Throughout January and February, there will be Korean films played all around the city. If anyone is interested, I am posting the schedule for all the movies that will be played throughout the months. For more information, visit http://www.subwaycinema.com/index.php
****CONTACT YOUR GAJOK LEADERS OR EMAIL US AT askmeaboutksa@gmail.com IF YOU GUYS ARE INTERESTED!!!
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT
Tuesdays at 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)
Stage One of the Korean Invasion will be:
INDEPENDENT MOVIES
The Korean film industry imploded in 2006. With too many films in production (so many that cameras had to be borrowed from Japan) and too many bloated star vehicles hitting the market, the Korean film industry production bubble popped like a subprime mortgage crisis. But in late 2008 and 2009, hope was restored when a series of low budget, independent Korean movies became massive word-of-mouth hits. For the next eight weeks, the Korean Cultural Service will introduce these movies to America.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 12 @ 7pm
DAY TIME DRINKING (2008, 116 minutes, New York Premiere)
One of the rudest things you can do in Korea is turn down a drink. It’s like spitting in someone’s face. DAYTIME DRINKING is a rapidly escalating farce that tweaks the humiliation-meter up and up and up and up as Hyuk-Jin, newly broken up with his girlfriend, finds himself bullied into drinking an infinite amount of soju in a series of progressively more surreal situations. The debut film from Noh Young-Seok, Drinking became a word-of-mouth hit in Korea and has played dozens of film festivals around the world. With a vibe somewhere between Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise and Broken Lizard’s Beerfest the only thing dry about this flick is its humor.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 26 @ 7pm
MEMBER OF THE FUNERAL (2008, 99 minutes, North American Premiere)
Considered one of the most intellectually ambitious of Korea’s current crop of indie features, this film’s lush visuals and caustic performances hide the fact that it was shot for pennies. Member kicks off with a family of three going at each others’ throats during a funeral for a teenaged boy. Flashbacks show the wounded innocents who grew up to become these monsters and as they flay the skin from their faces with their barbed words, the movie gradually darkens and deepens into something much more profound than a simple family snit fit.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9 @ 7pm
BEAUTIFUL (2008, 88 minutes, New York Premiere)
First timer Juhn Jai-Hong took an unfinished screenplay by his mentor, Kim Ki-Duk (The Isle, Bad Guy), and turned it into this insane slice of grand guignol social critique that sends up Korea’s obsession with plastic surgery with a side helping of maximum carnage. Kim is a pretty young woman often mistaken for an actress. Men are always hitting on her, and she’s uncomfortable being the object of their sexual fantasies. Her discomfort deepens when she’s attacked by a stalker who thinks he’s in love with her, and then the cops accuse her of leading the guy on by looking sexy. Even the doctor at the hospital hits on her. Her only hope: to erase her beauty by any means necessary. A big budget, 35mm production, BEAUTIFUL is a queasy mix of body horror, sexual politics, eating disorders, self-mutilation and homicidal rage.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23 @ 7pm
BREATHLESS (2009, 131 minutes)
Winner of several awards at Rotterdam, and winner of “Best Debut Feature” at the New York Asian Film Festival, Breathless is uncompromising, two-fisted, DIY filmmaking at its heartbreaking best. Written, produced, directed and starring Yang Ik-June (who mortgaged his house to finance the film) this movie about a shiftless, violent thug drifting through life takes on emotional weight when he runs up against a schoolgirl, Yeon-Hee, who gives as good as she gets. Together, these two battered souls form an unlikely alliance against the world. Lauded by the New York Times as one of this year’s real finds, Breathless will hurt you in all the right ways.
