Korean films

[skylee]

Take a look -> Korean Film Festival 3 in Hong Kong

The programme gives you some idea on the variety of korean films. "Addicted" is very good IMHO. And I am going to see some of the films in this programme.

BTW, Palace IFC in the International Finance Centre is THE best cinema in HK now (forget about the UA Cinema at Pacific Place for the time being).

[tetsuo500]

Try "Say Yes"

[madizi]

The last Korean movie I saw was "Lies". I would recommend it for those who would like to know why some people are obsessed with spanking...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005RFHF/qid=1096128068/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/102-2232767-8847354?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

[skylee]

These are also good ->

觸不到的戀人 (Il Mare)

愛．回家 (The Way Home)

隔離位係古惑仔 (My Boss My Hero)

[ankong]

I recommend you to see 'The classic'.

This is a love story that touch my heart and made me cry.

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[madizi]

Peppermint Candy is also very good movie. The whole storyline goes backward in time, not forward. I recommend it!

[emperor_lee168]

"My Sassy Girl" is a must-see! "The Classic" is another I'd recommend.

[Bob Dylan Thomas]

has anyone seen a Korean film with the English title "a bungee jump of our own"? it's absolutely stunning, but i can't rmember the chinese title (i'm sure it's got the word 蹦极 in there somewhere). It's much Much better than the seen-one-seen-'em-all trashy romances with identical characters and identical storylines.

[skylee]

It's called "Bungee Jumping of Their Own" (情約笨豬跳) (see the second post on the previous page, there is a link). I like it a lot (it's 李秉憲 ahhh), but cannot get over the little disgusting feeling of his 誘拐十七歲少年 bit.

李秉憲 is also in other movies like "Addicted" and "JSA", which are fabulous. And I am interested in seeing his new film "Everybody has secrets".

[Jack MacKelly]

great movies in this thread

[skylee]

好看!!!

Marathon Marathon 我的馬拉松

"Marathon" is about an autistic young man who communicates with the world through a marathon, instead of words, and proves his willpower. The film focuses on possibilities and hope rather than on accomplishments. Therefore, the most important part of the film isn't when the main character gets past the finish line after running the 42.195 kilometers, but when he tears himself away from his mom to run in the race. Finding happiness in running itself, the main character couldn't be any more content. The audience will realize that what makes us happy in this harsh, competitive world isn't what we accomplish, but the willpower to do what we dream.

I have always liked the leading actor Cho Seung-woo (曹承佑). And I think the scene where the main character Cho-won (草原) leaves his mother to join the marathon and imagines that he is running freely with a zebra is most touching.

[Hekate]

Last night I was watching Attack the Gas Station. It's so silly that I laughed (but it's a comedy, with a touch of satirical depiction of social manners). The characters are rather quite pathetic or dumb, but it's very funny.

Anyone has seen it ?

[skylee]

I have. It is silly. I didn't like it.

[mootpoint]

I recently watched Oasis and second the earlier recommendation. It felt genuine and touching.

Anyone looking forward to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance? There's a trailer at: http://nhnext.hvod.nefficient.co.kr/nhnext/movie/movieclip/trailers/T0002519_700.wmv

Also, the official site is at http://www.geum-ja.co.kr/. It's all in Korean, but I just love the Flash design on some of these movie websites (I had to run the page in Internet Explorer for some reason).

[Hekate]

skylee > yes, I know some also who disliked it, I guess it's quite... special and over the top but there are some funny moments, and yes it's silly (but silly enough to be funny).

Another "extreme" and funny film I like : Save the Green Planet, that's more insane and even more hilarious (ok it'a a particular humour).

mootpoint > I've seen Oasis, it's a very good film, I've also seen Peppermint Candy, which gives an original & well done narrative structure and is also greatly performed. I'll soon se Green Fish.

But I'm one of the few people who disliked Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Oldboy, so I'm not really looking forward to his Lady Vengeance at all.

[dolphingal]

below are some of my recommendations:

1. Full House 浪漫满屋

2. Love Story In Harvard 爱在哈佛

3. Little Bride 新娘十八岁

4. Save Your Last Dance for Me 最后之舞

5. Sorry,I Love You 对不起，我爱你

6. Spring Day 春日

7. Legendary Doctor Hur Jun 医道

8.Da Chang Jin 大长今

9. Over The Rainbow 明日恋爱预告

10. Two Guys 非常無賴

11. She's On Duty 插班師姐

For further information, browse through www.asianblockbusters.com.

[bhchao]

Anyone get a chance to see A Bittersweet Life? Lee Byung Hyun plays a gangster who faces an uphill battle as he seeks revenge on his former boss as well as those who took a part in tormenting him.

This is reminiscent of John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat, but Korean-style combined with Lee's own martial arts with plenty of gore.

I have read a lot of great reviews saying that this is not your typical Hollywood gangster movie.

This movie may be too gory for sensitive souls, but this movie may be the right match for those who are used to seeing Hong Kong shoot-em-up flicks.

