[Movie 2005] A Bittersweet Life 달콤한 인생

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Random: Dir. Kim Ji Woon & Lee Byung Hun in 2005

BSL Japanese promos 2005

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October 11, 2009

Review: A Bittersweet Life

By Martin– October 11, 2009

Sunwoo is the very trusted right hand man of underworld boss Kang. When Kang plans to goes away for three days he asks Sunwoo to keep an eye on his young girlfriend whom he suspects may be cheating on him. Sunwoo keeps an eye on the girl who begins to intrigue him, while keeping things under control at his boss’s hotel. Sunwoo is a man who likes to remain in control at all times – using whatever means are necessary. One day he makes an uncharacteristically merciful decision, the result of which changes his life completely…

Review

It would be too easy to class A BITTERSWEET LIFE just as yet another revenge thriller coming out of Korea, too easy to compare it to Chan Wook-Park’s powerhouse ‘Vengeance’ trilogy. A BITTERSWEET LIFE does have a plot in which revenge becomes the central aspect, but the film doesn’t really fit into the same category as OLDBOY because other than the revenge theme it is quite different – casually re-writing the ‘gangster needs to get payback’ plot with lashings of John Woo, Layer Cake, Taxi Driver – and even Tarantino – but mixing it all up to give us something totally unique and even quite extraordinary. To give too much of the plot away would be a crime against the film – although it’s actually fairly simple and straightforward without much sub-plot. This really works in the films favour as it always feels immediate, building slowly throughout up until its amazing ending.

Put simply, the cast of A BITTERSWEET LIFE is fantastic. Lee Byung-hun gives yet another memorable performance, here as the straight faced Sunwoo, looking as sharp as hell in his tailor-made suits and also performing the action scenes with an unnerving energy. For any other actor this would be a career defining performance, but Lee Byung-hun carries these kind of roles with total confidence and he never looks better than when under the direction of Kim Jee-woon (check out the recent THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE WEIRD for proof!). Kim Young-chul is also very good as boss Kang, bringing one of those performances that only older actors can really pull off with a real presence – a confidence that can seemingly only come with age and experience. All of the rest of the performances in the film are equally as good – and that’s saying something.

The other star of the show – director Kim Jee-Woon (who gave also gave us the marvellous A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, THE FOUL KING and THE QUIET FAMILY) – embellishes the film at every opportunity with fancy camera work and a brilliant soundtrack. Like A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, A BITTERSWEET LIFE has something of an eerie almost ghost-like quality which makes sense its cinematic approach towards ‘life’, managing to push it up into a heightened sense of reality. At times the film is quite poetic but long tracking shots and moments of silence are punctuated with violence – check out the scene where Sunwoo should be trying to fall asleep and is casually flicking the light on and off. Every shot in the film appears to have been meticulously planned and painstakingly created. The ‘cool’ suits that gangsters wear in these films look even crisper than ever, lit as if they were in a commercial and Jee-woon isn’t a man who is afraid to make the most of his architecture and colour schemes.

If you enjoyed the way in which A TALE OF TWO SISTERS subverted its genre, then A BITTERSWEET LIFE does the same for the gangster film. Simple on the surface but complex underneath, it’s one of those films that you will probably re-watch fairly quickly. As much a referential piece to the other films it appears inspired by, it’s a film that is a genuine pleasure to watch throughout. From a team of actors and filmmakers who appear at the top of their game – and from a director who doesn’t seem to know what anything less than the top of his game is – A BITTERSWEET LIFE is one of the ‘great’ films from the last few years. In fact performance-wise, visually, musically and thematically, A BITTERSWEET LIFE is just about perfect.

Region 2 DVD Review

This disc from Tartan provides as sharp a picture as you could hope for. The picture often contrasts light and dark and the disc handles this well. The subtitles are excellent although a few lines of Russian aren’t subbed but this could be the intention of the director. Sound wise we have 2.0, 5.1 and 5.1DTS.

Extras consist of ‘Cast and Crew Interviews’ in which the cast actually ask the director the questions, a featurette on the films showing at the Cannes Film Festival, the original theatrical trailer (which gives away WAY too much of the film), Justin Bowyer filmnotes and the usual trailers for other Tartan DVD releases. This is a nice tidy disc, but with a film that’s so technically polished I suspect that there may well be another release in the future – personally I would have wanted to have the two commentary tracks and bonus features from the region 3 version.

THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON KFCCINEMA.COM

Buy from Amazon: ‘A Bittersweet Life’ [2005] [DVD] amazon.co.uk

Source: newkoreancinema.com

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Lee Joon (MBLAQ) watching A Bittersweet Life, captures from GBW cafe daum 5938

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Captures from auctions.yahoo.jp

I didn't know there were BSL t-shirts before, the black would be a cool one to have

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Captures copied from auctions yahoo.jp, thanks to the original fan-sharing

BSL Life is Sweet 2005 Vogue

June 8, 2010

Finecut presells I Saw the Devil to three more territories

The eagerly anticipated new thriller from Korea’s master stylist Kim Jee-woon, I Saw the Devil is ratcheting up the number of pre-sales deals for sales rep Finecut, with England, Taiwan and Turkey picking up rights. The horror-thriller stars top actor Lee Byung-hun (The Good, The Bad, The Weird) and marks the mainstream comeback of famed thespian Choi Min-sik (Old Boy).

U.K. based film distribution company Optimum Releasing picked-up rights to the thriller which is close to wrapping production and due out locally in late-summer. Optimum had previously bought rights to several Korean films including The Host and Chaw for U.K. release.

Taiwanese distributor Catchplay and Turkey’s Bir Film also purchased release rights to the film. In addition, Finecut previously struck a major sales deal with ARP for France during the Cannes festival market. ARP had bought rights to KIM’s 2008 feature The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Kim’s filmography includes A Bittersweet Life (2005), A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and The Foul King (2000).

I Saw the Devil is the tale of an extreme psychopath (played by Choi) who kills for pleasure. When the daughter of a retired police chief becomes victim of his next horrific pleasure-kill, her fiancé, a secret agent (played by Lee), tracks him down and designs a vengeance as gruesome as is in his power to deliver.

Source: Nigel D’Sa (KOFIC)

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26 July 2010

I Saw the Tale of Bittersweet Life Devil

Posted By: Jaccstev di // movie-cafe.com

South Korean director Kim Ji-woon has an impressive record of successfully tackling a wide range of film genres, acquiring a cult following among Asian films fans all over the world. Started out directing theater, Kim is growing significantly both as a director and a visual stylist as confirmed by two of his most popular films: the intelligent psychological horror “A Tale of Two Sisters” and the noir-inflected “A Bittersweet Life”, both of which were received as critical and commercial successes. Kim is truly built a career that any director would envy. His storytelling ability is crisp, engrossing and often breathtaking, while his camera technique is as fluid as it is stylish. His latest film "The Good, the Bad, the Weird", which covers a sub-genre of Western films popularly known as “spaghetti westerns,” that was uncommon in Korean cinema, was also successful enough to spawned its own genre the 'Kimchi Western' and ranked number 2 at the Korean box office in 2008. As sleekly as a director like Kim can move around inside different genres—he can deliver tightly edited horror and action set-pieces with the best of them. And this year, we will witnessing how this favorite filmmaker sliding into dark crime thriller “I Saw the Devil” and he's brought two of the nation's biggest and most recognizable stars, Lee Byung-Hyun (A Bittersweet Life) and Choi Min-Sik (Oldboy), along for the crazy ride.

