After nine long months of shooting in Busan, Kwak Kyung-Taek’s 15 Billion Won blockbuster 태풍 (Typhoon) plans to wrap up tomorrow, August 1. The film - starring Jang Dong-Gun, Lee Jung-Jae and Lee Mi-Yeon - has received a lot of attention, especially from the Japanese media (over 300 reporters stormed to Busan to see the two top stars square off). Starting its shooting in Bangkok (Thailand) and Vladivostok (Russia) along with the Korean port city in October of last year, the film will go right into post-production, completing the editing and adding the CG. A release is expected for December 2005.
Via Yahoo Korea
Another film wrapping up shooting is the directorial debut of Bang Eun-Jin 오로라공주 (Princess Aurora), starring Eom Jung-Hwa and Moon Sung-Geun. The film spent 4 months shooting between Seoul, CheongJu and Busan, finishing last July 30.
Bang, a longtime actress appearing in dozens of films, commented: “I still can’t believe it. I’m really thankful to the cast & crew who trusted and followed me. I didn’t pay attention to everyone while shooting, but as the editing progressed all I had in mind was the trust and hard work the crew put in shooting the film.”
The film is expected to release this October.
Via Yahoo Korea
The short films 산책 (Promenade) by Choi Ji-Young and 유리알 (Glass Egg) by Kim Eun-Kyung have been invited to the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, in the Competition section. The Festival, taking place from September 20 to 26 in the Californian city is in its 11th edition. Promenade was already invited to the Torino Women’s Film Festival and received funding from PIFF.
Via Yahoo Korea
The star of Hong Sang-Soo’s 여자는 남자의 미래다 (Woman is The Future of Man), Sung Hyun-Ah, will make her return to the big screen this coming August 18, in the horror film 첼로 (Cello). The film is her first leading role after years of small roles and cameo appearances. Sung commented on her latest film, and her thirst for acting:
Continue Reading "Sung Hyun-Ah Talks About 첼로 (Cello)"...
Another couple of interviews with Shin Ha-Gyun, Kang Hye-Jung and Jung Jae-Young. Park Gwang-Hyun’s human dramedy set in the Korean War is receiving some of the best reviews of the year from Korean critics, and is generating great word of mouth, especially looking at various film-related blogs (enter the Korean title at the blog section of Naver, Daum or Yahoo Korea and you’ll see). Some people are even betting this will compete neck to neck with Park Chan-Wook’s 친절한 금자씨 (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance), which is quite a bold statement, especially in light of the film’s success.
As always, edited to bring you the best parts, as free of spoilers as possible.
Continue Reading "More Comments from the 웰컴 투 동막골 (Welcome To Dongmakgol) Cast"...
Confirming expectations, Park Chan-Wook’s final chapter of the revenge trilogy 친절한 금자씨 (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance) had an impressive first weekend at the box office. The film not only had the biggest opening day of the year with 250,000 tickets sold, but continued gunning down opponents throughout the weekend.
Distributors CJ Entertainment said they reached the 900,000 tickets mark in only two days, and predict the total intake for this weekend will be around 1,500,000 tickets, which would be even better than what 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi) was able to do a year ago. All the more impressive, the film did so with a relatively low budget of 4.2 Billion Won, against the mammoth 14 (more than 15 after marketing expenses) Billion of Taegukgi.
“Lady,” which opened nationwide on July 29 across 320 screens, saw its release widen to 420 screens as of today. And on top of its invitation to participate in the Venice competition section, it already has recouped its budget via overseas sales, which makes this success all the better for CJ Entertainment and Director Park.
But while the film might even hit the 3 Million mark by August 4, it’s not a certainty that it will keep its top spot when 웰컴투 동막골 (Welcome To Dongmakgol) opens. It is nonetheless a major success for Park, and for his (and CJ’s) strategy of hiding everything about the film until a few weeks before release, making Lee Young-Ae’s transformation all the more striking.
Via Yahoo Korea
Posted by Todd Brown at 2:44pm.
Okay ... it’s still loading up so I haven’t actually seen it yet, but I’m working on the assumption that I’ll need a fresh pair of pants in about five minutes. Why? A new Tom Yum Goong trailer. Yum.
