London Korean Film Festival 2015
10th London Korean Film Festival
2 – 14 November 2015
by Richard Hamer
2015 sees the 10th anniversary of the London Korean Film Festival (LKFF), and to celebrate, the organizers turned this year’s festival into a bit of a retrospective.
Amongst the expected selection of big hits and carefully curated indie flicks was a ‘Greatest Hits’ selection of some of the finest in Korean cinema, from 60’s classics such as Sunset on the Sarbin River to contemporary greats like 2003’s extraordinary Memories of Murder and action-comedy favourite The Good, The Bad and The Weird.
But for our coverage at Loose Lips we decided to stick with the present, covering a selection of the epics, the indies and the indefinably weirds that the last couple of years of Korean cinema has had to offer.
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The Shameless
Directed by Oh Seung-uk
Starring Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Nam-gil
A police drama in which neither the murder itself nor the victim ever appear on-screen, director Oh Seung-uk’s gritty thriller instead focuses on the relationships of a diverse cast of underworld figures, examining how the machinery of corruption makes victims of everyone it touches... read more
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Sleepless Night
Directed by Jang Kun-jae
Starring Kim Soo-hyun, Kim Joo-ryoung
Sleepless Night comes to us from first time director Jang Kun-jae. A subtle, quiet indie film, it focuses on the relationship between a newly married couple, and the pressures they face both financially and emotionally: their parents want them to have children, the desire to make extra cash is causing them to spend more time apart and – to top it all off – their bike gets stolen... read more
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Ode To My Father
Directed by JK Youn
Starring Hwang Jung-min, Kim Yunjin
Ode To My Father – this year’s LKFF opening gala movie – is, with over fourteen million tickets sold, the second highest grossing Korean movie of all time. It’s cinema on a massive scale, with a huge, international cast spread across several countries, and set over several decades. A stirring epic of love and life; the history of an entire nation... read more
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A Matter of Interpretation
Directed by Lee Kwang-kuk
Starring Yu Jun-sang, Shin Dong-mi, Kim Kang-hyun
From the LKFF’s ‘Emerging Directors’ strand comes Lee Kwang-kuks’ A Matter of Interpretation, a curious little movie about a detective who – separately and quite by coincidence – bumps into both sides of a recently separated couple and decides to help interpret their dreams. His conclusions bring with them new enlightenment, but also new confusion as to the paths they’ve taken in life and the choices they’ve made... read more
