STOP - a plea to Kim Ki Duk

Not his greatest film by a long shot but still a very inspirational director.
Stop is Kim Ki Duk's plea to stop the insanity around the use of nuclear energy, even if it mean stopping the use of electricity? A rather drastic message but within the film we witness the more insipid dangers of nuclear accidents and radiation exposure. This is about the humans that survive but are exposed and what mutations/deformities will be received in the next generation. The film shows the results of two pregnant women after exposure to radiation, both are unfortunate but one is grizzly.
The major short coming of this film is that Kim Ki Duk made it by himself.
Well he had actors but no crew!

STOP - director and cast, who probably were also crew at times

I had the pleasure of hearing him and the actors speak at BIFF 2015 and one of the things he says is that he realises that there are short comings in the production values that hurt the film.
And it's true. What a difficult undertaking, it's hard enough making a low budget feature with a stripped back crew but as a one man band!!!! Wow.

Kim Ki Duk and fan doing a selfie

Australian director Ivan Seng is the only filmmaker that springs to mind that has successfully pulled this off and that was in 20012 with Toomelah which is a brilliant in it's seamless roughness.
But Stop doesn't quite cut it. Good idea, good to great acting but locations, props and even sometimes the coverage let the film down more than once or twice.
I still admire this director and I'll go along and see what he does next because when he hits it is in the big time but like all genius he is fallible and this is a case in point.

Tsubasa Nakae, principle actor post Q&A

To kim Ki Duk, STOP preaching from your soapbox and making films as a one man band and to the rest of the world STOP freezing him out of financing his films properly like a filmmaker of his standing deserves.

You can read my review for Filmed in Ether here

BIFF 2015 - Up Close & Personal

The thing I love the most about BIFF, apart from the great programming, is the GV's or guest visits. They work hard to make it a filmmakers festival and invite lots of directors, producers and actors to attend the festival. It's a great chance to hear it straight from the horses mouth and to meet and greet if you are in the right place at the right time. My festival program revolved around GV's and pretty much every film I wanted to see had a GV. The glaring exception was Sion Sono but I have heard from him at past festivals and hey I got to meet him at BIFAN earlier this year. The other which was a bit more disappointing was Hong Sang Soo (his one GV was booked out very early on) and Brillante Mendoza (not in attendance) but I got to see Taklub, his latest film.

Ode to my Father - Yoon Je-kyoon

This film spans the history of South Korea from the civil war up to today and is a classic example of how to play the audiences emotions. I wept on at least six different occasions and on some I couldn't keep watching. This man is a meastro of sadness, melancholy and nostalgia and he played me like a violin. 
Zubaan - Mozez Singh
This was a world premiere and it is a debut feature plus it opened the festival, a lot of firsts!
A great movie about destiny and music is central to the plot. The music is hybrid Bollywood/modern along with some traditional spiritual Punjabi. A beautiful visual feast.

Director Mozez Singh

Sarah Jane Dias

Manish Chaudhari & 설화

Lav Diaz & Hazel Orencia (Filipino Royalty)

 Not showing any films this year but he was over to talk about work in progress of the latest film Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis and show a few clips. Having reviewed a couple of his films and conversed via email it was a real treat to meet him in person and have a bit of a chin wag.

Stop - Kim Ki duk

Hiromitsu Takeda

Kim Ki duk & fan pose for selfie

Tsubasa Nakae

The gang at the Q&A

Not his best and it did suffer from the production values, a result of shooting it on location in Japan with only him as the crew! But the acting is good and the message is right.

Office - Hong Won chan

Sungwoong Park 박성웅, Hyunkyung Ryu 류현경,Asung Ko 고아성 & Hong Wonchan 홍원찬

What a cracker this was. Tight and compelling with at least five 'jump out of your seat' moments. A thrilling story of how fucked up the office politics can get and the pressures the workers face on a daily basis.

Asung Ko 고아성

She may look cute but she is a mad, cold killer though the circumstance that compel her to such behavior are not in her control and a product of the system. She gets away with it all to apply for another intern position in a different company. She also had a role in Hong Sangsoo's film Right Now Wrong Then. Her diversity and range is very inspirational.














Highway to Hellas - Aron Lehmann
A very funny German comedy set in Greece about banking. Ironic but true!

Aron Lehmann & Producer

A Korean in Paris - Jeon Soo-il A surreal searching for movie that has many open ended questions.

Mi Kwan Lock, one of the stars from A Korean in Paris

What a absolute treat of a festival and this year I was only there for five days. Looking forward to the next already.

