“A Taxi Driver” is a historical drama with light action and comedy elements and was South Korea’s submission to the 90th annual Academy Awards for consideration in the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscars race. The film did not secure a nomination, however, as “Parasite” didn’t just become the first South Korean film to win an Oscar in 2020 but was also the first South Korean film ever to even earn an official Oscar nomination, which is a glaring oversight on the Academy’s behalf.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
“A Taxi Driver” is based on the true story of a Seoul taxi driver who transported a German reporter into the military-occupied city of Gwangju in 1980. University students and other Gwang-ju citizens who were protesting an attempted military coup are met with a violent response from the police and military, and the government is preventing...
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
“A Taxi Driver” is based on the true story of a Seoul taxi driver who transported a German reporter into the military-occupied city of Gwangju in 1980. University students and other Gwang-ju citizens who were protesting an attempted military coup are met with a violent response from the police and military, and the government is preventing...
- 11/17/2022
- by Sam Kench
- AsianMoviePulse
Young and beautiful, EstAsia Festival is back with its 3rd edition in Reggio Emilia, one of the more bountiful regions of of Italy, from the 11th to the 18th of June 2018.
Curated by Cineclub Peyote, Fondazione Palazzo Magnani e Comune di Reggio Emilia, EstAsia’s aim is to brings to the big screen a selection of the best Asian Movies seen over the year in Festivals but unseen in Italian cinemas. The participant countries include India, Vietnam and Singapore but this edition has allowed more space to explore works from China and Japan.
EstAsia has finally revealed the full programme of its 2018 edition. The selection is very promising and comprises a good mix of both independent and commercial features, plus some European premieres, and this year – for the first time – a jury will award a winner. The Festival will have also some international guests introducing their works to the audience.
Curated by Cineclub Peyote, Fondazione Palazzo Magnani e Comune di Reggio Emilia, EstAsia’s aim is to brings to the big screen a selection of the best Asian Movies seen over the year in Festivals but unseen in Italian cinemas. The participant countries include India, Vietnam and Singapore but this edition has allowed more space to explore works from China and Japan.
EstAsia has finally revealed the full programme of its 2018 edition. The selection is very promising and comprises a good mix of both independent and commercial features, plus some European premieres, and this year – for the first time – a jury will award a winner. The Festival will have also some international guests introducing their works to the audience.
- 6/3/2018
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
As I wrote last week, the Korean Film Festival in Australia (Koffia) managed to smuggle some excellent, if not harrowing, crime films into the country, and fill me with an existential angst that has begun manifesting itself in increasingly troubling ways, such as the purple mohawk that I’m now sporting. I’m going through some stuff (I’d also like to take a moment to apologise to my neighbour about her late dog, Jabba the Mutt – I don’t know what came over me, but I now have some post-its stuck on all the knives in my house reminding me not to use them to hurt animals).
While The King of Pigs and Bleak Night were both set in high schools, and prominently featured social hierarchies, bullying and the general misery of being in high school as their central tenets, the films I’ll be looking at in this...
While The King of Pigs and Bleak Night were both set in high schools, and prominently featured social hierarchies, bullying and the general misery of being in high school as their central tenets, the films I’ll be looking at in this...
- 9/21/2012
- by Liam Jose
- Boomtron
Welcome back to This Week In DVD! Sadly, this is one of the worst week for new releases in decades. Decades I say! Well, in weeks anyway. Some of the mediocre titles coming out this week include the occasionally entertaining Underworld: Awakening, the frustratingly uninteresting Mother’s Day remake, the low-rent Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, and Channing Tatum’s funniest film yet, The Vow. As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. The Front Line War films are a staple here in the Us, something that’s benefited by the fact that America has dozens of wars to choose from, but not every country is as lucky (or unlucky). South Korea was a part of only one major conflict in the modern era, but out of this trauma have come several fantastic war films including 71: Into the Fire and My Way. The Front Line...
