★★★★☆ The intensity of language and the beauty it conveys are visually explored in Chang-dong Lee’s Poetry (2010), a film which manages to fashion the vividly imaginative nature of a poem, against a narrative saturated with themes of human misery and which includes a breathtaking performance from one of South Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Set in the Cheonggyecheon district of Seoul City, acclaimed South Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s 18th film, Pieta (2012), tells the story of Kang-do (Lee Jung-jin), a loan shark debt collector, who – when his clients can’t or won’t pay – resorts to crippling them in one way or another Continue Reading
★★★★☆ There aren’t many filmmakers who would want – let alone have the capacity – to make audiences gag and guffaw in equal measure. Even fewer would attempt to elicit such reactions simultaneously. A smaller number still would envisage doing so with a blackly comic tale of castration, cannibalism, masturbation Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ At just over an hour in length, the compunction to describe Hong Sang-soo’s latest offering as slight would be understandable, but for those that have seen Hill of Freedom (Jayuui Eondeok, 2014) it’s also an accurate one-word review. Hong is known for his light, whimsical, and meandering narratives, but Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Not content with dominating the rails with his recently lauded ferroquine sci-fi allegory Snowpiercer (2013), Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho has also sets his sights on the high-seas with nautical adventure Haemoo (2014). Co-written by Bong and director Shim Sung-bo, it showcases precisely why certain Korean directors are currently the Continue Reading
★★★★☆ In July Jung’s impressive directorial debut, produced by critically acclaimed film-maker Lee Chang-dong, a city cop relocated to the sticks befriends a moppet with a crummy home life. Starring Bae Doo-na and Kim Sae-ron, A Girl at My Door (2014) is at once a plangent character study and transgressive drama. Continue Reading