FiRST MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2005

EDITED BY JASON F. JOHNSON

BITTERSWEET LIFE

MOVIE SPECS

______________________________________________________________________________

Director: Kim Ji-woon

Cast:

Lee Byung-hun Sun-woo

Shin Min-a Hee-soo

Kim Young-chul Mr. Kang

Hwang Jeong-min President Baek

Running Time: 120 minutes

Distributor: InnoForm Media

Release Date: August 18

Rated: TBA

"The character Lee Byung-hun play here, Sun-woo, is the man every teenage boys dream of being – and many older gentlemen would like to have been. He's a gangster, specifically an enforcer, but that's not really important. To him it's just like any other, and one he does particularly well. At one point in the film someone asks what it's like being an enforcer, and he answers 'That's not me'. And he's right. He is a man of honour in a profession without honour. He is a man devoted to his craft (martial arts) surrounded by a bunch of dumb, lazy thugs. He is a man of good habits living in a dangerous, licentious nightworld. What he is is a cowboy. A samurai. He's too good for the world. He's doomed.

This is truly the most charismatic performance we have seen in 2005, and there have been some good ones (Mickey Rourke's Marv in Sin City and the penguins in March of the Penguins spring immediately to mind).

Sometimes an actor shares so much of his own life force with a character that it's almost as if he creates a new human being, as if this fictional person on the cinema screen should be given honorary Earth citizenship. The camera almost never strays from Lee Byung-hun for the entire two-hour runningtime of the picture, and not once during those 120 minutes do we think: there is a movie character. What we think is: there is a man. And what a man.

When we are first introduced to Sun-woo, he is immaculately groomed, dressed in a black suit and tie, and enjoying a designer pastry in an upscale restaurant. A waiter informs him that he is needed elsewhere, but before attending to his business (what could it be?), he lingers over his desert, savoring a final spoonful. Perhaps he intuits that this will be the last moment of peace he will ever know. There follows a scene in which Sun-woo, with terrific élan, kicks the crap out of three lowlifes who unfortunately turns out to be the underlings of Baek, a powerful gang leader. Baek asks for an apology from Sun-woo for thumping his men, but none is forthcoming. Can you smell trouble? Unfortunately, Sun-woo can't. It's his middle name.

And speaking of trouble, we haven't even gotten to the girl yet. She's Hee-soo (played by the delectable Shin Min-a) and she's the girlfriend of Sun-woo's boss, Kang. When Kang goes away on business, he asks Sun-woo to look after the girl, but with a minor addendum that Sun-woo should kill her if he finds her fooling around with another guy. Sun-woo has no problem with this in principle, but then when he inevitably finds Hee-soo cheating, he doesn't have the heart to dispatch her. Not after she smiled at him so nicely when she was playing her cello. And besides, just look at her pretty hair! If you couldn't smell trouble before, you should be able to catch a whiff now.

Sun-woo's two lapses in judgment -1) failing to apologize to Baek and 2) failing to kill Hee-soo prove to be fateful, and perhaps even fatal (we won't tell). Baek hires a sociopathic butcher in a fisherman's hat to torture an apology out of Sun-woo. Kang, no less sadistic, orders Sun-woo to be buried alive. As it happens, Sun-woo endures both ordeals over the course of one-hellish night, and let's just say he wakes up the next morning on the wrong side of the bed. This gloomy gus wants revenge, the bloodier the better.

The irony that Sun-woo's principles lead to his persecution will not be lost on anyone who has ever suffered under an insane boss or an incompetent teacher or an immoral family member. It is not Sun-woo's sins or faults that lead to his downfall, but rather his virtues. Perhaps he could be seen as arrogant, but we see his arrogance as a form of innocence; he just wants to do his job well and be a relatively decent man without having to play the silly – make that stupid – games that people play. All we can say is, we feel your pain, dude, and we're sure that there are many other like-minded souls who will as well. At least we hope so. Misery loves company.

Bittersweet Life reminds us yet again why gangsters films have always been and will always be popular: gangsters get to act as tough as we all feel on the inside, but can never let anyone see on the outside. We'd like to personally thank Lee Byung-hun for the catharsis. "

[skylee]

Anyone get a chance to see A Bittersweet Life?

I have bought the DVD. Guess I will see it on my next flight. Sigh.

[geraldc]

Just watched Sympathy for lady vengeance today.

I really enjoyed the film. It has hints of oldboy (no surprise there), a bit of Amelie, Shawshank redemption, the green mile, It's a wonderful life, and a touch of murder on the orient express too. For me the whole thing worked as a package (and happily didn't leave me as conflicted as the end of oldboy did).

In the version of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance I watched, in one scene they kind of filled in the korean subtitles in drips and drabs to match the English word order when someone was speaking English, which I thought was a clever touch (even though I couldn't read it).

I wish more people were a bit more imaginative with subtitles.

The film also features the best pudding haircut seen since Slade's Dave Hill.

[bhchao]

How was Lee Young-ae's performance in the film?