Lee, 40, has long been considered one of the most popular actors in Korea with dozens of television dramas and films under his belt. He is most famous for acting in Park Chan-wook's “Joint Security Area”, Kim's “A Bittersweet Life”, and enjoyed a particularly successful year in 2009, making his Hollywood debut in action flick "G.I. Joe" and co-starring with Josh Hartnett and Takuya Kimura in the film "I Come With The Rain". Meanwhile Choi, 48, has starred in numerous films, most notably "Shiri" (1999), "Oldboy" (2003) and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005). Along with Song Kang-Ho (The Host, Thirst), he is one of the premiere Korean actors both domestically and on the global scene. This film is Choi's first major role since returning from a self imposed exile begun in protest over changes to the Korean screen quota system and marks the duo's first time working together. Lee and Kim, however, go back now over several films and their collaborations have always been stellar. So, the combination alone already look so great, and “I Saw the Devil” looks like it could be a good one... maybe even a lot more than that.

Kyung-chul (Choi) is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. The police have pursued him for a long time, but have been unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and she is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance, Dae-hoon (Lee), a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this inhumane killer.

# The original Korean title “Ayeoldae” (아열대) translates as “Subtropical Night” but the film has since been rechristened as “I Saw The Devil”, an appropriate choice as it stars Choi as a sadistic serial killer and Lee as a driven lawman who turns every bit as nasty while hunting Choi down after he kills Lee's fiance.

# Kim was set to helm the Hollywood remake of French heist pic "Max et les ferrailleurs" next, but has turned his attention to "Devil" due to production delays on the U.S. pic.

# Choi Min-Sik & director Kim Ji-woon previously worked together in the 1998 black-comedy film "The Quiet Family," while Lee Byung-Hun & Kim previously worked together in “A Bittersweet Life” and the 2008 action film "The Good, The Bad, The Weird."

Release date in South Korea: 2010/08/11

Posted By: Jaccstev di // movie-cafe.com

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Disclaimer: Partially gisted, mostly guessed from online translation by EverythingLBH

August 3, 2010

Netizens picked 'A Bittersweet Life' as Kim Ji Woon's best work

In prelude to 'I Saw the Devil' movie release on August 11, an online-survey conducted throughout 5-26 of July had chosen ' A Bittersweet Life' as the best work by Dir. Kim Ji Woon.

1. A Bittersweet Life 46%

2. The Good, The Bad, The Weird 29%

3. A Tale of Two Sisters 13%

The top two movies were those highlighting the combination of LBH-KJW which really showed the preference of the fans and the upcoming movie 'I Saw the Devil' with method actor Choi Min Sik have really increased the anticipation for another masterpiece to enjoy.

Source: news.nate.com

[Guest W00t123]

Great movie. Keeps you entertained from beginning to end, which is rare to now a days.

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August 20, 2010

Top 10 Movie richard simmons-Kickings

Posted Friday August 20, 2010

When I set out to make a list of the Top 10 richard simmons-Kickings in Cinema I had no idea how hard it would be. Sure, it's a breeze to rattle off dozens of fight scenes that are memorable for one reason or another, but I didn't want this to be a list of simple back-and-forth, well-choreographed fights. I wanted this to be a list of the greatest beatdowns on celluloid; The kind that stop you cold because someone on screen just got their richard simmons handed to them in the most glorious, no-mercy way possible.

At the same time, I didn't want to just pick a bunch of clips of people being beaten to death. The baseball bat scene in Casino or the fire extinguisher scene in Irreversible, for example, are not beat downs; they're executions. These ten below, though...these are richard simmons-kickings of the highest order. Almost all of them involve the underdog as well, which is not an unsurprising trend. There's just something about seeing the presumed loser snap and go ape-mini cooper, owning any and all that get in their way...

It should go without saying that the below videos are chock full of spoilers, but considering I think most people just want to watch some good 'ole fashioned violence at this stage, I doubt plot intricacies are a big deal.

10. Layer Cake

9. Tom Yum Goong (The Protector)

8. Ninja Scroll

7. Deadbeat at Dawn

6. Taken

5. Ip Man

4. Oldboy

3. Out for Justice

2. Once Were Warriors

1. A Bittersweet Life

I feel like A Bittersweet Life arrived at a unique turning point for South Korean cinema and was oddly overshadowed a bit because of it. It was released around the time Oldboy was making waves internationally and it never seemed to be able to share that spotlight. That's a shame because it means a lot of people have missed out on this part of Ji-woon Kim's (The Good, The Bad, The Weird) filmography. Its story of one man trying to draw an ethical line in Korea's mob world has a number of great richard simmons-kickings in it - I almost thought about also including the scene where Byung-hun Lee puts some cocky street racers in their place, but didn't want to crowd the list - but the obvious standout is our main character's escape from execution. It's kinetic, it's elaborate, it's gorgeous. Plus, Byung-hun Lee just kicks a ton of face in it.

Source: http://www.wtaq.com/news/articles/2010/aug/20/top-10-movie-richard simmons-kickings/

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September 13, 2010

Q&A: Is Kim Ji-woon's 'Devil' too graphic?

'Devil' director talks about the challenges his latest film faced

By Park Soo-mee

"I Saw the Devil," a new crime thriller by the director Kim Ji-woon, is hard to swallow for those who are used to the director's style. The film starring a duo of top Korean actors – Lee Byung-hun ("G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra") and Choi Min-shik ("OldBoy") – is a patch-up of ax-wielding and flesh-eating scenes that are far from being sensual or elegant as seen in his previous films like "A Bittersweet Life" (2005) and "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003), which was one of the country's widely-seen horror movies. Since opening in August, the gore thriller, a story of man and his revenge on a psychopath who killed his fiancee, much of the film's discussion has been focused on the expressions of violence and his choice of the gore genre. For a director who removed part of his film after being given a restricted rating by the Korea Media Rating Board twice, the film's response was an exhausting process for Kim. "I don't think it damaged the film's essence, but still you get to wonder 'why does it have to be my film?'" Nevertheless he's moving on. After competing in Toronto, he is already planned for making two other films, one of them an English remake of the 1970s French film "Max et les Ferrailleurs." Kim sat down with The Hollywood Reporter's Korea correspondent Park Soo-mee on a recent evening.

The Hollywood Reporter: What's the response of the film like in Korea?

Kim Ji-woon: The divide is quite extreme. I can't say that I expected the film to be this controversial. It's a gore thriller, and the degree of expression is very strong. Even then, the audiences' reaction has been widely split. I think the film has been shut in a certain category after it was given a restricted rating. In a way I find that local media simplified the film's discourse. Also, I was disappointed about the board's decision to remove a certain section of the film. I don't think it has damaged the film's essence but still I don't know if it was necessary.

THR: Did you have a particular interest in gore thriller?

Ji-woon: I've always done films with a strong sense of genre from horror in "A Tale of Two Sisters" to "The Foul King" which had a particular humor code, and "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," a kimchi western. I always think of ways to express the film in the most fitting genre whenever I'm given a script. That's my mission. "I Saw the Devil" is a story of fierce revenge, which is why I decided to explore with a gore thriller. I think some audiences were taken aback by the film because it was dry and didn't have the sentimental values in such films as "A Bittersweet Life."

THR: I was personally disappointed with Choi Min-sik's performance in the film. For some reason I didn't feel that he had pushed beyond his limit. His role was too simplistic and lacked layers. How did you want to portray his role in this film?

Ji-woon: My expectation was to show the side of devil in a man as lively as possible. Choi is so gentle in real person. He doesn't even swear on the set. Maybe because of that there are subtle moments in this film where you find his position quite ambivalent like through his gaze at the victims and his appearance from the back. As a director, I was happy to see his character transform on the set. Also it's hard enough to show a devil like a real devil.

THR: Did you have in mind your cult following when you shot this film?

Ji-woon: I suppose, but then I never had a steady fan who endorsed all of my films. Except "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," I think the fans for my films were almost grouped into certain categories. For example, some people would love "Bittersweet Life" and "Foul King" but hate "Tale of Two Sisters." Similarly, those who hated "The Good, the Bad, the Wierd" gave a generous review of "I Saw the Devil" and for others, it was vise-versa.

THR: So what about the depictions of violence?

