopia, violence confrontation, vote, weather, Women's Association

Features Live Action Movies

#Manhole
(#マンホール)

Director – Kazuyoshi Kumakiri – 2023 – Japan – LEAFF Cert.15 – 99m

***

A man falls down a manhole following his stag night and turns to social media to get help and, hopefully, escape – plays in the Official Selection at the 2023 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 18th to Sunday, October 29th.

The opening minutes of #Manhole resemble any number of Japanese movies you can think of as Shunsuke Kawamura (Yuto Nakajima) attends a surprise party put on by work colleagues at his local watering hole. It’s a good night, suggesting he’s well loved (albeit on a fairly superficial level) and he leaves extremely drunk, briefly saying goodbye to best mate Etsuro Kase (Kento Nagayama from Love Life Koji Fukada, 2022; Villain, Lee Sang-il, 2010) whose well-intentioned present – a lighter – may not be so much use to Kawamura now that he’s given up smoking. Or so it would seem at that point in the proceedings.

Kawamura must have drunk a good deal more than he realised because as he staggers home, he falls down a manhole off of which someone, by accident or design, has left the cover. His upper leg is badly cut.… Read the rest

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National Security
(Namyeong-dong 1985,
남영동 1985)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 27 October 2023
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(Namyeong-dong 1985,
남영동 1985)
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Director – Chung Ji-Young – 2012 – South Korea – LEAFF Cert. 15 – 106m

*****

An activist is arrested and tortured into making a confession, although it’s unclear whether his torturers have any interest in getting him to spout truth rather than lies – plays as part of a strand showcasing director Chung Ji-Young at the 2023 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 18th to Sunday, October 29th

In 1985, South Korea was a right-wing military dictatorship (in contrast to North Korea, which was then and remains today a left-wing military dictatorship). Determined to build a prosperous economy, the authorities would stop at nothing to quell any form of dissent, and this repression included torture. Activists fighting for a more liberal society were considered to be in league with North Korea, and thus any means of suppressing them could be used.

The film is based on the experiences of later Minister of Health and Welfare Kim Geum-tae (here played by Park Won-sang), who as a pro-democracy activist in 1985 complied with a request to visit the local police station only to find himself bundled into a car and driven to a torture facility (later revealed to be the eponymous Namyeong-dong) where he would spend the best part of a month.… Read the rest

Tags Chung Ji-young, Korea, LEAFF, LEAFF 2023, London East Asia Film Festival, London East Asia Film Festival 2023, North Korea, South Korea

Features Live Action Movies

Nambugun:
North Korean Partisan
In South Korea
(Nambugun,
南部軍 / 남부군)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 October 2023
No Comments on Nambugun:
North Korean Partisan
In South Korea
(Nambugun,
南部軍 / 남부군)
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Director – Chung Ji-Young – 1990 – South Korea – LEAFF Cert. 15 – 157m

*****

Gritty account of the Korean War based on the memoirs of a North Korean soldier – plays as part of a strand showcasing director Chung Ji-Young at the 2023 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 18th to Sunday, October 29th

Based on the Korean War memoirs of Lee Tae (Ahn Sung-ki), a former North Korean news agency correspondent who fought for the North Korean partisans, this is a long and gruelling account of the Korean War, a South Korean production exploring a North Korean perspective. We rarely see inside the ranks of the South Korean forces. The partisans are all ‘comrades’ and women as well as men number among their ranks.

Inevitably, romantic attachments occur, although these are frowned upon and quickly quashed by superior officers. Which leaves separated parties desperate for news of their transferred objects of affection.

One particularly arresting sequence has Northern partisans shooting at Southern soldiers across an area of farmland until a child, seemingly oblivious to the very concept of warfare, wanders into the crossfire area. Both sides halt their shooting and come to a recognition of the humanity of the other.… Read the rest

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A Moment
Of Romance
(Tin Joek
Yau Ching,
天若有情)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 21 October 2021
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Of Romance
(Tin Joek
Yau Ching,
天若有情)
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Director – Benny Chan – 1990 – Hong Kong – Cert.18 – 92m

***1/2

When a biker and gang member on the lam from a jewel heist takes a well-to-do girl hostage then falls for her, their romance is doomed – out on Radiance Blu-ray from Monday, August 21st 2023 following its screening in the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) 2021

Gang member Wah (Andy Lau) is the archetypal bad boy who, in the opening sequence, speeds through a narrow gap between two lorries and wilfully breaks a wing mirror on a stationary police vehicle as he rides past. Director Chan keeps up the mayhem with a sequence of two competing lorries on a makeshift racing circuit, each with a pretty girl standing on top – until one of them crashes into a stationery car sending the falling girl through its windscreen and scattering the onlookers as the police approach.

Ascendant gang member Trumpet seems to have it in for Wah and puts him on getaway car duty for a jewel heist. Wah must improvise when cops happen by chance to turn up outside the building while the crime is in progress and during the ensuing pursuit by car, in which he gets the robbers successfully away from the scene, and on foot, his only way of escaping the cops is to take an innocent bystander hostage.… Read the rest

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Hunt
(Heon-teu,
헌트)

Director – Lee Jung-jae – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. – 121m

****1/2

Two top KCIA operatives, each heading up his own department, both come to believe that the North Korean mole they are hunting is the other – out in cinemas Friday, November 4th; opened the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) as part of a strand of films celebrating actor Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) which ran in cinemas from Wednesday, October 19th to Sunday, October 30th

Two Korean intelligence men are sitting in a car. One asks the other riddles.

What’s a war in space? Star Wars.

What’s a war in winter? Cold War.

What’s a neverending war? Korean War.

A little background history will add to your enjoyment of this fictional thriller set against the backdrop of actual historical events.

In 1979, a South Korean coup d’état established the country’s fourth dictatorship since WW2. In 1980, with martial law declared, the Gwangju Uprising saw a battle between the military and ordinary citizens in the town of Gwangju in which at least 200 civilians were killed. In 1987, student protests lead to the overthrow of the Fifth Republic Of South Korea (1981-87) and free elections.… Read the rest

Tags 1987, 38th Parallel, action, activist, assassination, assassination of the president, beatings, capitalism, cessation of hostilities, China, civil rights, clearing, Cold War, Communism, confessions, Coup d'État, George Kaplan, Go Youn Jung, Gwangju Uprising, Heo Sung Tae, Infernal Affairs, intelligence, interrogator, Japan, Jeon Hye-jin, Jung Woo-sung, jungle, Korea, Korean War, LEAFF, LEAFF 2022, Lee Jung-jae, London East Asia Film Festival, London East Asia Film Festival 2022, massacre, mole, North By NorthWest, North Korea, operative, President, prisoners, security, sniper, soldier, South Korea, student, student activist, student protests, surveillance, The Conversation, thriller, torture, tuition fee, US, US civil rights laws, violence, Washington