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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…)

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 »

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…)

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…)

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…)

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

Yim Phil-Sung’s captivating take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Hansel And Gretel, is released today by Terracotta Distribution. Special features include; ‘Making of’ featurette; interview with production designer, Ryu Seong-hee; teaser trailer.

You can read our review here »

The spirit of Bruce Lee lives on in this poignant high school drama… (more…)

Vengeance has dominated the work of director Park Chan-wook’s last three films, but it seems his obsession with the subject which has kept audiences on the edge of their seats – with their stomachs churning – is at an end… (more…)

Director Jingle Ma (Silver Hawk) and star Tony Leung (In The Mood For Love, Infernal Affairs) re-unite for a belated but rather disappointing follow-up to Tokyo Raiders… (more…)

The latest Tsui Hark movie is more than a decent stab at a ‘wuxia’ movie in the wake of Zhang Yimou’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers – but does it fall short of being the epic he intended?… (more…)

A letter written seven days before Jang Ja-yeon’s death, an actress in popular soap opera Boys Over Flowers, has caused a national outcry in South Korea, with the media focusing on ’slave’ entertainment contracts. It’s opened up the less-than-salubrious side to KoreanTV.

Read the full story on Guardian Online »

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2009 runs at London’s Prince Charles Cinema off Leciester Square from today until Sunday 24th May. Presented by Terracota Distribution, the festival some of the best of contemporary Far East cinema, including titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea.

Opening the festival is Eye For An Eye, the eagerly awaited crime-thriller from directors Ahn Kwon-tae (My Brother) and Kwak Kyung-taek (Typhoon). Starring Han Suk-kyu (A Bloody Aria; The President’s Last Bang) and Cha Seung-won (Small Town Rivals; Ghost House), this Heat-style thriller concerns a soon-to-retire police detective who is drawn into an elaborate plot of robbery and revenge when he begins to investigate a heist during which one of the perpetrators impersonated him in order to pull off the crime.

Among the festival’s many highlights are: The Detective, the latest mystery-thriller from co-writer and director Oxide Pang Chun (Bangkok Dangerous; The Messengers; The Eye trilogy; The Tesseract); director Johnnie To’s (Mad Detective; Triangle; PTU) Sparrow, starring Simon Yam and Kelly Lin; the Malaysian horror-comedy, Zombies From Banana Village; and the martial arts action-thriller Legendary Assassin, which marks the co-directorial debuts of star Jacky Wu (Fatal Contact; The Legend of Zu; Drunken Monkey) and Jackie Chan’s longtime stunt coordinator Chung Chi Li. The festival’s programme will also include the films Muay Thai Chaya, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream, Keeping Watch, Ghost In The Shell (2.0), Me… Myself, After School and God Man Dog, the winner of the “Tagesspiegel” Readers’ Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Tickets are available for separate screenings, or you can get a festival pass for the whole weekend. Full details of the Terracota Far East Festival can be found at the official website »

Crying Fist director Ryoo Seung-hwan out Kill Bill’s Tarantino in this enjoyable Korean action movie with some real crowd-pleasing scenes… (more…)

Let’s get ready to rumble! Song Kang-ho stars in Kim Ji-woon’s (The Quiet Family, A Tale of Two Sisters) hilarious comedy about wrestling… (more…)