Ji-woon: I wanted the audiences to feel the pain of the victims of violence, and I wanted to push the limit to make that more explicit and intense. The violence itself is stronger in films like "A Serbian Film" and even "Silence of the Lambs" and "Sin City," where you also see carnivorism. But certain depictions of violence are treated as a trend in some films. I think that was one of the issues I had when I was filming "I Saw the Devil." As a result, the audiences found the film difficult because they were unfamiliar with the approach to the violence that was portrayed in this film.

THR: What does this film mean to you and your career as a professional filmmaker?

Ji-woon: It is one of my films, and a state heading for a better film. On a side note, I am more aware of the pressures to make "a well-made" commercial film. The environment of filmmaking in Korea is more difficult now than it was five years ago. I think it has to do with the market trend that some Korean films started {by} breaking more than 10 million admissions. Producers and investors are less generous for directors to pursue their personal style in the films, and there's increasing expectation for "an objectively well-made film" that can reach a large audience. It was different in the '90s. Directors had more freedom to experiment with their style.

THR: The film ends on a perplexing note. How should the audiences take it?

Ji-woon: I expected more people to comment on the ending. Whether it was the right way of revenge, I can't really say. But I wanted to depict a devil through the process of revenge. You would think that by revenge a person can save himself from the pain. But revenge is ultimately a way to destruction. You can't possibly take revenge on someone without ruining yourself. For those who think that they can, it's a lie.

THR: Do you ever dream of shooting romance or romantic comedy?

Ji-woon: I don't think I'll ever shoot a romantic comedy although I quite enjoyed films like "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones's Diary." These are Hollywood films that have been shot under best possible conditions. So while they're cliche, it's still good. As far as romance, I am interested in shooting a sad melodrama of some sort someday.

Source: hollywoodreporter.com

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March 2, 2010

Kim Ji-Woon, Korean Cinema's Hot Director

Movies in Korea Find Box Office Success with Stylish Film Maker

K. W. Jeter suite101.com

The continuing strength of Korean film is demonstrated by director Kim Ji-Woon's recent movies, such as A Tale of Two Sisters and Bittersweet Life.

If a current Korean director is going to slide under Hollywood's defensive radar and take over a chunk of the mass market, it'll probably be one with a slightly smoother intent, if not technique. That director might be Kim Ji-Woon.

A Natural Film Maker

To more than one interviewer, Kim Ji-Woon has stated that he considers himself fortunate to have gotten into movie-making, since it's so easy for him. If Kim Ji-Woon isn't breaking a sweat, then he's one of film's natural talents; the on-screen results aren't shoddy-looking. His fourth movie, A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), nailed his reputation with Korean audiences; elsewhere, it was lumped in with the tail end of the recent Japanese horror pack, only because Seoul is closer to Tokyo than wherever it is that Shirley Jackson — or Alfred Hitchcock — is buried.

It's useful to compare Kim Ji-Woon with some of his predecessors in Korea's film industry. The outside world's awareness of Korean films ticked upward in 2004, with director Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy. (Winning the Grand Prix at Cannes didn't hurt.) Foreign audiences were both repelled and flattened by the film's crazed narrative — half Kafka, half Count of Monte Cristo — and actor Choi Min-Sik's brute avenger armed out of the $1.98 bargain bin of some Korean Home Depot. Ultimately, Oldboy might have been a little too far out there. (The other parts of Park Chan-Wook's loose trilogy — Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance — didn't make as make of an international impact.) Kim Ji-Woon has the advantage of being more accessible to mainstream audiences, even given the strong cult following enjoyed by a director such as Park Chan-Wook.

K-Horror Versus J-Horror

J-horror purists —they do exist — regard Kim Ji-Woon as having gotten it all wrong, inasmuch as his film actually includes an explanation for the spooky events. (In true J-horror, a cell phone is haunted apparently because it came from the factory that way. A feature, not a bug.) With Two Sisters, though, it's not the usual narrative package, neatly wrapped with a bow.

The big-deal revelation that buttons up the fading M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense is casually tossed in halfway through Kim Ji-Woon's movie. A lower-key but more powerful horror is found in Two Sisters' characters having to find a way of dealing with the situation they're in, not just finding out what it is. The explanation opens the door for the rest of the story, rather than closing it at the end.

A Crime Film with Surprising Depth

Kim Ji-Woon's latest, A Bittersweet Life, bears a filial relationship to Two Sisters. When Bittersweet's over-stoic hitman isn't capping his lengthy To Do list, in modern thriller cinema's best hyper-stylized visual manner, he's brooding about his own wasted life, a deliberately icebound realm that only violence can thaw.

Rumors of an American remake of A Bittersweet Life have been circulating since an item in the Hollywood Reporter appeared in February 2009, stating that an unnamed studio had picked up the rights to the original film. If true, it could turn out to be one of the best transformations of an Asian movie into the American cinematic idiom since noted director Martin Scorsese reworked the Japanese Infernal Affairs into his critically acclaimed hit The Departed.

Pacing Is the Difference

Finding similarities in another country's artists, rather than regarding them as individuals first, is done at the risk of the Exoticism-Made-Easy cultural tourism that promises insights from the comfort of a La-Z-Boy recliner, remote control in hand. Nevertheless, one comment that pops up a lot in head-scratching reviews of Korean movies is that they don't seem to end when they should, or rather, they have two or three endings too many. (Though lots of commercial Korean movies nail the three-act Hollywood playbook perfectly.) If there's some deep explanation rooted in Korean culture, or if it's a viral style thing that one Korean director caught from another—it's hard to tell.

As sleekly as a director like Kim Ji-Woon can move around inside different genres—he can deliver tightly edited horror and action set-pieces with the best of them—the end-to-end sostenuto rather than accelerando pacing of his films is something from which instant-caffeinated American audiences would benefit by getting their minds around.

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November 12, 2010

Kim Jee-woon: Journey to the dark side

We talk to director Kim Jee-woon (The Good, The Bad, The Weird) about his latest film, the controversial I Saw The Devil...

Source: easternkicks.com

Kim Jee-woon’s latest film is rather dark indeed. A revenge thriller starring Choi Min-sik (Old Boy, Chihwaseon) as a serial killer and Lee Byung-hun (A Bittersweet Life, G.I. Joe) as the grieving fiancé who decides to make him pay, it’s an unpleasant look into just how much of a monster one must become to punish a monster.

How unpleasant? Well, in South Korea it was forced to go through two rounds of cuts just to get a release. To Western audiences used to Korean movies being violent, however, it seems rather tamer than, say, an Eli Roth/Hostel sort of movie. But there’s an intensity and energy to the film that’s undeniable, an almost relentless nature to it.

As Kim tells an audience at the screening later, he rather likes the vagueness of the English title, I Saw The Devil. Is the devil Choi or Lee’s character’s, or is it even the audience for staying and watching the film?

It’s almost exactly two years on from my last interview with Kim on an early promotional tour for The Good, The Bad, The Weird. As always he is happy to talk at length about his work and influences, and, if anything, seems even more engaged in the conversation.

(Me, I’m just chuffed I don’t have to share his time with anyone else this time!)

He’s proved himself to be something of a chameleon, switching from one genre to another – from comedy to action, thriller to horror – all with apparent ease and utterly convincing skill. It never feels like something he’s ‘trying out’, meaning that though there are always recognisable qualities to his films, those qualities are often less tangible than in his peers work, such as Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-duk.

But he hadn’t planned to return to the thriller genre so soon, as he feels they need greater, as he puts it, technical skills than he has right now. It just so happened that the film he was working on got delayed, so instead of taking a break it seemed like a better idea to do a new project instead. And that’s exactly when Choi Min-sik came to him with this script. Fortunate timing indeed, as Kim explained it would usually take him a year to work on a script of his own.

For Park, the script threw up some themes he was keen to explore. The fact that the revenge itself is always a utterly futile experience, there is no satisfaction to be gained from it. The other theme came from the works of Nietzsche, Beyond Good And Evil, which explores the idea of morality and just what constitutes evil.

