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A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

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Posted on March 25, 2007 by Alan

Like any good gothic fairytale A Tale of Two Sisters is positively loaded with meaning. I was reminded most specifically of the work of author Angela Carter, whose work often involved the deconstruction of fairy tales in a gothic framework, where blood, death, sleep and sexuality — most specifically sexual awakening — are entwined.

The film is based partly on the Korean folk tale ‘Rose Flower, Red Lotus’, but, from what I can gather, where that tale is a mostly … (read more)

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Brotherhood of War (Taegukgi) (2004)

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Posted on March 25, 2007 by Andy

Brotherhood of War was the highest grossing film ever in Korea at the time of release and it is easy to see why. It’s is big. It has battle scenes of visceral intensity to rival Saving Private Ryan, soaring orchestral strings and seething crowd scenes that make Gone with the Wind look like an amateur, suburban theatre production. Even the steam coming off an idling locomotive looks epic.

The core of the film is the relationship of two brothers, … (read more)

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Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by Alison

Picture this: you struggle to consciousness on a rough concrete floor in a building abandoned before completion. You’re cold. You’re naked. Your body is racked with pain, which you trace to the roughly-stitched wound on your side, marking where your second kidney used to be. You can scarcely stand, yet you somehow struggle down many flights of stairs to a nearby road, and try to hitch a lift back to town, because there’s no other option.

Welcome to the world … (read more)

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Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (2005)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by Alison

Until you’ve seen a Park Chan-wook film, you’ve never been gruelled. Not even slightly. You may think that other films are raw or powerful or harsh, but other film-makers are novices compared to Master Park. And although Sympathy For Lady Vengeance is visually beautiful, you’ll still be in for a good gruelling.

That said, I’d have to say that this is the gentlest of the Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy For Mr Vengeance and Old Boy being parts one and two … (read more)

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Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2004)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by Alison

It has to be said, and said early: this film is incredibly beautiful to watch. The setting, a floating hermitage on the ethereal Jusan Lake (not my poetic expression, alas. I cribbed it from the HKIFF2004 programme), provides a backdrop of natural tranquility. The tempo is slow and measured, allowing the audience to drift along with the growing monk. The story is simple yet moving, expressing grand questions of life, the universe, and pretty much everything.

This is a fairly … (read more)

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Spider Forest (2004)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by Alison

This is a very complex film which has qualitites like the distorting mirror of legend: what you get out is a twisted reflection of what is in your soul. Some will proclaim it boring or confusing, and thus dismissable, but I think this would be a mistake. There’s a lot more here than meets the eye.

The film opens with a slow pan through a moonlit forest. As you might guess, the spindly trees are draped with soft webs, and … (read more)

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Silmido (2003)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by James

In thinking about this review it occurred to me that Silmido is not a film I’m supposed to enjoy. This came as a surprise, since although it is limited in terms of satisfying story progression (or even closure) it did sustain my interest. The cause of this paradox lies, I think, in the film’s generic oscillations. Cinema Service founder and part owner Kang Woo-suk (Public Enemy) knows how to produce and market suspenseful action blockbusters, but he makes … (read more)

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Running Wild (2005)

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Posted on March 12, 2007 by Deni

This is one film that takes after its name, and a little over two hours of this intense police drama by director screenwriter Kim Seong-soo and I kind of felt like someone had run wild all over me.

Not that it isn’t a well crafted piece of cinema, with the set-up of both character and narrative really paying off in the second half of the film, the pace almost never letting up, and the main cast meeting like a … (read more)

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