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With the upcoming release of I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Okay on 4 April, director Park Chan-wook talks to the Guardian’s Ryan Gibley about how he can’t stand watching violence…

Read the article on the Guardian Online »

The latest from Kim Ji-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, The Quiet Family), a slick tale of that revenge resounds with amazing style and wit, but ultimately do we really care?… (more…)

Director Shin-Yun Won’s darkly comic thriller, described as ‘A heady blend of Deliverance and Old Boy’ is showing at the ICA cinema, London. Click here for more details and to book screenings.

Kim Ji-woon (The Foul King, The Quiet Family) directs this intelligent Asian shocker with more than a few surprises… (more…)

Asia House in partnership with Curzon Cinemas launches the inaugural Asia House Festival of Asian Film beginning 22 August. It will premiere films from Singapore, South Korea, Iran, Indonesia and China, including 881, Seven Days and Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. The festival celebrates the best in Asian cinema, showcasing films that have been critically acclaimed at recent film festivals and providing the first and possibly only opportunity to see these films in the UK.

All screenings take place at 6.30pm at the RENOIR Cinema, The Brunswick in London. See www.asiahouse.org for more details »

Biting social satire meets hilarious black comedy. Laugh or the dog gets it… (more…)

This Korean Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon styled epic may have been top dog in it’s homeland, but – with a liberal referencing of over thirty years of Hong Kong swordplay films – it’s really more of a mongrel… (more…)

The second feature from Kim Dae-seung, the award-winning director of the 2001 romantic drama, “Bungee Jumping Of Their Own”, BLOOD RAIN is a gripping and grisly period detective thriller set in 19th century Korea starring Cha Seung-won (Eye For An Eye; Kick The Moon).

It is a time of feudal barons and superstition. An island community is shocked when a ship bound for the imperial courts inexplicably bursts into flames. On board was a cargo of handcrafted paper from the island’s factory, a place harbouring something sinister.

Detective Won-kyu (Cha Seung-won) is dispatched to investigate only to discover the community in the grip of terror. A series of murders convinces them a malevolent spirit is responsible, taking revenge for crimes that no one wants to talk about, pronouncing predictions of doom when the blood rain falls. Won-kyu follows an increasingly corpse-riddled trail that not only threatens his life but also is set to reveal a dark secret that links him to the village’s shameful past.

A refreshing and fiendishly intriguing serial killer mystery thriller, BLOOD RAIN takes a traditional detective tale and relocates it to an earlier age, much in the spirit of “In The Name Of The Rose” and “Brotherhood Of The Wolf”.

The film’s lavish production values add a pleasing richness to the proceeding whilst the unexpected and extremely grisly violence is at times as shocking as that in any current Asian thriller. BLOOD RAIN is a delightfully darkand devious who-dunnit told with style and intelligence.

BLOOD RAIN (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£15.99) by Palisades Tartan on 26th October 2009. Special Features include: trailer; 2.0 Dolby Digital, 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS Surround audio options; optional English subtitles.

A solid, good looking action film with great fight sequences by choreographer Corey Yuen, but plot inconsistencies and a baffling conclusion don’t make the best for Chris Nahon’s live-action adaption… (more…)

From Su-chang Kong, director of the critically acclaimed Korean shocker R-Point, comes The Guard Post (aka GP506), a similarly genre-bending foray into the cinema of fear that further cements his reputation as one of the most original filmmakers working in Asian cinema today.

The Guard Post is released on Blu-ray in the UK on 28 December from Cine Asia.

Read our review here »

The BFI will screen the entire filmography of one of the finest and most inventive filmmakers in the world – Bong Joon-ho – including a preview of his latest offering Mother, followed by a conversation with the man himself… (more…)

The BFI to screen the entire filmography from one of the finest and most inventive filmmakers in the world – Bong Joon-ho – including a preview of his latest offering Mother, followed by a conversation with the man himself… (more…)

Another solid horror from South Korea, but surely the lesson here is don’t give your daughter a scary haircut like that girl from The Ring?… (more…)

A beautiful film by veteran filmmaker Im Kwon-taek with a fine performance by Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik, but suffers from covering far too long a period… (more…)

Director Shin-Yun Won’s darkly comic thriller, described as ‘A heady blend of Deliverance and Old Boy’ is showing at the ICA cinema, London. Click here for more details and to book screenings.

