The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
Bong Joon-ho's recent monster movie The Host was greeted with plaudits normally reserved for a master of the French New Wave, with an average...
Twitch (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
There are few things more satisfying than seeing a film you have eagerly awaited all year turn out to be just as impressive as you had hoped. This is certainly the case with MOTHER, a dark, suspenseful drama from Korean director Bong Joon Ho. After his large-scale allegorical monster movie, THE HOST, Bong has returned to a rural community like that of his earlier masterpiece, MEMORIES OF MURDER, and...
Twitch (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
Pulling out a quote from Frederick Douglass' canon would probably solve a lot of the problems that trying to introduce something as complex as slavery in Korean history can generate, but the argument gains a little more verve when it's attached to what has the potential to become next year's "best damn show on television." And once you realize KBS' upcoming action sageuk 추노...
Twitch (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
...and no, it's not that the overgrown squid will emerge from your screens, Sadako style. It'll just become a videogame, released alongside the film (that's not too common, is it'). We showed the first CG test from Macrograph a few months back, which remains the only bit of info we have on the sequel to Bong Joon-Ho's 괴물 (The Host) - other than the fact that the CG will be done in-house....
Twitch (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Ahh... Song Il-Gon, how we missed you. His films might have barely registered a blip at the domestic box office, but you'd be hard pressed to find a more consistent director than Song (OK, Bong Joon-Ho. But is that human talent') in Korea. Starting from his masterful Cannes short 소풍 (Picnic) , Song went on to direct a collection of excellent, gloriously subtle works like road movie 꽃섬...
Living in Cinema (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
I finally caught up with Mother from Bong Joon-ho (The Host) last night at AFI Fest. It’s only been 2 days, but it’s in the running for the best of the festival. Tonight I’ll be sampling Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner and Foreign Language Oscar hopeful The White Ribbon plus Israel’s Oscar entry Ajami. I’m [...]
Justine Larbalestier (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
Today’s NaNoWriMo tip comes from Scott. Go check it out. Last night we watched Bong Joon-ho’s The Host again, which is probably my favourite giant monster movie ever. If you haven’t seen it do so immediately! It more than stood up to a second viewing. We then watched the Making of The Host documentary, which [...]
24 FRAMES PER SECOND (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
마더 [Mother] Dir: Bong Joon-ho Cast: Kim Hye-ja, Won Bin When mentally disabled Yoon Do-joon (Won) is arrested and charged with the murder of a schoolgirl his mother (Kim), convinced that her son is innocent and the confession coerced from him by the police is false, turns private detective, vowing to find the real culprit. With acclaimed films like The Host and Memories of Murder , Bong...
FirstShowing.net (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
I love Korean gangster films. While there are filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho, the one film that really opened my eyes was The Chaser, which I saw back in 2008, and is why I'm writing about this one. I don't know anything about A Dirty Carnival, but I dig that title and the plot and will be seeking it out as soon as I can. Variety reports that the 2006 film, written and directed by...
Ain't it Cool News (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
The House Next Door (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
By Edmund Mullins The eponymous, middle-aged heroine (Kim Hye-ja) in Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother , looks puzzlingly at a youngster retouching photographs on a computer and remarks: “There’s nothing you can’t do these days.” In Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass , mercurial retiree Georges Palet (André Dussollier) spots the outline of a girl’s black panties showing...
Twitch (Free subscription) | 10/18/2009
[Our thanks to Teresa Nieman for the following review.] The opening scene of Bong Joon-ho's Mother is playful, funny and weirdly inviting as pint-sized dynamo (or, if you prefer, revered veteran actress) Kim Hye-ja performs an awkward solo dance in a wheat field. Later on, when the events leading up to this moment are revealed and everything comes full circle, this scene is colored in a much more...
Reuters UK (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Jacques Audiard's French film "A Prophet," Michael Haneke's German film "The White Ribbon" and Bong Joon-ho's "Mother," from South Korea -- three films that have figured prominently on this year's festival circuit -- are among the titles being considered for the foreign-language film Oscar.
L. A. Times Dodgers Blog (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
The list includes Bong Joon-ho's "Mother"from Korea, Germany's Michael Haneke ("The White Ribbon") and China's Chen Kaige ("Forever Enthralled").
Dr. Parnassus Support Site (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
Los Angeleans attending the AFI Film Festival may be eligible to receive two free tickets to a screening at the festival. Please read the article below for more information. Source: Screen Daily The US premiere of Tom Ford’s A Single Man starring Oscar contender Colin Firth and Julianne Moore will close the slimmed down 23rd AFI FEST on November 5. Artistic director Rose Kuo and her team also...
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