Korean News in Brief: July 16 [Crying Fist, Yeonriji, Life in Pink, Taegukgi, Shin Byung-Ha]

Posted by X at 5:16pm.

Posted in TV , Drama, Action, Asia.

Ryu Seung-Wan’s 주먹이 운다 (Crying Fist), just released on DVD in Korea, continues to be invited to Festivals all over the world. After winning the FIPRESCI Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film has been invited to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Poland, at the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival in Canada, at the Flandres Film Festival in Belgium (where it won the Audience Award), and will be busy until September touring several locations like Melbourne, Athens, San Diego, Vancouver and Stockholm for various festivals. In the meantime, Show East has signed deals for theatrical releases in Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, UK, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal amongst others.

Via Goodday Entertainment

Choi Ji-Woo and Jo Han-Seon have been cast in 연리지 (which in Korean is a very simple Hanja proverb - 連理枝 - meaning something like two different trees fused together via their branches, a sort of Tang Dinasty Romeo & Juliet originated in the poem 長恨歌, JangHangGa. How to effectively translate this in English is, well, another story). As expected, since it’s Choi Ji-Woo after all, this will be an old school melodrama; Jo will play a young CEO of a Software company, Choi a reckless and lovely woman who, you guessed it, will fall in love with Jo. The film is set to release in Japan and Korea simultaneously, taking advantage of Choi’s enormous popularity in Japan, and will start shooting next month. Just a look at the script during the Cannes Film Market is all the film needed to secure contracts with Japan and other countries. Maybe it’s good they stopped after “Choi Ji-Woo”?

Via Goodday Entertainment

Choi Jin-Shil will finally return to the small screen, after a troubled year of excessive media attention (concerning the violent end to her marriage with her Baseball superstar husband), in the KBS2 Drama 장미빛 인생 (Life in Pink). The Drama, also starring Family Drama veterans Jang Yong, Na Moon-Hee, Jo Eun-Sook, Son Hyun-Joo, Park Sang-Min and Kim Ji-Young seems to be a look back at the roles that made her the most popular Korean actress of the 90s, and that made for some of the best MBC Dramas of all time. Choi is also choosing a film for her comeback to the big screen after 5 long years.

Via Star News

Somewhere in Pyeongyang, Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il is probably laughing hard as apparently his country is responsible for the biggest hit of all time in South Korea. I’m talking about 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi) which, according to influential and famous French daily Le Parisien comes from “la Coree du nord.” The newspaper, the biggest in the country after Le Monde, was covering the upcoming release of the film in France, scheduled to hit 110 Screens nationwide as Freres De Sang (Blood Brothers). MK Pictures, distributor of the film, commented about the issue: “It’s total nonsense. They must have some problems with their database. They should publicly revise the problem.”
But then again, they thought that Im Sang-Soo’s 바람난 가족 (A Good Lawyer’s Wife) and Hong Sang-Soo’s

여자는 남자의 미래다 (Woman is The Future of Man) were North Korean movies, too.

Via The Independent

Famous Music Director Shin Byung-Ha passed away on July 11. Shin, who worked on over 100 films and TV Dramas including 씨받이 (Surrogate Womb), 장군의 아들 (Son of The General), 하얀전쟁 (White Badge), 남부군 (Partisans of South Korea) and TV Drama classics like 사랑과 야망 (Love & Ambition) and 그대 그리고 나 (He And I) was 60.

Via Film2.0