BIFFology 101

          Why BIFF 2015?
                                                        Well why not I say!
          Not enough you say?
                                                       OK then, well try this on for size.
First up, 3 X the usual suspects.

Hong Sang Soo presents his latest Right Now Wrong Then.
Professor, pretty girl, time warps, a palace & drinking. Same old, same old? Apparently not!
By all accounts it's a cracker, winning awards at Lorcarno (Golden Leopard & Best Actor)

this is not a trailer, just a still

Kim Ki Duk has a new one called Stop. Inspired by Fukoshima and set in Tokyo.
Looking forward to an improvement on last years One on One.

• Tsubasa Nakae  & Natsuko Hori 

Sion Sono has The Virgin Psychics, this will be the third new Sono film I have seen this year!!!!
Looks like a blend of Love & Peace & Tag??? But that's just a wild guess from the trailer.
Lookk forward to more tough school girls and his high kicking, up skirt signature shots.

ohhhh Sono!!!!

One summer blockbuster
Last year there were a few of these shown, this year it is Assassination by Choi Dong-Hoon, the man who bought us The Thieves. One of the big summer hits (over 10 millionat the box office) but they haven't shown it with subtitles yet.
Set in the Japanese occupation, it's all about an assassination squad in the Korean resistance.

Movie Poster

One from China (at least)
The Assassin by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, I now everyone saw it at MIFF but I was stuck here in Seoul.
Ethereal, period murder? One to watch according to the grapevine.

movie poster

A couple of classics
Seven Samurai, from Akira Kurosawa, the film that became The Magnificent Seven

the gang

The Housemaid by Kim Ki Young (original) 1960. Loved the remake so looking forward to the original in lucious Black & White.

tension?

And lastly for now.
Brillante Mendoza brings his latest, Taklub. Always interested in his work, a legend of the Philippines. This is another of his films with Nora Aunor, another legend.

movie poster

I'll be heading down for the first six days (I know but logistics & commitments) and am planning to see all these and fill in the gaps with a smattering of new Korean cinema.
Such a great festival and always lots of fun in between the movies. See you there?

A Few of my Favourite Things

The wall of talent

Director Jazz in Love

Director of Sapi

                  Director of Prologue to the Great Desaparecido  & Norte, the End of History

Director of Transit

Director of Sana Dati (If Only)

Director of

Why Don't You Play in Hell?

Director of Our Sunhi & Nobody's Daughter Haewon

Director of Moebius

Director of Safe

Director of Mystery Road

These are some of my favourite directors from Busan.
Certainly not all of them and in no particular order.
But hey! What a bevy of talent and then you look at the whole wall....WOW!
Certainly not a veteran of festivals, esp on this international scale but I was a pig in shit at Busan and if you are partial to cinema of the east I think you would be too. Exciting stuff, so much to see.

With stars in my eyes I'm trying to take a little bit away

Kim Ki Duk is all over BIFF

Moebius

Almost 90min of no dialogue but certainly not a silent film.
Par for the course, Kim Ki Duk (김기덕) ROARS in this film. And as the man says himself conversation is made up of laughing, crying and screaming and there is plenty of this in Moebius, so the characters do speak!
Initially banned in South Korea this is the follow up film after Pieta which picked up the Golden Lion at Venice (1st Korean film ever) and like Pieta it's in your face and confronting but also it has some quite funny moments. Mind you I questioned myself that I was laughing (it'll be a lifelong inquiry). Moebius really does take you on a journey into the weird, the perverse, the unspoken realm of human nature. A place where things aren't quite what they seem, recognisable but broke? Sometimes the bumpy road is the track worth taking.

Lee Eun-woo (이은우) is amazing as the mother and the lover. At BIFF this year I saw her play 4 roles, 2 in Moebius, one in Godsend and as herself in 2 x Q&As. Wow, she is good. It was retrospective that I learnt she played the two roles in this film. Not for a moment watching the film did I pick it, a clear sign of good acting, being totally immersed in the character.
In both roles she plays an unhinged siren, totally seductive, totally dangerous! Neither is similar in any way demonstrating her great range, she is 100% given to this film. it is rare for me to hunt down films through their actors but in this case I will watch anything that she is in.
Cho Jae-Hyun (조재현) as the father is the instigator of this torrid tale, succumbing to carnal lust but once his wife finds out his character becomes quite weak and soon, quite literally, impotent. Another great performance portraying the horror of witnessing the cause & effect of his actions on others. He never regains his mantle of head of the family always wracked by guilt, always trying to make amends. Very powerful, non-heroic stuff.

