You can take a far more gentle approach to North Korean infiltration into South Korea, as opposed to the animalistic, head chopping ways in Shiri, and when you’re a screenwriter making your directorial debut, it makes sense it is less noisy and more story driven. This is what you’ll face in Kim Hyeon-jeong’s Double Agent from […]

The characters try and prevent South Korea from going boom but 1999’s Shiri went boom commercially and perhaps without the spark it set off commercially, Korean cinema would look a lot different today. The new Korean cinema wave starts here. With Kenny B and Hangul Celluloid’s Paul Quinn. Running Times:  00m 00s – Intro/Shiri production background. 33m […]

Choi Min-sik may say he’s a bad guy in Springtime but this is as far removed from any scenes involving hammers or eating live animals on screen. No, Choi Min-sik gets taken down a notch, brought into warmth in Ryu Jang-ha’s 2004 drama. With Kenny B and Paul Quinn of Hangul Celluloid. Running Times:  00m 00s […]

Director Bae Chang-ho does picture esque slice of village life of a hundred years ago or so in a rather unremarkable remarkable film called My Heart from 1999. Featuring the adventures of Bag lady and Pot Boy. Kenny B and Paul Quinn of Hangul Celluloid break it all down for you. Includes the story of Paul meeting […]

The director of The Chaser and The Yellow Sea is back, this time with a long, horror movie that was one of the big hitters of Korean cinema in 2016. With Kenny B and Paul Quinn of Hangul Celluloid. Running Times:  00m 00s – Intro/Na Hong-jin’s career so far 34m 21s – The Wailing review Contact the […]

The black and white mindbender of 1965? Lee Yong-min’s career may be hard to research but his nightmare fuel in the form A Bloodthirsty Killer was thankfully discovered and now Kenny B and Paul Quinn of Hangul Celluloid review it as well talk of the career of the director. Running Times:  00m 00s – Lee Yong-min biography […]

How do you get good critical notices and audience-appeal working the crowded zombie genre? Well, you make a good one. That’s what Yeon Sang-ho did with 2016’s Train To Busan. With Kenny B and Paul Quinn of Hangul Celluloid. Running Times:  00m 00s – Yeon Sang-ho biography & discussion 33m 25s – Train To Busan review Contact the […]

We talk of a director and his last movie before passing away at a young age. But we also talk of a director that was so revered and still is so we’ll have a meaty bio and discussion about what made Lee Man-hee so admired as well as reviewing his last movie The Road To […]

For the 30th episode of What’s Korean Cinema, we return to reviewing something from the cannon of one of the key figures out of the early millenium new wave Korean cinema: Park Chan-wook. But he has proven to be of value to the scene even today and we’ll be looking at is his 2016 erotic […]

From Shin Sang-ok, our legendary man that would end up in North Korea making movies has made low budget crime films, enticing horror and now from 1961, we get a black and white romance called Mother And A Guest. Running Times:  00m 00s – Intro/Shin Sang-ok biography & discussion 27m 14s – Mother And A Guest […]