Concluding the magnificent film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at the Japan Society in New York is Oasis, the third feature film from the highly esteemed novelist-turned-filmmaker Lee Chang-dong. Perhaps no other film of such sensitivity and physical and emotional nakedness des... Read More »
From the first sequence, Kim Ki-duk plunges both his characters and the spectator in doubt: is it dreaming or waking? A man crashes into a car, but then he wakes up. The first dialogue of the film occurs only after three minutes. Is the film in Korean or Japanese? The man speaks ... Read More »
Jo Jae-hyeon holds the rare distinction of being one of the few actors who has worked with Kim Ki-duk multiple times. They began their collaboration on Kim’s debut film Crocodile (1996) and eventually made five films together, with Jo playing a mix of leading and supporting chara... Read More »
The title is just ambiguous enough to perhaps seduce spectators who are not quite familiar with Kim Ki-duk’s cinema to walk into it expecting a thoughtful, decorative meditation on the passing of time through the trials and tribulations of a couple. Time is indeed about a meditat... Read More »
The second weekend of the “Love Will Tear Us Apart” series presented by Japan Society is a focus on Korean cinema, or in the case of Lee Sang-il, zainichi Korean cinema. Friday’s screening was devoted to Lee and his newest feature film, Villain (2011). Saturday, 10th March, will ... Read More »
Tale of Cinema is Hong Sang-soo’s own take on the coming together of sex and death, as well as film. One encounters here Hong’s usual formal and narrative preoccupations with repetitions and parallel situations between three characters. But Tale of Cinema not only presents what c... Read More »
Sex entwined with death and politics finds an even more ardent interpretation in this film, which begins with the martial-sexual posturing of a group of men and one woman, presumably before they commit collective suicide. Presumably, for snatches of images of novelist/actor/ultra... Read More »
Running in Madness, Dying in Love begins with a two-minute black-and-white montage of demonstrators and riot police, followed by a switch to colour and of one male protester Shihei (Yoshizawa Ken) escaping the fray and running in the streets. In this way, Wakamatsu leaves no doub... Read More »
The “Love Will Tear Us Apart” film series at Japan Society resumes tonight with the world premiere of Wakamatsu Koji’s latest film, Petrel Blue Hotel (2012). Petrel Blue Hotel will make up the first half of a double bill of Wakamatsu’s films. Another one of Wakamatsu’s films will... Read More »
If water was only somewhat integral to Vital, in Snake of June it becomes fundamental. In this film, one of his most accomplished and concentrated works apart from the early films that make up his Tetsuo series, Tsukamoto drowns his characters in water to speak of repressed desir... Read More »
Watching a Tsukamoto Shinya film is always a challenging experience because his work often stretches out to unheard-of philosophical and physical extremes. If "Human character is not a constant," as one character states in Vital, nevertheless Tsukamoto's themes of psycho-sexual b... Read More »
In Lee Yoon-ki's film, on encounters a more familiar couple in the form of a man and a woman who were former lovers. However, they reunite not out of a desire to rekindle their past love; they do so for a more practical reason. Hee-su (Jeon Do-yeon) finds Byeong-woon (Ja Heong-wo... Read More »