Nominated for Best Film at the 2008 Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival, Yim Phil-Sung’s Hansel And Gretel is a visually stunning and truly affecting fable about the destruction of childhood dreams, the loss of innocence and the power of the imagination to overcome life’s horrors will released by Terracotta Distribution at selected UK cinemas on 16th January 2008.

You can read our review here »

Based on one of the most popular and most frequently adapted modern stories in Japanese literature (‘Paprika’ author Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1965 novel ‘Toki o Kakeru Shojo’), the award winning, feature-length anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time comes to the UK boasting an unrivalled pedigree of creative talent.

Produced by Madhouse Studio (Paprika; Millennium Actress; Perfect Blue), directed by Studio Ghibli veteran Mamoru Hosoda (director of Digimon: The Movie and the originally intended director of Howl’s Moving Castle before Hayao Miyazaki took the reins), with art direction by longtime Ghibli art director Nizou Yamamoto (Princess Mononoke; Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland) and character design by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Neon Genesis Evangelion), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was the first ever recipient of the Japanese Academy’s newly formed Best Animation Film Award in 2007.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (cert. PG) is released by Manga Entertainment and will open at selected UK cinemas on 19th September 2008.

Kim Jee-woon’s fun-packed The Good, The Bad, The Weird – starring Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, Jung Woo-Sung and Uhm Ji-won – will be released in UK cinema’s on 6 February 2009.

You can read our review here »

Over half a decade since making such an impact with Nowhere To Hide, director Lee Myung-se finally returns to our screens with Duelist – but has it been worth the wait?… (more…)

Kim Jee-Woon’s (A Tale Of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life) fantastic The Good, The Bad, The Weird, starring Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun and Jung Woo-Sung, will be released on UK on DVD and Blu-Ray on 1 June by Icon Home Entertainment. A big-budget take on the Western genre set in the 1930s Manchurian desert, a search for a map brings together three very different men who seem to exemplify the characteristics of the title. In this Korean-language film, all of the actors – including the top-billed stars – performed their own stunts.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (SPECIAL EDITION) will be released as a two-disc DVD (£19.99) and single disc Blu-ray (£24.99) by Icon Home Entertainment on 15 June 2009. Special Features include: “Running Fast” – making of featurette; “The Good, The Bad, The Weird And The Vicious” (interview with the director and cast); “Analogue” (cinematography, lighting, action sequences, sound); “Space” (production design, costumes, set decoration); deleted scenes with optional director’s commentary; alternate endings (with multi angles); trailers.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is released on Blu-Ray and two-disc DVD on 15 June (postponed from 1 June).

Veteran Hong Kong director Tony Siu-Tung Ching (director of classic “A Chinese Ghost Story” and the “Swordsman” trilogy and the action choreographer for “Curse Of The Golden Flower”, “Hero” and “House Of Flying Daggers”) makes a dazzling return to vintage form with the epic, AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS, starring Donnie Yen (Flashpoint; Dragon Tiger Gate; Seven Swords; Hero), Kelly Chen (the Infernal Affairs trilogy; Tokyo Raiders) and Leon Lai (Seven Swords; Infernal Affairs 3). You can read our review here »

AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£15.99) and Blu-ray (£19.99) by Cine Asia on 23rd March 2009. Special Features include: Making Of featurette; Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo audio options; theatrical trailer.

Hailed as “a new cult classic in the making” by Ain’t It Cool News, the latest movie from award winning Korean director Lee Je-yong (Untold Scandal), DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS is an eye-popping musical comedy about teenage sex, non-conformity and dysfunctional relationships set against the backdrop of the appropriately named “No Use High School”.

Based on the wildly popular, taboo-breaking Internet comic strip, “Multi-Cell Girl”, and starring Kim Ok-bin (Thirst) and Lee Won-jong (Kick The Moon), the film’s episodic storyline centres on the bizarre and comical sexual ambiguities and aberrations of a group of teenage students, all of whom are looking for their own kind of love.

Welcome to No Use High School, an educational institution where the student president and vice-present flaunt their taste for S&M, extracurricular studies and supplementary classes are done on homosexuality and transgenderism, and teachers and students alike leave school early due to outbreaks of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Amidst this environment are several students struggling to adapt to their unconventional situation. Among them is Poor Girl, who endeavours to make ends meet by selling her body but only attracts clients (including a butch transvestite gangster with a thing for school uniforms) who aren’t interested in actually having sex. Similarly troubled is the cyclopean One-Eye, the school’s only virgin. Further complications for this pair arise when Poor Girl falls for pretty boy Anthony, who secretly carries a torch for One-Eye’s sister, Two-Eyes, not knowing that the breathtakingly beautiful object of his desire is actually a boy awaiting a sex-change operation. But, as the usual sexual confusion reigns, a new problem begins to emerge. Students who have never shown an interest in anything but sex have suddenly given up dating and become emerged in studying!

