Outwardly unexpressive but inwardly volatile, Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in, “The Throne”), a young delivery man, aspires to be a writer but does not write. He asks himself, “What kind of story can I write?” but he is an outsider looking to the world to provide a story for him. “To me, the world is a mystery,”…
Grass is a symbol of renewal in Korean director Hong Sangsoo’s latest film, simply titled Grass, his fourth in the last twelve months. Only 66 minutes in length and shot in black and white by cinematographer Kim Hyungku, the film is set in a quiet Seoul café where the camera intrudes on conversations that begin…
Ignacio “Nacho” Vigalondo is such a breath of fresh air. He values creative concepts and playful storytelling over exhaustive explanations and trite plot turns. He is fully aware of the tropes he’s toying with and knows when to tweak them and by how much. He’s very good at engaging the audience and then recognizing that…
Zombie films have always been hotbeds of teeth-gnashing, blood splatter and almost the origin of stellar gore effects in cinema. But classics of the subgenre such as Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and George Romero’s “Dead Series” have equally served as sociological petri dishes in which the filmmakers examine our own societies. While this breed…
Occupied village. Crying babies. Mothers many. Babies doze. Japanese colony. Korean village. Woman leaves. Baby stays. Both cry. Off goes. Jap’s house. The opening scene of Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden leaves no room for blinking. That is the secret of its hypnotic pace swimmingly swinging from a contemplative eye which leaves it all to a…
A discourteous comedian takes the place of a king in Chang-min Choo’s elegant, languid Masquerade, a Korean costume drama starring the formidable Byung-hun Lee, sadly best known to American audiences as Storm Shadow, courtesy of the G.I. Joe franchise. Lee, who is a Korean star par excellence, is the film’s focus, portraying both the hardened,…
