Nine Korean films at Berlin film festival

by girlfriday

Korea’s making a big showing at the Berlin Film Festival, with nine films headed abroad, in competition for jury prizes. A few are films we’ve talked about for a while, like Late Autumn, while a good number of them are experimental films or shorts that are more artistically adventurous. Can’t wait to get my hands on some of these. Also, Binnie’s having some year, isn’t he?

Here’s a list of the films in competition at Berlinale:

Love Me, Love Me Not, by director Lee Yoon-ki, starring Hyun Bin and Im Soo-jung in a melodrama about a married couple on the brink of divorce. (Poster above.) This is THE HAIR that made me go crazy. Is it wrong to watch a movie for a hairdo? Well I don’t care ’cause I’m gonna do it anyway.

Bad Deal, starring Hwang Jung-min and Ryu Seung-beom, about a frustrating murder case that leads a prosecutor and a detective to act outside the law. These two are always good, and even better together.

Ashamed, starring Kim Hyo-jin (Mary Stayed Out All Night) and Kim KKot-bi as a lesbian couple. Kim Hyo-jin’s character attempts suicide but falls in love and embarks on a new journey.

Dance Town, which stars Ra Mi-ran and Oh Sang-tae in director Jung Kyu-hwan‘s third film to follow 2008’s Mozart Town and 2009’s Animal Town. They seem to all be vignette films; Mozart Town for instance is about the lives of various people who intersect in one city.

Late Autumn (also Manchu), a remake of the 60s classic starring Hyun Bin and Tang Wei. This is the screening that sold out in five seconds at the Pusan International Film Festival.

Cheonggyocheon Medley: A Dream of Iron, by director Park Kyung-kun (also listed as Kelvin Park) sounds like an avant-garde piece. From the official synopsis: “The narrator writes a letter to the ghost of his grandfather wondering if his recurring childhood nightmare of rusted metallic image is related to the family history…The film attempts to reveal how we shape the metal through techniques such as sand casting and milling machines, only to find out that metals had already shaped us into beings of an industrial society instead.”

Self Contradiction: Current Mentality and Participation in Reality by director Kim Sun, one half of the production company Goksa, along with his twin brother Kim Gok. They are renowned experimental filmmakers whose work has been shown at festivals worldwide.

And another brother pair: Park Chan-wook (Old Boy) directed a short with his younger brother Park Chan-kyung called Ups and Downs [파란만장] as in a life full of ups and downs. (Poster below.) This is a short that they filmed with an iPhone. Seriously. Only Park Chan-wook could film something on an iPhone and have the world call it art.

Broken Night by Yang Hyo-joo is a short about a traffic accident that keeps complicating those involved.

The 61st Berlin International Film Festival runs February 10-20. Sigh, I LOVE Berlin, these films sound great, AND they’re doing an Ingmar Bergman retrospective this year! Want. Go. Now.

Via Herald M

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