Of course, it’s the first time he’s worked from someone else’s script, rather than from his own. Did that change the process?

He admits that although he found the script powerful, he wanted to create his own framework against it. He felt it could be more distinctive and powerful: changing the beginning; introducing the pension (lodging house) scene; and the ending, from which he felt it was far more what would be expected in this genre.

Much of this was only made possible through the actors performances. The film only really got moulded during production, with the new ending evolving from that. ‘In that sense you could say that much more clarity came from the production itself this time around.’

His main influence on was the emotional state of Lee Byung-hun’s character, and his desire to for the continuous torture he tries to inflict on Choi. ‘I tried to think about what that would be like, and portray it in the film. In that sense, rather than the traditional narrative structure of a revenge theme, it reflects the emotions behind it.’

But it’s a revenge, that goes (very) wrong, starring Choi Min-sik? Surely he must have know that audiences would make comparisons to Park Chan-wook’s work?

‘Not at all!’ he replies. It’s such a different kind of revenge story he hadn’t even considered the similarities between them, but obviously there are and since making the film he’s enjoyed looking at the differences in the reviews and the comparisons people have made.

Kim’s convinced that Park Chan-wook turned down the script first, but is keen to point out that’s just a hunch he has. But rather than any rivalry between them, it seems they only have the utmost respect for each others’ work. In fact, Park saw the film at the Pusan Film Festival and loved it so much he’d like to do the commentary with Kim on the DVD, so that’s a distinct possibility. (And Kim seems rather thrilled about it!)

Remembering our discussion from before, I ask him if this film is, in some ways a reaction to the Coen brothers No Country For Old Men? His lead character Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) seems as persistent and unstoppable. He admits the film would definitely have been playing on his mind a lot, as he counts it as one of the best he’d seen in a long time. It was inevitable that he couldn’t not think of the Javier Bardem role, but in terms of character, Javier is more dry and cool, while Choi maybe a little more crazy, but his performance is far more passionate.

On one Korean film site they ran a poll to decide who was more satanic, Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, or Choi Min-sik in I Saw The Devil. Personally, Kim put his own creation as third out of that three.

Did he find inspiration from anywhere else for the film?

In past, he explains, the colours and contrasts he used were strong and vibrant, but for this film he wanted to make the film less stylised, more great and eerie in atmosphere. Especially at the beginning, allowing the colours to brighten and grow as the characters develop through the film. To him it made the film more realistic and gave it more of a thriller-like atmosphere, but also made it more dreamlike in it’s ambience. This was influenced by David Fincher’s Zodiac, which he understands came from 70s American sceneries. He felt it wasn’t a bad look to follow, and specifically liked the subtle colouring and visual style.

As we chat, I remember how meticulous Kim is in conversations. Whereas most of us get distracted and end up talking about something else, Kim is very particular about actually answering the question he’s been asked. It’s not surprising he has such a reputation for being so involved in all the aspects of his films, including locations, set and costume designs. What details interested him this time around?

He revels that even the clothing his protagonists wore caught his eye, matching them to their personalities and emotional states. For Lee’s singular pursuance of revenge, he gave him minimal, monotone clothes, and for Choi’s far more lively personality, plenty of costume changes and vibrant, colourful clothing.

On location hunting, he was looking for dimly lit, secluded country roads. The thing that surprised him most was how close these could be to city centres.

Perhaps the most challenging part of the film was maintaining suspense when the protagonist finds the criminal in the middle, as opposed the end where you normally expect it to happen. Designing the action sequences was also tricky, as he wanted to them to be minimal but drenched in emotion.

Was the casting of Lee Byung-hun deliberate, it’s their third film in a row together? No, not at all, he answers. ‘In A Bittersweet Life, I thought no one else could play that role, and similarly in The Good, The Bad, The Weird, once I cast Song Kang-ho I felt I needed an actor like him, so it just happened naturally.’ But this was simply a matter of good timing.

‘We ended up sitting together at a movie premiere, and I asked him, aren’t you supposed to be promoting G.I. Joe in the States. He told me his plane had been delayed. So I ended up talking about the script and immediately he liked it. Neither of us intended to work together three times in a row, that’s just the way it happened. But I’m glad it did. In terms of their characters, I can’t think of many actors who could play the opposite of Choi’s style so well, so for me it was real luck.’

And what about Choi? It was their first film together since Kim Jee-woon’s debut in 1998, The Quiet Family, how had things changed?

The cast of The Quiet Family where all nameless at that point, Choi, Song Kang-ho. Now it would be almost impossible to imagine bringing them all together to work on a film together.

Choi was famous on stage before, and he brought all that energy from his stage performances with him. Meeting him over ten years later, you could feel his presence both on the production and afterwards, he’d become such a renown figure in the time between. And when he came to do this movie Choi hadn’t made a film in four years, so it was like he’d stored up all this energy during that break, he had such passion.

‘So I didn’t have to give him much direction at all. I’d simply say can you look here into the camera for a minute and he’d give the perfect angle.’

He feel’s rather lucky. ‘I loved working with Lee Byung-hun on A Bittersweet Life because I felt like I caught him at his most beautiful. And now I’ve caught Choi Min-sik at his most vigorous and full of life. I loved being able to capture the depth of life in his facial expressions.’

I Saw The Devil was screened as a special preview at the London Korea Film Festival 2010, and will be released by Optimum in May next year (2011).

Thanks to Kim Jee-woon for his time and Paul Koren, Media & Marketing Manager for the Korean Cultural Centre UK.

[rubie]

November 12, 2010

Founder of largest English K-pop site 'Soompi'

Korean-American web developer creates first global online community devoted to K-pop, Asian entertainment

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia cathy@koreatimes.co.kr

Main page of the ultimate K-pop site “Soompi”

If you’re looking for news about a SuperJunior concert, reviews for a 2NE1 album, recaps of Korean drama "Sungkyunkwan Scandal" or simply anything about Korean entertainment, chances are you’ll find it on Soompi.com.

Soompi.com is the oldest and currently the largest English-language online community devoted to Korean and Asian entertainment, with a million unique visitors every month.

Soompi has come a long way from its early days as a personal online shrine devoted to K-pop started by Korean-American Susan Kang in 1998.

"I had recently graduated from college with nothing much to do. As a recent fan of both K-pop and the Internet (AOL was all the rage), I noticed that there weren't any English-language sites devoted to Korean pop music or TV dramas, so I purchased a book called `Make Your Own Website with Microsoft Word '97’, and the rest, as they say, is history," Kang said, now a 35-year-old mother living in Irvine, Calif., in an email interview with The Korea Times.

Kang’s original site, Soompitown, was fairly simple. She would just upload photos of her favorite K-pop acts like H.O.T., S.E.S., Shinhwa and FinKL and English translations of Korean magazine articles, as well as post CD audio samples and her own album reviews. Basically, Kang ran the website out of "love" for K-pop.

(If you’re wondering about the meaning of Soompi, it simply refers to a nickname that a roommate’s family gave Kang in college.)

In the early 2000s, hallyu or the Korean wave began spreading around Asia and international fans discovered Soompi, the first website that actually provided English-language information about their favorite Korean stars.

Soon Soompi became more and more popular, requiring more servers and more technical expertise. A team of volunteers helped moderate the forums and post content on the website, but Kang, who also worked full-time as a web developer, was running the website on her own as a hobby and it was starting to feel burdensome.

For one, it was getting expensive to pay for the server fees out of her own pocket, although it was partially funded by member donations and small ad buys.

Then came the fateful day, Oct. 5, 2005, when the entire Soompi website crashed. Its entire database of 80,000 members and millions of forum posts was gone. "I seriously thought of just making that the end of Soompi, as I'd been running the site as a hobby for seven years at that point, and was paying for the servers completely out of my own pocket," she said.

