Free Korean Movie Night

from January 10, 2012 – February 28, 2012

courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service

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Every other Tuesday @ 7pm
Tribeca Cinemas
(54 Varick Street, on the corner of Canal Street, one block from the A, C, E and 1 train Canal Street stops)

Price? Free.
All seating is first-come, first served. Doors
open at 6:30pm.

Series 1: Jang Hun Plus One!

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Jang Hun started out as an assistant director to Kim Ki-Duk, but with his first film, Rough Cut, he established himself as Korea’s answer to Steven Soderbergh: a director making big budget movies with an independent sensibility. Rough Cut, Secret Reunion and The Frontline have all become massive box office hits without making an compromises or talking down to their audiences. To round out the trio of movies in this mini-retrospective, we’re including White Night, another crime film that transforms itself into something dark, glittering and truly amazing.

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Tuesday, January 10 @ 7pm

THE FRONTLINE (East Coast Premiere, 2011)

One of the biggest hits of 2011, The Frontline is the simple story of a hill: Aerok Hill, a small rise on the Eastern Front of the Korean War that changed hands 30 times over 18 months of fighting. A military investigator is dispatched to see if allegations that the South Korean soldiers tasked with taking the hill are collaborating with their North Korean enemies to deliver letters to their families. It turns out that they are, and that’s the least of it. A movie about men (and some women) trying to hold onto their humanity in the midst of war, Frontline is Korea’s official submission to the Academy Awards.

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Tuesday, January 24 @ 7pm

ROUGH CUT (2008)

Kim Ki-Duk wrote this high concept knuckle-buster about a spoiled actor, famous for playing gangsters, who hires a real-life gangster to appear in his new flick. It sounds like nothing but a pile of cliches, but Jang Hun ignores the traditional approach and instead focuses on the volcanic, boiling testosterone that drives the conflict between a man used to getting his way because he’s famous, and a man used to getting his way because he’s violent. The seduction of filmmaking, the appeal of acting and the temptation of a street brawl all exert their siren song on the two studs in suits at the heart of this film: superstar So Ji-Sub, surprisingly, playing the gangster and Kang Ji-Hwan as the actor.

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Tuesday, February 15 @ 7pm

SECRET REUNION (2010)

Two of Korea’s best actors face off in this blockbuster action flick that manages to be sly, subversive and really funny while delivering white knuckle thrills. Song Kang-Ho (The Host) is a South Korean secret agent who fumbles a sting operation on a North Korean spy. Pop star Gang Dong-Won (Haunters) is the North Korean assassin who has been embedded in the South. After the botched operation, both men are cut loose by their respective agencies and Song becomes a private eye, while Gang sinks into deep cover, trying to survive long enough to go home. Years later, they cross paths and what audiences are treated to is a buddy movie to end all buddy movies.

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Tuesday, February 28 @ 7pm

WHITE NIGHT (North American Premiere, 2009)

White Night is a sprawling, evil epic about an unsolved crime that happened 14 years previously that has spilled its poison out over the subsequent years. Based on a best-selling Japanese novel, and featuring a riveting performance by Ko Soo, star of The Frontline, director Park Shin-Woo turns this movie into a slick, beautifully realized film about true evil, as a detective refuses to let go of this single case, instead insisting on following its threads for years no matter where they lead. And where they lead is dark and truly shocking. This hit film has been called the best Korean film of 2009 by several critics and once you’ve seen it, it’s hard to forget.

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So you think you’ve seen every version of Hamlet there is to see? Think again! Because if you haven’t seen the Himalayan Hamlet then you ain’t seen nothing yet. Directed by Sherwood Hu, who started his career as a stage director, PRINCE OF THE HIMALAYAS, takes place in ancient Tibet in the shadow of the Himalayan Mountains. Lush, epic and really something you don’t see every day, it’ll be playing at the Rubin Museum of Art from Friday, December 23 – Saturday, January 14. There’s ticket info here on the Rubin page and a trailer here. Come see the movie about which the Hollywood Reporter writes, “With Prince of the Himalayas, Sherwood Hu confirms his status as one of China’s most interesting directors with a glorious visual style married to a fascinating dramatic tale.”

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Full info

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Just in case you’re in Los Angeles or heading out there from Nov. 11 – 13, don’t miss LA Eiga Fest a Japanese film festival taking place at the Chinese 6 Theaters. The Opening Night Film is MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY and the Closing Night Film is Takashi Miike’s HARA-KIRI: DEATH OF A SAMURAI (IN 3-D). In between, they’ll be showing Yoshihiro Nishimura’s zombie blow-out, HELLDRIVER, the Chris Doyle-shot pink film UNDERWATER LOVE, Yuya Ishii (who directed SAWAKO DECIDES) will present his new film A MAN WITH STYLE and there’s a whole lot more.

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Check out the trailer for the festival, or head on over to their website for full details.

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It’s not movies, but that’s okay. If you love genre then you know that some of the most fascinating takes on typical tropes come from other countries. The Rubin Museum is putting on a panel discussion called “From Urdu Epic and Tibetan Sorcerers to Today: Fantasy in Tibetan and World Literature” as an introduction to Tibetan fantasy, which will bring together novelist Elizabeth Hand, novelist John Crowley (whose Little, Big was called “a neglected masterpiece” by no less than Harold Bloom), novelist Paul Witcover, and professors Andrew Quintman (Yale) and Hamid Dabashi (Columbia). They’re going to be talking about…well, it’s right there in the title.

