Noted screenwriter Park Hoon-jung’s second feature film was finally unveiled to the press last week, featuring three heavyweight actors ― Choi Min-sik, Hwang Jeong-min and Lee Jung-jae ― in the lead.What the film deals with is nothing new, at least in Korean cinema: a criminal organization, its gangsters and the cops who try to chase them down. However, Park, who is best known for his screenplays for Kim Ji-woon’s “I Saw the Devil” and Ryu Seung-wan’s “The Unjust,” managed to create a heartless

Film Feb. 11, 2013

Steven Soderbergh, rightly considered one of Hollywood’s smartest movie makers, is at his cleverest in “Side Effects,” a canny, cunning big-idea thriller in a minor key, an engrossing zeitgeist whodunit about Wall Street, Big Pharma, prescription drugs and the power we give psychiatry and psychologists.Put simply, it’s about a death, perhaps caused by an under-tested depression drug.Channing Tatum plays a Wall Street type just getting out of prison for securities fraud. Rooney Mara (of the Holly

Film Feb. 7, 2013

Famed filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s upcoming Hollywood debut “Snowpiercer” is already creating much buzz in the film industry, and looks to be one of the most anticipated Korean-foreign joint productions of the year. The sci-fi film, jointly distributed by Korea’s CJ Entertainment and American film studio The Weinstein Company, features Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans and Jamie Bell, along with Korean heavyweight Song Kang-ho. But “Snowpiercer” isn’t the only film that moviegoers should be excited about.

Film Feb. 5, 2013

Film producer Lee Eun, whose works include last year’s hit romance “Architecture 101” and 2011 animated film “Leafie, A Hen into the Wild,” has been appointed the new head of the Korean Film Producers Association, the organization said on Monday.Lee, along with his wife and film producer Shim Jae-myung, founded their film house Myung Films in 1995. Their box office hits include “The Contact” (1997), “Joint Security Area” (2000), and “Forever the Moment” (2008). Lee and Shim last year announced t

Film Feb. 5, 2013

English literature professor Kim Seong-kon, who is also director of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, has been elected president of the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo) Alumni Association of Korea.Kim, who received his Ph.D. in English from the university, has been teaching at Seoul National University. He was appointed the director of LTI Korea in 2012. In the same year, he received the International Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mat

Books Feb. 5, 2013

A recently-discovered 19th century Austrian ballet about two young Korean lovers at a time of war will be restaged by Korean National Ballet with new choreography, the state-run troupe said Monday.The music score of the piece, titled “Die Braut von Korea” (The Korean Bride), was discovered in Germany by Korean scholar Park Hee-seok, who has been researching how Korea was perceived in the European country in the 19th century. Park discovered the score last year, which had been left neglected in t

Performance Feb. 4, 2013

The opening credit “A Walter Hill Film” has not graced movie screens in more than 10 years ― not since the 2002 prison boxing drama “Undisputed” flopped at the box office.That movie’s failure was the last in a series of commercial calamities that plagued the director of popular and cult hits such as “The Warriors,” “The Long Riders” and “Streets of Fire.” Over the ensuing decade, Hill continued to produce movies for other people, but seemed destined never to direct another one himself.Then Sylve

Film Feb. 1, 2013

Nearly five months after he almost died in a plane crash on San Juan Island, author Richard Bach has returned to what he knows best ― the inspirational tale of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.The 76-year-old author and longtime pilot is recovering at his Orcas Island home after spending four months in a Seattle hospital with massive brain, chest and spine injuries. Bach says his recovery includes rediscovering simple pleasures, like walking and talking with ease and carving the Christmas turkey.He c

Books Jan. 31, 2013

According to late American critic Susan Sontag, dancers live by the “standard of perfection.”“Dance demands a degree of service greater than in any other performing art, or sport,” she wrote in her 1987 book “Dancers and the Dance.” “While the daily life of every dancer is a full-time struggle against fatigue, strain, natural physical limitations and those due to injuries (which are inevitable), dance itself is the enactment of an energy which must seem, in all respects, untrammeled, effortless,

Performance Jan. 31, 2013

Korean-Japanese director and playwright Chong Wishing is in Seoul to showcase his period drama set in colonial Korea in the 1920s, starring local TV and film actor Cha Seung-won in the leading role.The play, titled “Bring Me My Chariot of Fire,” tells the story of Lee Sun-woo (played by Cha), who is the leader of Namsadang, an itinerant troupe of male performers in Korea under Japanese colonial rule. He forms a genuine friendship with Japanese school teacher (played by Japanese actor Tsuyoshi Ku

Performance Jan. 31, 2013

Seoul Arts Center’s newly renovated CJ Towol Theater is reopening next month, with the premiere of CJ E&M’s original musical “Sweet, Come to Me Stealthily.”The state-run art and culture complex announced in 2011 that it was renovating its mid-sized theater, then named Towol Theater, with funding support from CJ Group. The local conglomerate provided 15 billion won for the renovation. The total cost of the project was 25 billion won, according to SAC. The theater’s original name, “Towol,” comes

Performance Jan. 30, 2013

Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival is hosting its third edition, with celebrated local filmmaker Bong Joon-ho as this year’s jury chief.The festival, which was first established in 2011 by KT Corp., is an annual film competition where participants produce 10-minute shorts solely by using their smartphones. The first edition received a total of 470 smartphone-made films, many from amateur and teen filmmakers, and selected five for prizes. This year, there are a total of three competitio

Film Jan. 30, 2013

The fifth installment of a book series consisting of Western and Asian classics was released on Friday, at a low price to make the texts accessible to the less fortunate. Published by nonprofit corporation Olje, the “Olje Classics” series’ newly released books are: Sigmund Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams” (Die Traumdeutung); Unified Silla (688-935) philosopher and poet Choe Chi-won’s “Gyewon Pilgyeongjip” (Poems and Prose from Choe Chi-won); and “Myung Shim Bo Gam,” a book of selected phra

Books Jan. 28, 2013

A film partially produced by two Koreans won the cinematography award at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday.Titled “Mother of George,” the film features an immigrant couple from Nigeria living in Brooklyn who have difficulty conceiving a baby. Two Koreans, Saerom and Saemi Kim, participated in the production process of the film, along with eight other producers. The sisters have been working at Maybach Film Productions, an independent film production company and investment group based in Beverly

Film Jan. 28, 2013

Korea’s oldest surviving silent film will be screened accompanied by live narration and a music performance at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival. The 1934 film, titled “Crossroads of Youth,” was directed by filmmaker Ahn Jong-hwa. The film, which deals with struggling young men and women in 1930s colonial Korea, was discovered in 2007 by the state-run Korean Film Archive. Back in the 1920s and ’30s, local film viewers saw and heard a “byeonsa,” or silent-film narrator, “performing”

Film Jan. 28, 2013