Sumptuously shot in a riot of gaudy colours, with brilliantly staged music and dance numbers and boasting an irresistible charm, DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS is a musical teen comedy in a class of its own.

DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£14.99) by Third Window Films on 8th June 2009. Special Features include “Making of” featurette and theatrical trailer.

Director Yim Phil-Sung’s dark and beautiful adult fairy tale Hansel And Gretel is making it’s way on to DVD. We reviewed it at the end of last year, and if you didn’t make it to the cinematic release we highly recommend you check out this DVD. You can read what we said about it here.

Special features include; ‘Making of’ featurette; interview with production designer, Ryu Seong-hee; teaser trailer.

Hansel And Gretel is released on DVD in the UK by Terracotta Distribution on 6 April.

Park Chan-wook’s I’m A Cyborg is released by Tartan in the UK on 26 May.

Read our review of the film here »

From Kim Sang-jin, director of the hit South Korean black comedy, Attack The Gas Station, comes the action-comedy-cum-romance, KICK THE MOON, starring Lee Sung-jae (Attack The Gas Station), Cha Seung-won (An Eye For An Eye) and Lee Wong-jong (Dasepo Naughty Girls).

It’s 1982 and the seniors of Gangsan High School are celebrating the end of term with a class trip to Gyeongju city. Among them are close friends Choi Ki-woong and Park Young-jun, the former a popular and tough gang leader, the latter a nerdy straight-A student with no stomach for any kind of conflict. Fate plays a significant hand in the pair’s future when, at the end of the trip, Choi manages to involve the entire school – all but Park – in a soon-to-be-legendary rumble with the pupils of a rival school.

Two decades later, fate returns to play a second hand in the lives of the two former friends when Choi and Park are coincidentally reunited in their old hometown. Their teenage roles now reversed, Choi has become a teacher at the school they both attended as youths, while Park has taken on a high-ranking position within the mafia and is in town to oversee the takeover of a local bar. Initially eager to reminisce and relive old times, rivalries soon flare up between the two when they meet a beautiful young restaurant owner and begin to vie for her affections. Meanwhile, Choi’s rebellious students are becoming more and more involved in the city’s small-time gang scene, something he is keen to prevent, especially when they begin expressing an admiration for the criminal activities of the likes of Park.

A light comedy that combines moments of slapstick and plenty of fight action with rom-com and buddy movie conventions, KICK THE MOON is an amusing romp about the trials and complications of love and friendship.

KICK THE MOON (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£14.99) by Third Window Films on 8th June 2009. Special Features include “Making of” featurette and theatrical trailer.

Based on the true story of the events leading up to and immediately following the 1979 assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee, the controversial satirical black comedy THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG comes to DVD uncensored and uncut for the first time in the UK.

Written and directed by award winning director, Sang-soo Im (a Good Lawyer’s Wife), and starring Jae-ho Song (Musa The Warrior) and Yun-shik Baek (Save The Green Planet), the film focuses on the actions of Korean CIA Director Kim, an outwardly cynical man who secretly nurtures a personal disgust for both his nation and his president’s embarrassing un-PC appetites for young female playmates, excessive drinking and Japanese pop music.

During yet another alcohol-fuelled banquet party at the heavily guarded KCIA safehouse involving the president, his top two (and equally corrupt) advisers, his favourite popular chanteuse and a young escort girl, Kim impulsively decides he’s had enough. With the help of his loyal deputies, he improvises a conspiracy that will change the course of world politics overnight. Immediately hatching a plot to kill the president and then make the scene look like the result of an ambush by North Korean forces, Kim makes his move. But as soon as the first shots are fired, the scene descends into chaos as the military and members of the KCIA begin to realise the gravity of the situation.

Although skilfully directed in “serious” thriller style throughout by Sang-soo Im, THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG quickly develops a dark and politically satirical tone not dissimilar to that of Kubrick’s masterful “Dr. Strangelove”. The result is an amusing and compelling work that Premiere Magazine favourably described as “a nasty, profane and utterly bracing black comedy.”

