Fans of Yoon Kye-sang, particularly those in love with his adorably nerdy doctor in current rom-com Best Love, may be interested in seeing a wholly different side to him in his upcoming movie Phungsan Dog. It comes from director Kim Ki-duk, who just won the top prize in Cannes International Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section for his movie Arirang.

He plays a mysterious man who travels from Seoul to Pyongyang, North Korea, delivering messages and packages from displaced North Korean refugees living in the South, or smuggling people from the North. The title of the movie comes from the name of a North Korean cigarette brand, which he smokes exclusively; it’s how Yoon’s character is referred, since he’s unidentifiable by name or birth or any other details.

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Read the rest of Yoon Kye-sang in Phungsan Dog (204 words)

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Post tags: Kim Gyu-ri, Kim Ki-duk, Yoon Kye-sang

Director Kim Ki-duk has picked an award at Cannes International Film Festival for his film Arirang, taking home the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section along with Andreas Dresen’s Halt Auf Freier Strecke (Stopped On Track).

The film received a standing ovation at Cannes when it screened to approximately 2,000 viewers there, and it’ll be interesting to see how that affects its response in Korea, if at all, as it’s been peppered with criticism there. (Here’s a well-written review in English, from The Hollywood Reporter.)

Kim has long had a contentious relationship with the industry in Korea, while being lauded overseas for his indie arthouse films (3-Iron, Samaritan Girl, Coast Guard and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…And Spring are some of his more well-known films). While other Korean directors like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are respected both at home and abroad, it’s not quite the case for Kim, whose movies are often commercial flops domestically. He’s developed a reputation for being a “bad boy” of cinema, and Arirang takes that reputation, inflates it by about a thousand percent, and flings it back in the faces of his detractors.

The film is documentary-style and features himself in a cabin, edited in an experimental fashion as a dialogue with himself (in three distinct personas), reflecting on his 15-year-long career. He doesn’t hold anything back, and at points swears and rails at the camera, and himself, about the pains and betrayals he’s felt by moviegoers and others in the industry, including his protégé Jang Hoon (who left to work on a major film production).

Kim was reportedly spurred to make Arirang after the traumatizing accident on set of his 2008 film Dream, in which Lee Na-young almost died while filming a suicide (hanging) scene. In a letter posted on the film festival website, Kim wrote, “The countless people I’ve meet while making films…Human relationships that come together as if forever only to rip apart like tissue paper…All of us entangled by love, passion, hate and the urge to kill…To me all this is Arirang.”

Via 10 Asia, Hollywood Reporter, Wall Street Journal Scene Asia

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Post tags: awards, directors, film festivals, Kim Ki-duk

The 28th Critics Choice Awards, presented by the Association of Korean Film Critics, awarded its top honors on November 5. The film A Movie Is a Movie (or Rough Cut), starring So Ji-sub and Kang Ji-hwan (above), was the big winner of the night, pulling in three awards total, two for its lead actors and one for its director.

Su Ae also added to her stash of awards for the Vietnam War-period film You’re Far Away, while Kim Ki-duk‘s latest film Dream (Bimong) was also honored.

We can expect more awards ceremonies to come in the coming months, with each drama station putting on its respective ceremonies as well as the Blue Dragon Awards, among others.

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Read the rest of 28th Critics Choice Awards names its top honors (346 words)

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Post tags: A Movie Is a Movie, awards, Kang Ji-hwan, Kim Ki-duk, So Ji-sub, Su Ae

“I read the script, and liked it so much it was shocking.” So said 29-year-old Lee Na-young, starring in director Kim Ki-duk‘s latest film, Bimong (Sad Dream).

The film held its press preview event on September 23 at Seoul’s Yongsan CGV theater, and Lee explained her interest in the script: “More than feeling an affinity for the story, which isn’t really plausible in the real world, I was drawn to the situation these characters were placed in.”

From the start, news of the project drew interest with the casting of the male lead, Japanese actor Odagiri Joe, for whom Lee had these words of praise: “I’ve seen Odagiri in his other works, and liked him. Despite him being a non-Korean, I didn’t feel any sort of block working with him.”

In the film, Lee Na-young’s “Ran” sleepwalks into the dreams of Odagiri’s “Jin,” who cannot forget an old lover, and a dreamlike love unfolds. Apparently Lee and Odagiri communicated in English while working together, but Odagiri took every chance to learn and speak Korean with those around him. His character, however, speaks Japanese (with subtitles), while Lee’s character speaks Korean.

Kim Ki-duk explained that he’d been a bit doubtful whether this would work, but his actors had no problem with it, and he figured it was better for his actors to speak their native languages rather than making awkward attempts to act in foreign languages.

The film had had some early buzz when, in May, it had been sold for distribution at the Cannes Film Market (which took place during the Cannes International Film Festival). It is currently being screened as a part of various film festivals, such as the Czech Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival. It releases in Korea on October 9.

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Read the rest of Preview press event for Bimong (Sad Dream) (339 words)

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Post tags: Kim Ki-duk, Lee Na-young, press conferences

The promotional posters for director Kim Ki-duk‘s new film are out featuring stars Lee Na-young and Odagiri Joe.

The title Bi-mong [비몽] draws its meaning from the two characters 悲 (sad, “bi”) and 夢 (dream, “mong”); the subtitle on the poster reads, “A sad love that exists through dreams.”

In the film, she’s a sleepwalking patient, while he’s described as a man who cannot forget a past love and tries to meet her in his dreams. Strangely enough (this is Kim Ki-duk, after all), in her sleepwalking state, she starts acting in the same way as the woman in his dreams.

The movie opens in October.

Via Hankook Ilbo

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Post tags: Kim Ki-duk, Lee Na-young

Top Korean actress Lee Na Young is teaming up with top Japanese actor Joe Odagiri in a Kim Ki Duk film. Indie lovers rejoice!

(Although Kim Ki Duk is entirely underrated in his own native country, at least he’s gained much-deserved recognition outside of Korea as a premier arthouse director as the force behind such films as Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, 3 Iron, Samaritan Girl, and The Coast Guard.)

The film, Bi-mong, draws an unusual love story between a man believing dreams to be reality (Odagiri) and a woman who experiences (suffers from?) sleepwalking (Lee). She encounters the man’s dreams in her reality, and wanders among his dreams as a mysterious figure.

This will be Lee Na Young’s first project back after a year’s absence following her 2006 film Our Happy Time, aka Maundy Thursday, which also starred Kang Dong Won.

The article doesn’t give an indication of the language issue — does Joe Odagiri speak Korean? But then again, 3 Iron proved that Kim Ki Duk can work wonders without any words at all.

Via IS Plus

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The Name – “애원” (plea) [ zShare download ]

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Post tags: directors, Kim Ki-duk, Lee Na-young