"The turning point was when we re-opened an empty forum with 0 members and 0 posts, and within 5 days, we already had 40,000 members. That's when I knew that Soompi was bigger and more important than just one person's hobby."

Soon, it became apparent that a more serious, business-oriented approach to Soompi was needed.

In 2006, Joyce Lan Kim, a lawyer then working for technology firms in Silicon Valley, joined Soompi to handle the business side, albeit on a part-time basis.

"I joined the company, working on advertising and thinking of ways the company can break even. Susan never started this with business in mind. It was always just about fun. It was about bringing K-pop to the people. But how we make this sustainable is our job," Kim told The Korea Times at a coffee shop in downtown Seoul, last week.

Last year, Kang and Kim both decided to leave their full-time jobs and focus on Soompi.

The 33 year old Kim, who studied at Cornell and Harvard universities and received a law degree from Columbia University, had no second thoughts giving up a law career. She sees Soompi as a good business opportunity with K-pop’s potential to expand around the world.

Soompi is may not yet be profitable, but there is no doubt it is an Internet success with 500,000 registered members, and attracts over one million unique visitors every month (``That's like a small city,'' Kim quipped.) Revenues are currently generated from ads, premium membership and affiliate programs, but not enough for the company to break even.

There may be other K-pop websites that attract more hits, but Soompi has the most activity among community members, such as posting content and comments on the site. "Our success comes from covering such a wide variety of topics - not only the latest K-pop news, but Korean dramas and variety shows, original fan fiction, our own member-run shops, beauty & fashion, among so much more," Kang said.

Aside from sections on entertainment news, fan clubs and beauty & fashion, Soompi also has its own weekly music chart and annual contests, such as Soompi Idol, Soompi Dance Idol, Soompi Ulzzang, fan fiction writing and graphics contests.

All contests were originally started by Soompi members themselves. This year, Soompi Ulzzang Contest, a modeling competition for Soompi members, has become an official event and sponsored by Korean entertainment company Sidus HQ.

Member feedback is invaluable to keeping Soompi relevant. Whenever new features are launched, Soompi looks at the comments from members and makes the appropriate tweaks. Members can also vote for which Soompi fan clubs should be created next, as well as recommend new forums and sub-forums.

Soompi is working to make the site more user-friendly. "It's not a hobby anymore. We have to do it for real. Functionality is very important for us. We are definitely working on making it easier to use, and on getting great content," Kim said.

In terms of technical innovations, the Soompi Street Teams Twitter application is being launched. This will make it easier for fans to get their favorite K-pop idols on Twitter’s top trending topics.

"We wanted to make it easier for everybody to join together and tweet in support of their celebs. Twitter is not just for K-pop, because it's for everyone... Each time a K-pop celebrity ends up as a Twitter topic, people go, `who is this guy?’ Like when (SuperJunior member) Kim Hee-chul was trending on Twitter, everyone was talking about him... We can expose more people to the world of K-pop," Kim said.

An Asian website

Soompi is no longer just devoted to Korean pop music, but Asian pop and entertainment in general. It is also very much a global community, with most members from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia.

The majority or 81 percent of Soompi members are Asian, while 8 percent are white, 5 percent are multi-ethnic and the rest are African-American, Hispanic and other ethnicities. The most surprising fact was 60 to 80 percent of the non-Asian groups said they "know some Korean."

"It’s mostly non-Koreans, as opposed to 7 or 8 years ago when majority were Korean-Americans. Now Korean Americans are a minority on the site. We have ever growing number of people who are not even Asian. We have Caucasians, African-Americans, Middle East, Latin American, South East Asians," Kim said.

Soompi stands out because of its tight-knit community and its members. "Soompi is very community-focused, not just information or gossip-focused. It feels like home to many, and there are many members who have literally grown up on the site ― from Junior High to High School to College to getting married and having children," Kang said.

Noticeably, the Soompi forums are relatively free from the anti-fans and trolls who frequent K-pop websites to post vitriolic comments that rile up fans.

"I think our biggest defining feature is our members. Our members are the ones who do the subtitles, episode recaps and organize fan meetings," Kim said. "We have good members."

Future of Kpop & Soompi

Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that Soompi has helped give a boost to K-pop and Korean entertainment’s popularity among English speakers.

But while K-pop is undeniably big in Asia, there is yet to be a real K-pop breakthrough in the U.S., despite attempts by Rain, Wonder Girls and Se7en. "Honestly, I'm not sure if the U.S. is ready to accept Asians as idols, as Asians are still widely portrayed as awkward geeks or kung fu masters on TV and film, but I do believe it's just a matter of 'when', not 'if'. I hope it's sooner than later," Kang said.

Looking back, Kang admitted being constantly amazed and inspired by the level of commitment and amount of time people will willingly volunteer to support their favorite idols. "Passion will drive people to do crazy and wonderful things," she said.

In the future, Soompi hopes to leverage its brand value as the oldest K-pop online resource, and to continue fanning the flames of K-pop and Asian pop fever around the world.

"In 10 years, I'll be 45 years old. I hope by then, the Soompi community will still be going strong, with the love for Korean and Asian pop being passed to a much wider audience. We'll still be providing the best place for people to express their fandom and meet others who share their passion," Kang said.

[rubie]

January 2, 2011

Soompi.com shows Hallyu where to go

By Yang Sung-jin (insight@heraldm.com) koreaherald.com

Soompi.com is the world’s biggest English-language online community dedicated to Korean pop culture. It boasts some 1.4 million visitors daily. More importantly, 90 percent of its members are non-Koreans.

The website is widely regarded as a promising social network venture that has secured a solid user base on the strength of Korean cultural content. Softbank of Japan has already invested in Soompi.com and other investors are lining up amid the outlook that the website will emerge as a key gateway to Asian pop culture for English-speaking audiences.

Soompi.com CEO Joyce Kim, who lives in San Francisco, said in an interview that Hallyu is still in the early stages of growth internationally and the website would help foster its development online as “the central online activity hub for all fans of Hallyu and Asian pop.”

Joyce Kim

As for Hallyu, Kim noted that the near absence of a legitimate distribution of Korean pop content is a serious problem that is often neglected by Koreans.

The following are excerpts from the e-mail interview with Kim.

Korea Herald: How did Soompi.com start, and how did you get involved in the site?

Joyce Kim: Soompi was started by my co-founder Susan Kang in 1998 as her own personal website dedicated to her interest in Korean dramas and music. During the initial first few years, Susan would scan Korean entertainment magazine articles, translate them into English and post them on the site. Slowly, a community began to grow around the site and Susan soon had people volunteering to help with the site. As the first Hallyu wave began to grow, the site also began to grow. Soon, there were hundreds of thousands of visitors each month.

I met Susan because she is the older sister of my best friend from law school. We initially started to work together on Soompi in 2006 when the site growth was really taking off which meant server expenses were also taking off. I was helping Susan set up the advertising system on the site and eventually we decided to officially create a company and work on Soompi together. At first, we both kept our full-time jobs (Susan as a coder and me as a lawyer) and worked on Soompi during our nights and weekends. But by the end of 2008, the site was so active that it was obvious that the site needed more support. We made the decision to leave our jobs in 2009 and work on Soompi full-time.

KH: If you define Soompi.com, what is it?

Kim: Soompi is an online fan community for Hallyu. Soompi’s greatest strength lies in our members. Ninety-nine percent of the content on Soompi is user-generated content so our members are the ones who find the information to share and discuss. They spend a great deal of time online answering each other’s questions. No amount of money or marketing can create the organic community that sites like Soompi have.

KH: Who are Soompi members?

Kim: Soompi members are mostly young Americans of many different backgrounds (Asian, Caucasian, black and Latino) followed by people in their teens and 20s in South East Asia (Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, etc). They are typically very fashionable and up on the latest trends since they follow entertainment so closely. When they come to Soompi, they are often looking for the latest news about Hallyu and to meet other passionate fans. Hallyu fans love to work together to do events and share their love for their idols.