- 5/8/2012
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Director: Hun Jang. Review: Chris Sawin. It's 1953 and The Korean War wages on. Negotiations for a ceasefire have been going on for over two years, but nothing has come of it. The South Korean group of men fighting at Aerok Hill is known as Alligator Company. Their commander was said to be shot with a gun from his own side and Intel says there's a spy residing in their midst. First Lieutenant Eun-Pyo (Ha-kyun Shin) of the Defense Security Command is sent to look into it. Once there, Eun-Pyo is reunited with his best friend from college Su-Hyeok (Soo Go) who Eun-Pyo thought had died at the beginning of the war. But Su-Hyeok is not the man he used to be as his humanity has been stripped away, he doesn't think twice about killing anyone, and has somehow moved up in rank to Lieutenant in just two short years. But...
- 4/30/2012
- 24framespersecond.net
Director: Jang Hoon. Review: Adam Wing. War, what is it good for? Well, over-reaching sentiment and gritty action sequences for a start. The Front Line doesn’t attempt to think outside the box, but what it does do it does efficiently enough. Winner of Best Film at the 48th Daejong Film Awards, director Hun Jang (Secret Reunion) and author Park Sang Yeon (Jsa) take us back on the battlefield of The Korean War. Popular actors Ko Su (White Night) and Shin Ha Kyun (Thirst) star as lieutenants on the front line, along with an impressive cast that includes Ryu Seung Ryong (Battlefield Heroes), Ko Chang Seok (Rough Cut) and lone actress Kim Ok Bin (Thirst), who more than holds her own as a North Korean sniper nicknamed ‘Two Seconds’. The Front Line was South Korea’s entry for the 84th Academy Awards, and even though it didn’t make the shortlist,...
- 3/2/2012
- 24framespersecond.net
★★★★☆ Towards the end of the Korean War, high up on Aerok Hill, soldiers continue their fierce fighting in an ultimate battle for an insignificant piece of land. In a strategic move to determine the new border between the two Koreas, North and South both sacrifice millions of lives. Hun Jang's The Front Line (2011) is a poetically painful drama about the destroyed humanity and tortured souls of those in war, in a land which hope has long deserted and the few moments of empty happiness mean everything.
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- 2/28/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
From horror...to the horrors of war? Cine Asia are releasing Hun Jang’s multi-award winning Korean war epic The Front Line is heading for UK Blu-ray, DVD and VOD this month. Breath-taking action sequences are the name of the game, but don’t just take out word for it, check out the trailers below. Front Line goes on sale - with a ton of great extra features - on February 27th. Synopsis: In the final decisive battles of The Korean War, the battle-worn armies of North and South Korea face a brutal deadlock on the rugged Aerok Hills. Fears of treachery and collusion with enemy forces trigger an investigation into the men of the South Korean Alligator Company. A veteran intelligence officer accepts the assignment and discovers mysterious and tragic occurrences surrounding a former comrade he had long thought dead. In the epic battle for survival that follows, the...
- 2/15/2012
- 24framespersecond.net
The Front Line
Directed by Hun Jang
Written by Sang-yeon Park
2011, South Korea, imdb
*****
South Korea’s official entry to this year’s Academy Awards The Front Line is being released on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 27th. We thought that we would ask two of our staff to watch the film and argue their way through it on Twitter. Defending The Front Line is Edgar Chaput, who writes our weekly Shaw Brothers Saturday column. Attacking The Front Line is Michael Ryan, who rather to his own surprise became our go-to-reviewer for Korean films during last year’s Fantasia Film Festival and a dab hand at writing about himself in the third person. Their original debate has been slightly edited and reordered to improve grammar and flow.
*****
Michael: The Front Line is about a Korean counter-spy, Kang Eun-pyo (Shin Ha-kyun) in the dying days of the Korean War sent to...