On its initial release, the film raised a storm of controversy mainly due to its fictional portrayal of the former South Korean President. This led to a suit being filed against the film by Park Chung-hee’s only son, Park Ji-man. In 2005, a ruling by the Seoul Central Court ordered that 3 minutes and 50 seconds of documentary footage (mostly of demonstrations) be censored out of the film. During its theatrical run, both nationally and internationally, only the censored version was shown. The ruling was appealed, and in August 2006 overturned, with the court issuing the statement: “We must broadly confirm the right of free expression concerning the depiction of public historical figures.”

THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£14.99) by Third Window Films on 23rd February 2009. Special Features include interview with director Im Sang-soo.

We chat to Gianna Jun, who plays the lead Saya in the new version of Blood: The Last Vampire, released this Friday… (more…)

We talk exclusively to Yang Ik-June about his fantastic debut feature Breathless… (more…)

Yim Phil-Sung’s delightful horror fable Hansel And Gretel is released at selected UK cinemas today by Terracotta Distribution.

You can read our review here »

Park Chan-wook’s I’m A Cyborg is released in the UK today by Tartan.

Read our review of the film here »

We always knew director Park Chan-wook would do something different after his acclaimed vengeance trilogy (Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, Old Boy, Lady Vengeance) – but were we expecting this? (more…)

Bound to become a flawed, beautiful classic, Park Chan-wook’s final instalment in his revenge trilogy is a master class in the making… (more…)

The Brothers Grimm’s infamous fairytale gets a sinister update in Yim Phil-Sung’s second movie… (more…)

Sergio Leone meets The Wacky Races in Kim Jee-woon’s Asian Western – it’s a real blast!… (more…)

The annual festival is back for another feast of new features, events and animations, running for the third year at the Barbican, in partnership with the Korean Cultural Centre and the Korean Content and Culture Agency (KOCCA).

This year the spotlight will be taken by an exclusive screening of director-of-the-moment Yang Ik-june’s Breathless, followed by a Q&A with the director himself. There’s plenty from Korea’s master directors, including Park Chan-wook’s Thirst, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream and Yoo Ha’s A Frozen Flower. There’s also a celebration of one of Korea’s most-loved directors, the late Yoo Hyun Mak, best known for Aimless Bullet, and a focus on Korea’s burgeoning independent scene. Other events and screenings include sleeper hit Scandal Makers and a Korean Animation Day.

The season also includes the afore mentioned Bong Joon-Ho retrospective showing at the BFI Southbank.

» Visit www.koreanfilm.co.uk for more information

The annual festival is back for another feast of new features, events and animations, running for the third year at the Barbican, in partnership with the Korean Cultural Centre and the Korean Content and Culture Agency (KOCCA).

This year the spotlight will be taken by an exclusive screening of director-of-the-moment Yang Ik-june’s Breathless, followed by a Q&A with the director himself. There’s plenty from Korea’s master directors, including Park Chan-wook’s Thirst, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream and Yoo Ha’s A Frozen Flower. There’s also a celebration of one of Korea’s most-loved directors, the late Yoo Hyun Mak, best known for Aimless Bullet, and a focus on Korea’s burgeoning independent scene. Other events and screenings include sleeper hit Scandal Makers and a Korean Animation Day.

The season also includes the afore mentioned Bong Joon-Ho retrospective showing at the BFI Southbank.

» Visit www.koreanfilm.co.uk for more information

Something of a reduced service here at easternKicks, while I move house and wait an eternity to get my broadband sorted out, but time to highlight the success of Breathless, the debut film by Korean actor turned director Yang Ik-June, at this years Tokyo Filmex, walking off with both the Grand Prize and Audience Award.

Already the recipient of numerous international film awards, the film is an accomplished first work, brutal and uncompromising in its portrayal of the caise and effect of domestic violence, it’s also poetic, funny, and surprisingly uplifting. On paper, a strange mix, but on screen easily one of the best Asian films of the year. The film opens in selected cinemas around the UK on 29 January 2010, distributed by Terracotta Distribution, and is a must-see.

We’ll be bringing you an exclusive interview with Yang Ik-June, who also stars, wrote and edited Breathless, and happens to be a lot more affable in real life than you might expect from his role, as well as a review of the film itself.

Some six years after it was originally released this Korean classic has finally been made available in the UK – but has it been worth the wait?… (more…)

A poignant, funny and often challenging look at an unlikely romance between a mentally challenged ex-con and a woman suffering from cerebral palsy directed by Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Green Fish)… (more…)

Director Park Chan-wook’s follow-up to Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is an even better twisted tale of revenge… (more…)