KH: What aspect of Hallyu appeals to Soompi members?

Kim: Soompi members love the celebrities ― their personalities, their visuals, their songs ― all of it. In fact, many of our members (90 percent of whom are not Korean) have started to learn Korean to better understand the music and dramas. Hallyu has definitely started to grow beyond its typical Asian boundaries. I think we will see Hallyu spread to the U.S., Latin America and Europe in 2011. However, for Hallyu to be truly successful abroad, Korean entertainment companies need to better understand international fans better ― this is important for creating new fans and reaching out to new markets.

KH: What can Korean websites and firms interested in Hallyu learn from Soompi?

Kim: I would say two differences between Soompi and Korean sites are 1) we really take into consideration the community’s desires when we build new products ― meaning oftentimes we look at community feedback first when thinking about new features and 2) we push out features before they are 100 percent perfect ― sometimes it means it has bugs, but it also means we can get our full community reaction quickly and fix or change things as needed.

For entertainment firms working in the Hallyu industry, it is important to make the music and drama content easily available for international fans. People in Korea do not realize how hard it is for international fans to buy the music and dramas legally ― there are not good options available. If entertainment firms made their content for easily available for international purchase, then more international fans would buy the content. But at the moment, we cannot even easily register on Korean websites.

KH: To create new and successful services based on social network service, what should and shouldn’t Korean venture startups do?

Kim: I see many Korean startups that are testing or half-heartedly targeting the global market. The decision whether to go global should be made early as it significantly impacts the kind of team that needs to be built and the product. If you are building an SNS service targeting the international market, then you should create your team abroad.

KH: What was the purpose of your latest visit to Seoul, and what did you feel when you were in Seoul?

Kim: I visit Seoul at least once a year to meet with Korean entertainment companies and Korean Internet startups. On the entertainment front, there is strong interest in online and social media strategy from the entertainment companies. This is one of the big growth opportunities for Hallyu. But I think Korean entertainment companies will need to hire people with international Internet experience to really open that opportunity.

[rubie]

January 11, 2011

Movie Review of ‘A Bittersweet Life’ (2005)

Reviewer's Rating: 4/5 stars by PvtCaboose91 moviefilmreview.com

If Brian De Palma collaborated with somebody like Douglas Sirk to create a Korean action-thriller, the result would probably resemble Ji-woon Kim’s A Bittersweet Life; an amazingly violent, brutal revenge flick that simultaneously manages to be a fascinating character study. Much like the pictures of Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), director Ji-woon Kim cranked up the melodramatic aspects of the story for this picture, but interspersed them with exhilarating bursts of violence. On top of this, Kim’s expert touch leavens the frantic action beats with moments of comedy, touching silence and physical bravado. Admittedly, A Bittersweet Life tells an unoriginal, highly derivative story. However, what the film lacks in originality it more than compensates in style and verve, to the extent that you’ll be far too involved in the movie to care.

For several years, Sun-woo (Byung-hun Lee) has worked as an enforcer for one of Korea’s largest crime syndicates while providing himself with a cover by working at a restaurant. Sun-woo’s boss President Kang (Yeong-cheol Kim) is involved in a relationship with a young woman named Hee-soo (Min-a Shin), but becomes convinced that she is cheating on him. With Kang leaving for the weekend, he asks Sun-woo to follow Hee-soo and look for signs of treachery. Sun-woo is instructed to kill Hee-soo if she is in fact seeing somebody else. When Kang’s suspicions turn out to be true, Sun-woo makes a decision that seals his fate and has serious repercussions for everybody. When somebody in Sun-woo’s line of work makes a bad decision, a lot of people are going to end up dead...

Despite the hackneyed premise, A Bittersweet Life succeeds due to its top-notch execution. While the film admittedly takes a good hour to get into gear, the at times painstakingly sluggish set-up is worth it for the film’s final half. In terms of the action, this flick does not disappoint. The action sequences here are spectacularly brutal, bloody and nihilistic, with moments of violence that Tarantino would be proud of. While watching Sun-woo stroll around slaughtering gangsters with the cool of Steve McQueen and the cold, focused efficiency of a Terminator, you could be forgiven for believing Tarantino or John Woo directed the flick. Due to the utterly unapologetic level of violence, it is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. With that said, though, the movie at its core is more concerned with concepts of honour, love, chance, choice and, ultimately, the meaning of life in a brutal, cruel world of violence. A Bittersweet Life additionally benefits from a thought-provoking final scene which leaves room for people to interpret the movie however they wish.

The cinematography and art direction for the film is absolutely gorgeous to observe. Even during the film’s slower first half, the visuals are a treat for the eye due to the interesting colour schemes and the stylish camera angles. The style of the film is very measured - shots were clearly given due consideration, as edits range from quick to remarkably slow. The fight scenes are an effective demonstration of this; a viewer is actually given the chance to watch and appreciate the elegant choreography. In a way, the visuals resemble Michael Mann’s work, but the overall style is highly distinctive. While several moments throughout the movie become too ridiculous to take seriously, humour continually shines through to reassure us of its absurdness. For instance, a scene involving Sun-woo desperately trying to beat an arms dealer to the punch by attempting to assemble a firearm when his identity is exposed, or a scene of banter between a Russian and a Korean before Sun-woo just gets fed up with them.

In the role of the stone-faced Sun-woo, Byung-hun Lee is pitch-perfect; playing the character with a tremendous amount of cool, and coming off as a consummate mobster perpetually wearing a neat black suit who never cracks a smile. The bravura performance is surprisingly profound, as well. Sun-woo is not a thoughtless killing machine. As the wheels of his life begin to come off, he runs through a full swath of emotions - compassion, anger, disgust, exasperation, disappointment - each of which is accompanied by a stab wound, a bullet wound, or a punch to the face.

There’s no deep meaning to A Bittersweet Life, and it would be foolhardy to assign one to the film. This is a simple story, but the visual dexterity ensures the film is a consistently entertaining and engaging ride with a story that’s easy to follow. Writer-director Ji-woon Kim even refrained from including an obvious, unlikely romance, which is laudable considering the nature of typical Hollywood action movies.

8.2/10

Written by Cal PvtCaboose91 l moviefilmreview.com

[rubie]

January 31, 2011

Film Comment Selects Arrives with 16 Undistributed Features for U.S. Audiences

By Daniel Loria at indiewire.com

Subway Cinema co-presentations

“I Saw the Devil,” Kim Ji-woon, 2010, South Korea

Giving new meaning to catch-and-release, a secret agent searches for the serial wacko who murdered his fiancée and takes a very special form of vengeance. The twisty, gruesome new thriller by the director of The Good, the Bad, the Weird was initially banned in South Korea for its meticulous attention to bloody detail. Marked by Kim’s agile set pieces, and a sustained mood of encroaching darkness, it stars Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy). Also: don’t miss the six-film Kim Ji-woon retrospective at BAMcinematek, February 25 to March 2!

February 25 - March 2, 2011

BAMcinématek Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Ji-woon

Source: BAM.org

I Saw the Devil

A Bittersweet Life

Tale of Two Sisters

The Quiet Family

The Foul King

The Good The Bad The Weird

A Bittersweet Life (Dalkomhan insaeng)

Part of the BAMcinématek series Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Ji-woon

Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 6:50, 9:30pm

Directed by Kim Ji-woon

With Lee Byung-hun, Hwang Jeong-min, Jeong Yu-mi

(2005) 120min

Kim’s followup to A Tale of Two Sisters is a stylish and riveting gangster picture about a calculating, stone faced mobster (Byung-hun Lee) who, in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, defies his boss’ orders--an act which instigates a chain of violence and revenge. A Bittersweet Life is a gripping showcase for Kim’s inventive direction (which cleverly nods towards the greats: Woo, Tarantino, Scorsese), precisely choreographed action set pieces, and the bravura star performance by Byung-hun Lee, whose “psychological gear-changes from an at-rest persona which mixes Zen inscrutability with Melville-esque taciturnity to whirlwind killer are a template for the film’s own narrative dynamics”—Time Out London.