Directed by Hun Jang
Written by Sang-yeon Park
2011, South Korea, imdb
*****
South Korea’s official entry to this year’s Academy Awards The Front Line is being released on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 27th. We thought that we would ask two of our staff to watch the film and argue their way through it on Twitter. Defending The Front Line is Edgar Chaput, who writes our weekly Shaw Brothers Saturday column. Attacking The Front Line is Michael Ryan, who rather to his own surprise became our go-to-reviewer for Korean films during last year’s Fantasia Film Festival and a dab hand at writing about himself in the third person. Their original debate has been slightly edited and reordered to improve grammar and flow.
*****
Michael: The Front Line is about a Korean counter-spy, Kang Eun-pyo (Shin Ha-kyun) in the dying days of the Korean War sent to...
- 2/13/2012
- by Michael Ryan
- SoundOnSight
The Front Line Trailer, Go-Ji-Jeon Trailer. Hun Jang‘s The Front Line / Go-Ji-Jeon (2011) movie trailer stars Ha-kyun Shin, Soo Go, Seung-su Ryu, Chang-Seok Ko, and Je-hoon Lee. The Front Line‘s plot synopsis: “Toward the end of the Korean War, an uneasy ceasefire is ordered, but out on the Eastern front line of the Aerok Hills, in an expanse of land called the Aero.K, fierce fighting continues. A race to capture this strategic point to determine a new border between the two Koreas is the ultimate prize. At the Eastern border stands the “Alligator Company,” known to be the best soldiers on the front line.
They are the only unit to have survived the worst battle of the war at Pohang. When a South Korean bullet is found in the dead body of a company commander, Lieutenant of Defense Security Command Kang Eun-Pyo (Shin Ha-Kyun) is ordered to investigate Alligator Company for the murder.
They are the only unit to have survived the worst battle of the war at Pohang. When a South Korean bullet is found in the dead body of a company commander, Lieutenant of Defense Security Command Kang Eun-Pyo (Shin Ha-Kyun) is ordered to investigate Alligator Company for the murder.
- 1/14/2012
- by filmbook
- Film-Book
We’ve already reviewed director Hun Jang’s “The Front Line” (you can read James Mudge’s review here), but for those of you Stateside still waiting for it, the film will be opening in limited release January 20th, 2012 courtesy of Well Go USA. Check out the U.S. trailer for the gritty action-packed war film below. If you’ve seen the Koreans do war movies before, then “The Front Line” probably won’t be too big of a deal; but if you’ve never seen them do big-budget war movies, you’re in for a treat. They really, really do war movies well, is what I’m trying to say. Just look at the trailer below if you don’t believe me. Toward the end of the Korean War, an uneasy ceasefire is ordered, but out on the Eastern front line of the Aerok Hills, in an expanse of land called the Aero.
- 1/12/2012
- by Nix
- Beyond Hollywood
South Korea’s biggest awards contender this season isn’t a twenty minutes too-long revenge thriller (they make other movies, you know), but a war picture. That film is The Front Line, Hun Jang‘s look at the Korean War that’s been selected by the nation for this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Two weeks before its awards fate is decided — and a mere ten days before it hits theaters in a limited release — a trailer has appeared at Apple. It’s a nice little peek at what could end up being an epic portrait of an infrequently portrayed conflict, and it earns some points simply for doing that. On my own part, the main interest comes from the Korean perspective; it reminds me of Clint Eastwood‘s Letter from Iwo Jima, which has a place as one of my favorite recent war films because...
Two weeks before its awards fate is decided — and a mere ten days before it hits theaters in a limited release — a trailer has appeared at Apple. It’s a nice little peek at what could end up being an epic portrait of an infrequently portrayed conflict, and it earns some points simply for doing that. On my own part, the main interest comes from the Korean perspective; it reminds me of Clint Eastwood‘s Letter from Iwo Jima, which has a place as one of my favorite recent war films because...