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Tickets are a bit steep at $12.00 but that includes admission to, and a tour of, the tie-in exhibit at the Rubin, “Once Upon Many Times: Legends and Myths in Himalayan Art.” Which makes it more than worthwhile since museum admission is $10 anyways, which means the panel is a super-affordable $2.

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The panel takes place Wednesday October 26, 2011 @ 7:00 PM

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Myths are the backbone of any country’s fiction, films and music and if you needed some introductory immersion into the genre traditions of Tibet, this is the best chance you’ll ever get.

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Full info on the panel.

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Full info on the exhibit.

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Sunday, October 23 @ 6pm

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at The Fifth Estate, 506 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
(R or F train to 4th Avenue/9th Street)

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SUPER, GIRLS (China, 2007, 73 minutes)

tickets = $10
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(full details and tickets)

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If you want to see a side of China you haven’t seen before, this is the documentary for you. SUPER GIRLS is the biggest, baddest, most totally humoungous version of American Idol in the world, and it happens in China, sucking in 250 million – 400 million viewers. It was canceled in 2011 because the government was worried that it was having a toxic effect on the youth, but this documentary was shot during the 2007 season when SUPER GIRLS fury was at its highest. Winners and runners-up from the show have gone on to star in movies, (Li Yuchun, who plays Simon Yam’s badass daughter in BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS) and others have gone on to star in the popular Japanese TV show, Morning Musume (Li Chun was in the 2006 contest and then performed as a Morning Musume cast member under the name Junjun). But director Jian Yi gets behind the scenes and all up in these girls’ lives as they enter one of the most intense experiences of their lives. It’s also, fascinatingly enough, one of the years when the “boy-girl” look was popular, so almost all of the contestants maintain carefully androgynous looks that make all the young girls look a bit like young boys.

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Read more about the movie.

And even more.

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Full screening details including tickets for sale.

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Monday, October 31 @ 7pm
at the Tribeca Cinemas

MOSS (2010)

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Kang Woo-Suk has made more blockbusters than any other Korean director (PUBLIC ENEMY, SILMIDO, HANBANDO) and this movie, stuffed with stars, was yet another massive critical and commercial hit for him. A disgraced cop travels to the remote village where his estranged father has just died of “natural causes” and rapidly uncovers a conspiracy that reaches back decades and encompasses hundreds of people. An epic thriller, this unrelenting flick grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.

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All seating is first come, first served. Doors open at 6:30pm.

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Read a review.

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Schedule and titles

Check our newsletter for ticket giveaways during the series run!

from September 6, 2011 – October 31, 2011

courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service

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Every other Tuesday @ 7pm
Tribeca Cinemas
(54 Varick Street, on the corner of Canal Street, one block from
the A, C, E and 1 train Canal Street stops)

.

Price? Free.

All seating is first-come, first served. Doors

open at 6:30pm

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Series 4: Hidden Gems of Korean Cinema

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For some reason, a lot of really amazing movies never make it out of Korea. Critics go nuts for them, but for one reason or another they never get any love from overseas distributors. The Korean Cultural Service aims to correct that with this series of three amazing movies from 2010 and 2011 that deserve bigger audiences.

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Tuesday, September 6 @ 7pm

BLEAK NIGHT (2011)

The Hollywood Reporter heralds director Yoon Sung-Hyun as one of the best new Korean filmmakers and director Bong Joon-Ho (THE HOST) calls his first movie “astonishing.” Yoon’s award-winning BLEAK NIGHT was the talk of the Rotterdam Film Festival and 2011’s indie break-out film in Korea, and it’s easy to see why. Leaping back and forth through time, the movie follows a grieving father as he tries to solve the mystery of his teenaged son’s suicide. Suffused with sadness, it’s one of the toughest movies about high school friendship ever made. (read The Hollywood Reporter’s rave review)

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Tuesday, October 11 @ 7pm

END OF ANIMAL (2011)

The first feature film from Jo Sung-Hee, whose horrifying DON’T GO OUT OF THE HOUSE! electrified film festival audiences, END OF ANIMAL is an apocalyptic flick that worms its way under your skin and then totally creeps you out Pregnant Soon-Young is in a cab on her way to her mom’s house when a white flash causes every electrical device in Korea to fail. Night is coming, and she’s trapped in the middle of nowhere as end-of-the-world fever turns all humans into nothing more than beasts. (read a review)

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Tuesday, October 31 @ 7pm

MOSS (2010)

Kang Woo-Suk has made more blockbusters than any other Korean director (PUBLIC ENEMY, SILMIDO, HANBANDO) and this movie, stuffed with stars, was yet another massive critical and commercial hit for him. A disgraced cop travels to the remote village where his estranged father has just died of “natural causes” and rapidly uncovers a conspiracy that reaches back decades and encompasses hundreds of people. An epic thriller, this unrelenting flick grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. (read a review)

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