South Korea
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Cinema is filled with stories about journeys, and none more so than the long, slow march towards death that each of us must travel. Ageing and mortality are inevitable facts… Read More
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Anyone bemoaning the lack of mixed martial arts in William Friedkin’s horror classic The Exorcist may very well rejoice at the prospect of director Kim Joo-hwan’s The Divine Fury, a… Read More
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The incredible success of 2016’s Train to Busan continues to influence the South Korean film industry, with a number of zombie movies and creature features released since then in the… Read More
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Bong Joon-ho’s wonderful urban satire arrives in Hong Kong, fresh from its Palme d’Or win at Cannes. Download the podcast Read More
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South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made history at the Cannes Film Festival last month when his new movie, Parasite , became the first from his homeland to win the Palme… Read More
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K-pop artists Jung Eun-ji (from the girl band Apink) and Lee Sung-yeol (of boy band Infinite) make their big screen debuts in first-time director You Sun-dong’s supernatural thriller. They form… Read More
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In Birthday, South Korean heavyweights Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon deliver a masterclass in on-screen bereavement as parents grieving after their son’s death in the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. Viewers… Read More
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Mental disability has long been stigmatised in South Korea, where sufferers can be hidden away by embarrassed family members and shunted to the margins by an unsympathetic society. In director… Read More
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A team of inept narcotics cops open a chicken restaurant to spy on a gang of drug dealers, only for their cover to prove more successful than their crime-fighting in… Read More
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In the testosterone-soaked world of Korean crime dramas, Han Jun-hee’s Hit-and-Run Squad puts a refreshing female spin on its story of police corruption and professional motor-racing, only to lose its… Read More
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This weekend, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma will make Oscars history if it becomes the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Should it do so, the Oscar… Read More
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From the convoluted set-up to its preposterous finale, Kim Byung-woo’s political action thriller defies logic and comprehension at every turn. Eschewing the noirish sheen of so many Korean contemporaries, while… Read More
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South Korea was one of many Asian nations brought to their knees by the 1997 financial crisis: it faced imminent bankruptcy and was forced to accept a US$20 billion bailout… Read More
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More Than Blue, the Taiwanese remake of the 2009 South Korean tear-jerker, is sending audiences reaching for the Kleenex once again. It stars Jasper Liu Yi-hao as a young man… Read More
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“What if [second world war escape epic] The Battleship Island was more like La La Land?” appears to have been the pitch behind Kang Hyeong-chul’s tap-dance-infused prisoner-of-war drama. However, Swing… Read More
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Lee Chang-dong returns to the theme of disaffected youth for his mesmerising story of a love/hate triangle between a young man, an emotionally detached foreigner and the care-free woman caught… Read More
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Arguably the most celebrated filmmaker working in South Korea, Lee Chang-dong came to the art form relatively late. The acclaimed playwright, theatre director and novelist penned his first screenplay in… Read More
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Following the incredible success of zombie juggernaut Train to Busan , Korean studio NEW hopes to recapture the box office magic with Rampant by unleashing undead hordes on Korean cinema’s… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 