- 1/11/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
"This is a story about three million soldiers who fought in the war, not remembering the reason anymore, and died wishing for the end of it." Well Go USA Entertainment has debuted the official Us trailer via Apple for Hun Jang's South Korean war action film The Front Line, about the Korean War and the many soldiers who fought in it. This looks quite spectacular and riveting, I'm impressed. A fairly easy comparison to make, but it seems like another South Korean Saving Private Ryan, this time telling the story of their own tragic and deadly civil war. The production in this looks quite stunning, I definitely want to catch it. Watch below! Watch the official Us trailer for Hun Jang's The Front Line in HD, via Apple: You can also download The Front Line official trailer in High Def from Apple Toward the end of the Korean War,...
- 1/11/2012
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
[In light of its screening at Fantasia, we are bumping up Mark Popham's review of the Song Kang-Ho action vehicle, Secret Reunion, to the top of the page.]
You probably wouldn't expect to find a compelling exploration of the effects of the North Korean/South Korean conflict in a buddy action film, but Secret Reunion isn't Beverly Hills Cop.
Hun Jang's film manages to be, in turns, action-packed, touching, funny and a compelling glimpse of how the divisions of Korea mutilates the lives of citizens on both sides of the Dmz. You would think that a movie that includes the brutal murder of innocents as well as a joke about a loose chicken would feel uneven at best, and in incredibly poor taste in all likelihood, but Secret Reunion manages to pull together a lot of disparate parts.
Except for the karaoke video-style "becoming friends to music" montage that pops up. That never really does it for me, but I understand it to be, in Korean cinema, the cost of doing business.
We first meet South Korean...
You probably wouldn't expect to find a compelling exploration of the effects of the North Korean/South Korean conflict in a buddy action film, but Secret Reunion isn't Beverly Hills Cop.
Hun Jang's film manages to be, in turns, action-packed, touching, funny and a compelling glimpse of how the divisions of Korea mutilates the lives of citizens on both sides of the Dmz. You would think that a movie that includes the brutal murder of innocents as well as a joke about a loose chicken would feel uneven at best, and in incredibly poor taste in all likelihood, but Secret Reunion manages to pull together a lot of disparate parts.
Except for the karaoke video-style "becoming friends to music" montage that pops up. That never really does it for me, but I understand it to be, in Korean cinema, the cost of doing business.
We first meet South Korean...
- 7/13/2010
- Screen Anarchy
[Our thanks to Mark Popham for the following review.]
You probably wouldn't expect to find a compelling exploration of the effects of the North Korean/South Korean conflict in a buddy action film, but Secret Reunion isn't Beverly Hills Cop.
Hun Jang's film manages to be, in turns, action-packed, touching, funny and a compelling glimpse of how the divisions of Korea mutilates the lives of citizens on both sides of the Dmz. You would think that a movie that includes the brutal murder of innocents as well as a joke about a loose chicken would feel uneven at best, and in incredibly poor taste in all likelihood, but Secret Reunion manages to pull together a lot of disparate parts.
Except for the karaoke video-style "becoming friends to music" montage that pops up. That never really does it for me, but I understand it to be, in Korean cinema, the cost of doing business.
We first meet South Korean...
You probably wouldn't expect to find a compelling exploration of the effects of the North Korean/South Korean conflict in a buddy action film, but Secret Reunion isn't Beverly Hills Cop.
Hun Jang's film manages to be, in turns, action-packed, touching, funny and a compelling glimpse of how the divisions of Korea mutilates the lives of citizens on both sides of the Dmz. You would think that a movie that includes the brutal murder of innocents as well as a joke about a loose chicken would feel uneven at best, and in incredibly poor taste in all likelihood, but Secret Reunion manages to pull together a lot of disparate parts.
Except for the karaoke video-style "becoming friends to music" montage that pops up. That never really does it for me, but I understand it to be, in Korean cinema, the cost of doing business.
We first meet South Korean...
- 6/30/2010
- Screen Anarchy
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