BAM Rose Cinemas

General Admission: $12

BAM Cinema Club members: $7

Movie Moguls: Free

[rubie]

March 11, 2011

An A to Z Guide to Korean Cinema – Part 1

Posted by Samson heroic-cinema.com

Since I first discovered the wonderful world of Korean cinema in 1999, I have seen an impressive number of great Korean films. So as I started working on a top 10 list to contribute to this year’s Korean Blogathon, I actually found it incredibly difficult to narrow the number down to ten. Because of this, I have decided to do something a bit different instead – a list of my favourite Korean movies from A to Z.

I hope you will enjoy reading this article, share fond memories of the Korean films that you have seen, and possibly discover something that you may want to check out in the future. This list is by no means exhaustive, but here are some of the best:

Attack the Gas Station (1999): Filled with youthful energy, unexpected twists and funny situations, this enjoyable comedy was a big hit in Korea, scoring the second highest number of admissions for a local film in the year it was released. Outside of Korea, it has (sadly) not received a lot of attention, but its DVD shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

Bittersweet Life, A (2005): Directed by Kim Jee-woon, a filmmaker with that special gift of being able to master different genres with ease, this gorgeous-looking ultra-cool gangster film is one of the best examples of the genre to come out of Asia. It stars Lee Byung-heon (GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra), one of Korea’s coolest actors, as the male lead.

Chaser (2008): This gritty serial-killer film builds up suspense to an almost unbearable level and maintains the intensity till the final frame. Anyone after edge-of-the-seat entertainment should really enjoy this movie. The fact that it is the work of first-time director Na Hong-jin makes him someone worth looking out for in the coming years.

Dirty Carnival, A (2006): This is another fine gangster film to come out of Korea in recent years. The script is tightly written, the performances are superb, and the fight scenes are incredibly realistic. All these factors combine to make this one immensely exciting film. There are also a lot of dramatic elements that help set this film apart from other gangster flicks.

Eye for an Eye (2008): This is a more recent film that stars Han Suk-kyu, one of Korea’s great actors who played key roles in many of the films from the ‘Korean New Wave’ (Shiri, Tell Me Something). While it may not qualify as a great film, it is nevertheless a solid and satisfying thriller. Still, this is not director Kwak Kyung-taek’s best work. The next film is.

Friend (2001): Based on Kwak Kyung-taek’s true story of himself and his childhood friends, this is clearly a personal film for the director. It is a tale about friendship, loyalty and growing up. All of the 4 lead actors give wonderful performances. Also deserving a special mention is the cinematography that beautifully captures the city on screen.

Good, the Bad and the Weird, The (2008): Coming from director Kim Jee-woon, this Western offers one huge dose of exhilarating fun. There are plenty of heart-pumping chases and frantic action scenes to be enjoyed. The cast is full of big name actors, including Song Kang-ho (The Foul King, Secret Sunshine), Lee Byung-heon and Jung Woo-sung (Musa).

Host, The (2006): From my favourite Korean director Bong Joon-ho comes this amazing creature feature. The well-designed creature and great performances from the cast make this film totally believable. The Host is multilayered and goes well beyond the basic premise of humans vs creature. In short, it is a monster masterpiece!

Isle, The (2000): One cannot write a best-of-Korean-films list without mentioning any work by director Kim Ki-duk. This strangely mesmerising film may make some people nauseated, but for those who can appreciate its beauty, it is a little gem. Certainly not as accessible as many of Kim’s later films, but this one has left an impression on me for its uniqueness.

Joint Security Area (2000): While director Park Chan-wook may be best known for his revenge trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), his older film Joint Security Area is equally as worthy of film lovers’ attention for its assured direction, skillful story-telling and excellent performances.

King and the Clown (2005): This was the surprise Korean hit of 2005. This period drama without star casting became a phenomenon in Korea upon its release. In retrospect, it is not hard to see why it was so popular. It is touching, it is charming and above all, it is entertaining. After all, entertainment is what we are after when we watch movies, isn’t it?

Next time.. the rest of the list from L to Z!

[rubie]

March 15, 2011

A Bittersweet Life

By vern outlawvern.com

Kim Sun-Woo (Lee Byung-hun, the ninja-in-white from GI JOE) is the liver of the titular life, and at first I gotta say it mostly seems sweet. He works at a hotel (but really he’s an enforcer) and he seems to be very good at his job. In fact he’s very good at other people’s jobs too, because when some slacker isn’t there to take care of some rowdy guests from a rival gang Kim goes downstairs and personally martial arts the mini cooper out of them.

I think we can all be honest and mature adults and everything and we can admit that this guy is very handsome and well dressed. He might qualify as a “pretty boy” if he wasn’t so ready to dish out a skillfully executed asskicking. It just doesn’t seem fair, the guy is too perfect. Also his boss seems to think he’s great. He trusts him with confidential information and with a crucial job: looking after his underage girlfriend. So our boy becomes sort of an assistant or a bodyguard to this college (I hope?) girl. Drive her around, help her out if she needs anything, trail her if she tries to sneak off.

Oh yeah, one other thing: she might be cheating with a young dude and if she is he just has to kill both of them. No big deal.

Okay, it’s pretty clear where the sweet is gonna take a turn for the bitter. But actually that taste has been forming even earlier, since the opening scene, we just didn’t know it at the time. His awesomeness alone causes problems. For one thing, he made his co-worker look bad by cleaning up that mess downstairs. Because he kicked so much richard simmons everybody heard that the other guy was john teshing around and not doing his job.

And of course the guys he beat up were not so happy about it either, and went to complain to their boss, who took it as a personal insult. A bunch of john teshin drama queens in these gangs. So Sun-Woo’s got jealousy and grudges coming from both sides. And then of course you gotta figure he’s gonna bond with the girl, and if not get sweet on her then at least feel sorry for her and not wanna kill her when it comes to that. If it does. I mean who knows, I’m not gonna say. It could be anything. Everybody might just stay friends at the end. (stop reading now if you would like to maintain that belief.)

The first chunk of the movie is so slick and clean that I kinda forgot this was a Korean movie and that mini cooper was gonna get john teshin bad. Not Hong Kong bad, like everybody gets shot – Korea bad, like everybody wishes they would get shot instead of what happens to them instead. This Sun-Woo guy gets run through the ringer like Mel Gibson’s directing him or something. After wearing his nice clothes, working in his fancy hotel, living in his neat apartment, suddenly he gets tied up and tortured in a warehouse somewhere. This is a noticeable drop in quality of living.

It’s funny because it’s clear that he’s done some cold-hearted mini cooper in the past, but it’s the act of mercy that gets him into trouble. He could’ve probly avoided some of it if he would’ve apologized when they asked him to, but he has a code of honor and/or is stubborn as a bitter teenage mule whose parents are going through a divorce, so he won’t apologize for something he doesn’t feel sorry about.

Anyway, he escapes and goes on a one-man revenge spree against pretty much everybody, because they’re all against him. He uses his smarts and his insider knowledge of the organized crime structure to orchestrate it all. There’s also alot of lack of communication going on here that helps. Everybody has cell phones but they don’t always talk to the right person or tell them the right thing.

It looks great, the action is clear and brutal and the character is cool. I like how internal he is. We understand what’s going on without him having to talk much. He doesn’t have to tell anybody what he’s feeling or what he’s done in the past. And he’s such a loner, it’s kinda sad. You can tell he likes when he gets to interact with the girl. Most of the time he’s sitting in his car spying on people. I bet he almost wishes he had responsibilities back at the hotel, making sure all the towels get washed and all that mini cooper. Might be more fun. He’s not really into fun, though. He’s very serious about everything and doesn’t participate when the other dudes are getting drunk and laughing and mini cooper.