Spotted by Wolf over in the KFC Forums ...
Posted by Todd Brown at 1:52pm.
Gah! Two people in one day have written in about Pusher 3! Must ... see .... this .... film ...
Johan from Sweden was kind enough to send in a quick review of the film, so here it is in all its glory. Check out the trailer (downloadable Quicktime) then proceed on in.
Hi!
Since you seem to be a fan of Nicholas Winding Refn and the Pusher films. I thought you might like toknow what Pusher 3 is like.
There might be some slight spoilers in here so proceed at your own risk.
Continue Reading "An Early Pusher 3 Review!"...
Posted by Todd Brown at 1:35pm.
To be honest I did not have high hopes going in to GTO: The Movie. A live action adaptation of a relatively minor anime series shot for little money with a largely unknown cast I expected the quirky high school drama to be little more than fluff. But here’s the thing: it is fluff, but it’s very good fluff. With a story driven by eager reporters, serial criminals with police in hot pursuit, suicidal love struck teens, a sympathetic cow, and a former biker turned highly unorthodox high school teacher the film threatens to blow off in all sorts of different directions but thanks to some charismatic lead performances it stays remarkably grounded and becomes more than the sum of its parts.
Continue Reading "GTO - The Movie"...
Posted by Todd Brown at 1:33pm.
While superhero films have risen to prominence on these shores relatively recently – I consider the original Superman film an aberration rather than the norm and the first glimmering of the current superhero craze coming with Burton’s Batman – costumed heroes have long been a staple of Japanese film with one of the biggest and longest running franchises belonging to Ultraman. If people know the genre on these shores at all they generally equate the movement with the Power Rangers but there is a much broader – and higher quality – range of material out there than the re-edited kiddie fare would suggest.
The current Ultraman film marked a successful big budget re-launch of the franchise which is currently in production on a television miniseries with big name directors – Takashi Miike, for one – involved. This film was also my first exposure to the character so if you’re looking for me to set the film in the broader context of the franchise that’s not going to happen, I can comment only on how it functions as a free standing film. And the verdict? It takes itself a mite too seriously for a film that features a man in obviously plastic body armor striking bad martial arts poses while battling another man in a rubber lizard costume and is emotionally manipulative in a manner heavy handed and clumsy enough to make even Jerry Bruckheimer blush but it also features some fantastic action sequences and solid technical values, particularly when it comes to blending different special effects techniques. Ultraman is a bit of a mixed bag: not quite goofy enough to turn off the brain and just ride along, not well written enough to treat as a ‘serious’ super hero film but, nonetheless, definitely not without its charms.
Continue Reading "Ultraman"...
Posted by logboy at 4:35am.
Would seem to completely do away with the need for the American reissues, as here’s a boxset said by dvdfromkorea.com to contain English Subtitles - and yes it’s the 5.1 sound and remastered image edition.
Specifications : Cowboy Bebop 5.1 ch Remastered Edition. Publisher : Nova Media. Release Date : 17 August. 7 Disc (Session #0, #1~#26) + 1 Disc (session #22~26 with dts audio track / initial press only) . Standard 4:3. Korean, Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1. Korean, Japanese, English Subtitle. Extras : Director’s Commentary (session #1, 17 & #24), Director’s cut (session #2 & #9) including session #0. Photo Gallery. Character. Production Note. Opening / Interview with Staff / Story / Music Viode (full & remix) / Ending.
Posted by logboy at 3:43am.
Can’t tell the exact date, as even though i’ve waited the past couple of days for more information to appear online or to be able to find the time to track it down myself, it’s still only know that preorders are accepted up to the 15th of August.
The films comes out on both DVD and UMD (didn’t know we would get UMDs everywhere, cool). Selection of tacky toys and pieces of cardboard come free with either edition, so make your choice dependant on wether you want to see the film or not. There’s a page with pictures of all the elements online here. The disc is issued by Megastar, specifications below.
Continue Reading "Initial D. Live Action Movie on R3 HK DVD Mid-August 2005."...
Posted by Todd Brown at 7:46pm.
Well, whaddaya know ...