Lee Eun-woo, Cho Jae-Hyun & Kim Ki Duk post Moebius Q&A BIFF 2013

Perhaps Suh Yeong Ju (서영주) is the only innocent in this world. Mother extracts revenge on father through son.
Oh yeah that is, she chops his dick off! With no manhood he is subject to much ridicule and humiliation at the hands of many but his father sympathise (I wonder why?). He liases with dad's lover, he sleeps with mother and progressively that innocence is eroded away.
With dad's help he learns to live without that which defines a man, he learns to achieve orgasm through other means. So much has been written about the chop, his, his dad's and the local punks (how many dicks can you chop in the one film?) but I'm more interested in how they all learn  to get pleasure from pain.
Google can teach you anything and in this case dad learns these dark arts from endless late night surfing.
The results are pretty gruesome. Have you ever watched someone rub themselves raw with a rock?
But it gets better. Dad's lover learns how to pleasure the son via a dagger in the back. What starts out as truly brutal turns humorous as she masturbates the dagger and soon he is overcome with ecstatic pleasure and of course it is a happy ending!

So you kinda get the idea, Moebius is pretty weird shit but it is also cloaked in ample good filmmaking, great performances, great visuals, many many great moments and after the film hearing the master talk about this film was quite amazing. Director Kim spoke of the struggle to raise enough money to make this film. Now this amazed me, even he of such high standing and achievement has to scratch in the dirt to find the funds. He spoke of the digital revolution and how he by-passed a DOP because the cameras are small enough for him to operate himself. Wow! and this helped him communicate with the actors on a more intimate and creative level, it allowed him to make the film quicker (ie less money) and it allowed him to forgo having to translate his thoughts into words in order for that DOP to then capture his vision on film. Makes a lot of sense really.
At no point was there ever a question about quality when I was watching, format or craft.

Moebius.... not for everyone that's for sure but a whole lot more than a controversial film.
Kim Ki Duk.... can't wait to see what's next but will continue to view the back catalogue till it arrives.

Tokyo FILMEX 2012

Okay, so now I wanna go to Japan!

A wee bit late, may have missed the boat but still could fly there.

What a program, What a festival. Tokyo FILMEX 2012

The creme de la creme of Asian Cinema but only nine films in competition?

Ahha but 14 films in special screenings!

Here's a little run down on some of the South Korean & Japanese gems

Hong Sang soo's In Another Country is the opening film and he was a there for a Q&A. This is an extraordinarily witty film with the addition of English dialogue from Isabelle Huppert presence making for some fantastic cross conversations and quite awkward situations. For me it was evidence of evolution of filmmaker and thus I see it totally as fitting to be an opening film for a good look'n festival.

Moon Sori, Hong Sangsoo, French actress Isabelle Huppert,  Yu Jun Sang                                                                             and Youn Yuh-jung arrive for the screening of "In Another Country." at Canne 2012

Also in Japan.
Hong Sang soo has four films touring the country, described as a 'roadshow'. Sounds like the surf movie exhibition route of traveling the coast of Australia during summer? Hahaha, Like You Know It All, Oki‘s Movie and The Day He Arrives. The roadshow started at Cinemart Shinjuku, Tokyo on November 18th. After 6 weeks in Tokyo, the roadshow will move to Osaka and continue for 3 weeks. Then it will progress to other cities including Nagoya, Kyoto and Fukuoka.

But back to Filmex, here's a bit of a coup, Sion Sono's Bad Film is getting it's premier.
Shot in 1995 on Hi8 it was never finished! That is until this year, 17 years later and apparently sourced from 150hrs of footage, this is one that I would love to see.
Stunning, awe-inspiring, masterwork are some of the adjectives used to describe this film.

161min of pure experimental Sion Sono

I'm excited. It's political, it's activism, it's about China and Japan. It stars Tokyo GAGAGA
It's a good year when they release Bad Film.

Ok and now back to Korea, the one that roared at Venice this year, with some controversy but hell I still wanna see it that's for sure.
Kim Ki Duk's - Pieta
The first South Korean film to win the ol' Golden Lion. It's a film about mum and son but that's really under selling it.

Two of his other films are on my to see list. The auto biographical doco Arirang and one I almost saw at KOFFIA this year Spring Summer Autumn  Winter...and Spring

 

No doubt I've missed some beauties in this years line up but hey if you just saw these three in a week it'd be a pretty darn good one. eh? just another good reason to visit Japan. but hurry!