He’s kind of a wet blanket, now that I think about it. But I still root for him while watching the movie.

There are plenty of badass moments and scenes. My favorite is the one where he goes and meets with an arms dealer under false pretenses. Sun-Woo goes to pick up some unique guns claiming they’re for somebody he really doesn’t work for. While an underling in the other room calls in to verify his story the dealer figures it’s just a formality and uses the time to teach Sun-Woo how these particular guns work. They’re sitting there at a table taking the guns apart and putting them back together when it suddenly becomes clear to everybody that he’s not who he says he is. And there’s a moment where they stare at each other, no words spoken, and then race to be the first one to get their gun put back together.

To me a movie that has a moment as good as that is worth watching, and this movie has a bunch of them.

[rubie]

March 18, 2011

Torturing the Audience? An Interview With Kim Ji-woon

Posted by Ryan Little washingtoncitypaper.com

You may not know his name, but South Korean director Kim Ji-woon has left a lasting mark on Asian cinema. I Saw the Devil is his eighth movie, and it's certainly not his first to gain the attention of a worldwide audience. In 2008, his off-kilter homage to Sergio Leone, The Good, The Bad, and The Weird, won countless awards and critical accolades. Whereas that film was a goofy thrill ride of a Western, his latest offering is as dark and gruesome as they come. I Saw the Devil takes graphic violence and revenge fantasies to a new level, following a special agent whose wife has been brutally murdered. Rather than simply kill the sociopath responsible, agent Soo-Hyun (played by Byung-hun Lee) stalks and tortures the criminal, becoming a monster himself in the process. The film opens today at E Street Cinema. With the aid of a translator, Arts Desk spoke with Kim about the film and the disturbing content therein.

The first thing I was told when I went to the screening was that the film was very violent, and that I should be prepared for that. I think that was a fair warning. Do you think the extreme violence in the film was necessary to tell the story you wanted to tell?

The film starts with the question of “How would I perform my own revenge?” It’s a greater question of what would we do if we were in the same shoes. Many people will think about that question at some point in their lives, and there’s a certain fantasy of hurting someone in the same way we have been hurt. To take that to a greater scale and do it in such an extreme way, centering on the pain and the rage that the person went through, to exact that revenge in the same extreme way is what the question is. This is obviously a controversial issue, but I don’t think it’s specifically because of the action or the violence, but rather to see humanity break down in such a desperate, dark, and extreme way is sort of appalling. Seeing it on the screen this way is shocking, but not just because of the action.

There are several uncomfortably long scenes where one character repeatedly bludgeons another character in the face. Were these types of scenes difficult to film?

Those drawn-out scenes are there to push just a little bit more what we are used to and are comfortable with on film. They’re there to just to drive the point home a little bit stronger, in a more visceral way. The characters in the film were acting on these very extreme, very hurtful emotions—to transfer that into the plot of the film and visually to the audience, when I thought something had happened enough on screen, I drew it out a little bit longer. Shooting such demanding scenes, demanding of the actors performing it, it was very difficult on set. As a director it was difficult to do, but it was important to get that point across to the audience.

In this film, you worked closely with Byung-hun Lee, who was also in your previous films, The Good, The Bad, and The Weird and A Bittersweet Life. Do you find it helpful to work consistently with the same actors, particularly in a film that demands so much of them?

Of course, there have been many famous pairs of actors and directors in history—Scorsese and De Niro before, maybe Scorsese and DiCaprio now—there are many examples of this. Those relationships are built on trust between the director and actor, and maybe they influence the effectiveness of the shoot. I didn’t know I would be working with Lee this time until right before the shoot. He had schedule conflicts, and I didn’t think it would work out, but one of the projects got pushed back and he was able to come on board. I think in working with him again, he was able to show a very cold-hearted character in a very nuanced way, which I am very thankful for. I was glad to work with him again.

As a film, I Saw The Devil touches on horror, but it seems to be more of a thriller in general. Were you consciously referencing any genres or films in particular with I Saw The Devil?

There wasn’t so much things that I was referencing in theme, but as a technical point of view, I was referencing David Fincher’s Zodiac in the look of the film. The colors and the contrast of that film were interesting and capture a certain visual mood of that period and that time frame. Making my film this time around, I also emulated that pulling down of colors and contrast, as opposed to my older films that had a lot of high-color, high-contrast production. I really toned it down for this film, and that gave it a really creepy sense of a grayish-blackish mood, closer to a horror film, but still in line with a thriller. Even though I was intending it to be more of a thriller film, audiences in the theater reacted as if it was a straight up horror film because of the content.

The women in this movie are basically all victims. Do you think protagonists in action films like this one simply need to be men? Or is that just how this film worked out?

I would say that violence is a bit closer to men in general. Serial killers are often driven by sexual desires that are very extreme and very strong. For physical and logistical reasons, it’s a reflection of how society is in reality. We see a lot more of these cases involving men. In that regard, it’s more of a reflection of society as we see it today, and I kept it that way.

After watching such a gruesome film, what do you hope the audience walks away with?

I’m not sure exactly what the audience might have felt, but some questions that came to my mind were, “Why do some people lead such normal lives and we see others lead such horrific and devilish lives? What went wrong in their lives to bring them to that point? What path am I on, and what direction am I taking?” I look back on my life and ask these questions. “What points in my life was I at a dangerous point, and how did I overcome that?” These questions are what I hope some of the audience members will ask because the main character came to a point in his life where he obviously could have gone in a different direction. If the audience can ask that, then I would want nothing more from them. I hope that as they leave the theater, they can really think about and value the peace and the blessings that they have now.

[rubie]

October 14, 2006

A Bittersweet Life at San Diego Asian Film Festival 2006

BY BETH ACCOMANDO AND CINEMA JUNKIE BY BETH ACCOMANDO kpbs.org

A film of a very different nature but equally worth checking out is Kim Ji Woon's A Bittersweet Life from South Korea. The story revolves around Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun), a sleek and elegant mobster whose cat-like grace recalls Alain Delon in Le Samourai . Sun-woo's mob boss Kang (Kim Young-cheol) assigns him a simple task: watch over the mobster's girlfriend and make sure she's not two-timing him. If Sun-woo does find her with another man, he's to kill them both. Simple, right? Wrong. The problem is that the ice-cold killer develops a weakness for the woman, Hee-soo (Shin Mina). When he finds her with a lover he experiences a split second of compassion and lets them live, and then pays for that decision the rest of the film. Kang tries to have Sun-woo killed but fails, and this leads to a violent rampage of revenge.

Kim has impressed filmgoers with The Foul King and more recently with the creepy psychological horror film A Tale of Two Sisters . A Bittersweet Life has a more epic sweep than either of those films. With A Bittersweet Life Kim delivers an action film with a dark soul and aching vulnerability buried at its heart. Sun-woo at one point explains a sweet dream he had and how he cried when he awoke because he knew it could never come true. And thats essentially what the film is about. Sun-woo is a ruthless killer and his one moment of compassion gives him a glimpse of something he could never havea happy life with a woman he loves.

Kim's film uses violence -- extreme violence and implied violence -- in a manner that may send some fleeing for the exits but also in a way that reflects the unique cultural flavor of his country. As with many Korean films, the violence reflects a divided soul. Violence often tears at the participants because it is between brothers or friends or causes a rupture in loyalties. There's a reluctance to commit the violence or at the very least an emotional price to pay for inflicting the harm, which reflects a country that has been split in half and with families sometimes stuck on opposite sides of the border. A Bittersweet Life reflects this in the way Sun-woo and Kang are depicted as almost family, and the rift that occurs between them pains bothalthough it prevents neither from going after the other without mercy. But in the end, each one seems driven by a desire to know why each has been betrayed by the other. Understanding that betrayal seems almost more important than achieving revenge or even surviving.