Korean Cinema House’s Moobie Blog-a-Log

I’ve written a small review for Shin Seung-soo’s 2002 comedy starring Lee Yo-won.

Ultimately enjoying A.F.R.I.K.A means that you have to try and take it for what it is, and at best that’s a fun enough romp. But the task can often be a difficult one. It makes so little sense and it’s unnecessarily long thanks to a bunch of lengthy scenes involving giddy girls dancing. More miss than hit I’m afraid.

The full review can be found at the main site here:

http://www.koreancinemahouse.co.uk/content.php?contentid=202

Wow, this was some turn up. I’d first heard about this film a few years ago when it started to do the U.S. festival circuit and I had tried to source it, along with the director’s second film Chow Yun-Fat Boy Meets Brownie Girl but to no avail. Well, I’m happy to say that finally Teenage Hooker Becomes Killing Machine [lit. The high-school student who got chopped up while selling herself in Daehakno is still in Daehakno] is getting a release in the UK thanks to new label Third Window Films, who have also licenced a bunch of quality titles for 2007, many of which are currently out of print in South Korea but can still be found by looking hard: Guns and Talks, No Blood, No Tears, Kick the Moon, No. 3 are just a few of the projected ten titles for this year.

For those curious, Teenage Hooker Becomes Killing Machine is a sixty minute short from Nam Gi-wung, who also produced, wrote, edited and provided cinematography. Shot on MiniDVD (6mm) in 2000 - it stars Lee So-yun as a high school girl who falls into prostitution, but when her secret shame is discovered by her teacher (Kim Dae-tong) he threatens to tell all, unless she provides him with sexual favours. When she becomes pregnant the teacher hires two hitmen to take care of her. Their mission is a success, or was, until she’s revived as a cyborg by a crazed inventor. Recalling the traumatic events she sets off down a path of revenge…

Third Window Films are touting the film as “An acrid and sarcastic criticism about hypocrisy, deception and the violent authority of an older generation supposedly leading the young.” Well, we’ll find out nearer the time just how well it works; it certainly smacks of Shinya Tsukamoto by the sounds of it. I’ll be looking forward to it and as soon as I have any more info I’ll be sure to let you know.

To find out more about Third Window Films and their upcoming releases check out their website at http://www.thirdwindowfilms.com/main.htm

So what will the New Year bring us? South Korean cinema overcame some difficulties when in July last year a new screen quota reduction policy was enforced. This literally halved the amount of days that films are allowed to be shown at the local box office. Yet despite this records were broken and audiences ensured that their homeland would take little over 60% in domestic profits. The Host stormed the box office and in less than two months became the highest grossing Korean film of all time, just out-gunning earlier 2006 hit The King and the Clown. These flicks were amongst the elite, which also included the successful Forbidden Quest, proving that South Korea could still be at the top of its game if it tried. But for these well received movies the industry also managed to milk some tired franchises (but box-office pleasers) with the third instalments of Marrying the Mafia and My Wife is a Gangster, along with My Boss, My Teacher - a follow up to 2001’s My Boss, My hero (alright the latter isn’t really a franchise, but it was already flawed enough). Plenty of generic actioners and dopey romancers also filled in some months.

A few interesting titles seeped through, but I hope to talk about those another time, one of which is Park Chan-wook’s - who leaves behind his revenge thrillers in favour of romantic comedy - I am a Cyborg, But That’s OK, which performed shockingly bad at the end of the year, but should see a swift DVD release soon.

In light of the screen quota issue, with roughly eighty new films being prepared for 2007, which makes it a much lesser output than last year, one hopes that we’ll get plenty of quality, well thought out productions. Aside from two or three gems in the past few years I’ve yet to be as bowled over as I was at the end of the nineties/early noughties, where the industry appeared to be truly original and there were too many films to highly recommend. These days you can get by with just three or four must see features and happily do away with the rest. So I have high hopes for the new year, with Park Jin Pyo’s Voice of a Murderer (based upon a real life 1991 kidnapping) topping my list, where I hope to see something as powerful as 2003’s Memories of Murder. I’m also looking forward to plenty of DVD releases and hope to update you on those in the future.

So here’s to what will hopefully be a happy and succesful new year for South Korean cinema.

Welcome to Korean Cinema House’s new blog. I hope to bring you news on the latest happenings from South Korea. The idea is to try and get back into it and provide people with information that I originally intended to do over at the main site. So I hope that all goes well and that you visitors can enjoy your stay. I also hope to update the main site in the coming months, just to get it back on track. Appologies for the lack of updates this past year or so. It’s been quite difficult to juggle several projects at once. Fingers crossed we’ll get back to normal soon.