With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013

With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013
With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013

Saturday, September 29, 2012

ACF 1640: Final four films of Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today

Today and tomorrow are the final days of the Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today series at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition, a collaboration of the MoMA and The Korea Society, was made possible by Hyundai Card Company. Here is information about the four remaining films to be shown.

Poongsan / Pung-san-gae
Directed by Jeon Jae-hong
Screenplay by Kim Ki-duk
With Yoon Kye-sang, Kim Gyu-ri, Kim Jong-soo, Han Gi-jung
South Korea, 2011, 121 minutes 

Jeon (Beautiful, 2008) was an assistant to filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, who wrote and produced this film and whose influence is at once palpable and subordinate to Jeon’s own talent. Poongsan, who does not speak, carries messages back and forth between separated families in North and South Korea. When he is enlisted to smuggle the mistress of a high-ranking North Korean defector out of the North, passion intervenes, and an unexpected, “crazy” love threatens political chaos.

Pink / Ping-keu
Directed by Jeon Soo-il
Screenplay by Jeon Kim Kyung
With Lee Seung-yeon, Seo Kap-sook, Park Hyeon-woo, Kang San-eh
South Korea, 2011, 97 minutes

Among a clutch of derelict buildings sits Pink, a condemned bar that caters to drifters and lost souls. Jeon’s eighth feature is a portrait of a struggling small business, the world-weary middle-aged woman who runs it, and her dwindling clientele.

From Seoul to Varanasi / Varanasi
Written and directed by Jeon Kyu-hwan
With Yoon Dong-hwan, Choi Won-jung, Shin Ye-an, Nollaig Walsh
South Korea, 2011, 96 minutes 

Jeon, whose Town Trilogy (Mozart, Dance, and Animal) was a highlight of last year’s Yeonghwa, returns with a steamy and explicit melodrama that moves beyond Korea to India and even the Middle East. A married executive in Seoul has an affair and, eventually, so does his wife—with a foreign worker. Secrets multiply, and what began as personal betrayals become explosive global incidents.

Fire in Hell / Ji-ok-hwa
Written and directed by Lee Sang-woo
With Won Tae-hee, Cha Seung-min, Kim Hun, Lee Yong-rye
South Korea, 2012, 99 minutes

A graduate of both UC Berkeley and the Kim Ki-duk “school” of filmmaking, Lee, one of Korea’s maverick multitasking filmmakers, makes his Yeongwha debut with this sensual melodrama. In a vivid exploration of the notion of karma, a Buddhist monk loses control. The calamitous results are followed, perhaps, by redemption. In Korean; English subtitles. 99 min.



 

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