Toshiaki Toyoda’s official website has been nothing more than a placeholder for well over a year now, but I still make a point of swinging by from time to time on the off chance things have changed. Well, I swung by tonight hoping to possibly find some information on his new biker gang film and no biker gangs, but lots of other stuff.
The website is now live and though it’s all in Japanese there’s still plenty of information to pull out. For example ... the live band / live cinema project his producer told us about a while back is up and running and hitting the clubs as Miracle Magic Volume One. A little bit of digging on the profile page turned up a pair of audio samples from a CD he released in 2003 as well as word that when not working on feature films he’s been directing music videos for Japanese rock acts Art School and Asian Kung-Fu Generation. I haven’t been able to turn up much on Art School yet but there’s an excellent English language Asian Kung-Fu Generation fan site that includes a multitude of audio and video links and YesAsia is currently stocking two AKFG DVD releases ... I haven’t gone through all the videos on the fan site yet but I hit this one at random and, while it’s not credited and I can’t be certain who shot it, it certainly has the right mix of fantasy and reality to be Toyoda’s work. Even if not it’s a great vid for a great song ...
And, finally, Toyoda’s site also includes a link to a lengthy reel of unscreened footage that I’m willing to bet was shot for the live performances ... it’s pretty raw, but worth a chuckle.
Footage Reel (downloadable Quicktime, ~50 meg).
Posted by X at 4:08pm.
Posted in
As you probably know, the last week saw the release of three important DVDs on the Korean market. And, since I’ll try to cover every major Korean release from now on, I need your help!
You can post a comment about which of the three films you’d like me to review first. Of course, if your first choice doesn’t end up winning, no worry. The other two will follow up shortly.
The three choices are:
주먹이 운다 (Crying Fist)
달콤한 인생 (A Bittersweet Life) Director’s Cut
남극일기 (Antarctic Journal)
You are also encouraged to add any Korean DVD you’d like to be reviewed in the future, and I’ll happily consider it. Although we’d like to cover recently released titled a little more, you can also request reviews for older DVD releases.
You can add comments until Tuesday morning 6:00 am, Central European Time.
Posted by Todd Brown at 3:23am.
How excited am I to see Joss Whedon’s Serenity? Excited enough that I’m sitting here at 5 AM posting a link to the new trailer ... this premiered on the sci-fi channel yesterday, I believe, and has now turned up online. Yum. Whedon’s space western is driven by the best characters he’s ever written and Serenity looks as though it more than lives up to the long shadow cast by Firefly ...
Trailer’s over on the Apple trailer page. Pick your poison here. It starts off very similar to the last trailer before veering off into some quality new footage ... nice ...
Posted by Todd Brown at 6:28pm.
Oooh ... a quality Logboy find here. The wooden lad came across these three posters for omnibus horror film Rampo Jigoku over on a chirashi site and they’re looking mighty nice. My anticipation for this one is growing as more details make it out ... in case you missed it last time, here’s the:
Trailer (Streaming Windows Media).
Posted by X at 6:28pm.
Posted in Asia
Park Chan-Wook’s 친절한 금자씨 (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance), right after being officially invited to the Competition section in Venice, flew to the top of the box office on its first day on release. The film sold 250,000 tickets nationwide (82,000 in Seoul) to score the top opening of the year, after reaching the top online presales record for domestic films earlier this week at more than 80%. Even though “Lady” opened on 370 screens across the nation, the number is expected to increase by the end of the month, reaching at least 410 screens.
Added with the fact the film has already recouped most of its 4.2 Billion Won budget via foreign sales (3 Billion Won to Japan, another half billion through sales to over 20 countries), it looks like “Lady” will be the dominant force at the box office for this summer.
Via Yahoo Korea/My Daily News
Riding on its popularity in South Korea and the current mood after North Korea returned to the six party talks, 웰컴투 동막골 (Welcome To Dongmakgol) will have a press screening in Pyeongyang. The film shows both Koreas trying to work together to overcome mutual difficulties, and is expected to be shown for both press and government officials as soon as the six party talks complete.
Via Yahoo Korea/MyDaily News
Continue Reading "Korean News in Brief: July 29 [Box Office, Dongmakgol, The Savior, Park Sang-Won, Desperation]"...
