UFO IN HER EYES (Xiaolu Guo: Germany 2011)

I was lucky enough to attend the UK premiere of UFO in Her Eyes as part of the Terracotta Far East Film Festival on Friday 13th April 2012. Prior to the screening, I attended a Masterclass with Xiaolu Guo during which she talked about her work, including the process of adapting her novel UFO in Her Eyes (her second novel written in English) to screen.  The book itself is an account of a peasant woman’s encounter with ‘Aliens’, and is told through a series of witness statements, emails and other transcripts recounting the aftermath of this encounter. Translating this to screen was for obvious reasons difficult. If Guo had kept to the form of the book she would have alienated a great percentage of the audience as fragmentary literary narratives do not translate well to screen due to the formal qualities and limited temporal span of cinema.  In the Masterclass, Guo pointed out that an adaption of a novel should not be compared to the ‘original’, but rather taken on its own terms, as cinema, and not a poorly translated version of a better original.

Having not read the book prior to the screening, the need for comparison which often becomes a pointless debate around the veracity of adaption, was not a consideration for me. On its own terms, the film is a visual delight and the performances  of the largely non-professional cast  a revelation. As with the book, the film relates the story of a peasant woman – Kwok Yun (Shi Ke) - who one day, after illicit sex with the local headmaster (who is married), Lee (Z. Lan), sees what she takes to be an alien spaceship in the sky. She passes out, and when she returns to consciousness she discovers an ‘alien’ intruder – a white American (Udo Kier) who has been injured. She rushes to report this to Chief Chang (Mandy Zhang), who, rather than being concerned with the veracity of the report, sees this as an opportunity to put the village firmly on the capitalist map – a tourist destination, complete with a themed hotel and park.

A satire on Chinese state capitalism, and the destruction of the land at the hands of the merciless processes of globalisation and consumerism, UFO In Her Eyes is an intellectual mediation on contemporary issues – that are not just limited to China but also affect many of us in the West – which managed also to be an engaging  narrative about gendered expectations and the desire to escape the confines of such expectations. It is impossible not to empathise with Kwok Yun’s plight, especially when she is forced to marry the feckless Lee – who is only too happy to get rid of his complaining and obese wife in order to marry her –  during a spectacle to celebrate the Disneyfication of her village. Her escape with the mute bicycle repairman  (Y. Peng Liu) – who is rendered ‘alien’ within the community as a migrant  - to the UFO of the title, offers a poignant pastoral antidote to the consumerist fantasies of Chief Chang.

While there is no doubt of the political intent of UFO In Her Eyes, it is also a beautiful piece of  magic-realism, composed by a director in command of her material, that deserves to be seen by a wider audience than those at film festivals.

Afterthoughts on Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2012

The 4th year of Terracotta Far East Film Festival was extremely successful, boasting a really outstanding programme of films and events with many films playing to packed houses. The Festival has gone from strength to strength since it was originally conceived by Joey Terracotta in 2008.  The variety and scope of Terracotta is unique: it is a festival that manages to please both cinephiles and critics alike with its mixture of art house films, documentaries and blockbuster epics. Importantly, for me at least, it does not end up recreating economies of power and privilege in which Japanese cinema generally dominates such festivals, as demonstrated by the fact that it opened with a South Korean film, My Way ((마이웨이,  Kang Je-Gyu, South Korea: 2011).

Alongside South Korean cinema, Chinese and Taiwanese cinema were all represented, along with the first film ever shot in Burma, Return to Burma (Gui lái dí rén, Midi Z, Taiwan/Burma: 2011) which had its UK premiere on Friday, 13th April 2012.

Still from Return to Burma

The Terracotta Film Festival operates an audience award, by which all films are scored by viewers out of 10 and then the aggregate mark is posted. Not surprisingly, the high marks went to the less art-house contributions with the historical epic Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Sàidékè balái, Wei Te-Sheng, Taiwan: 2011), Studio Ghibli’s latest anime, From Up on Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka kara,   Goro Miyazaki, Japan: 2011) and Sion Sono’s dystopian drama Himzu (Japan: 2011) proving to be crowd pleasers – with Himzu eventually taking the honors and the audience award.

I did not manage to see all the films myself, as I cannot remain sedentary for long periods of time so I had to pick and choose my films carefully and in the process miss some films that ideally I should have and would have liked to have seen on the big screen. For me, there were three outstanding films of the films that I managed to see at the Festival. These were My Way (마이웨이,  Kang Je-Gyu, South Korea: 2011), UFO in Her Eyes (Guo Xiaolu, China: 2011) and Arirang (아리랑, Kim Ki-duk, South Korea: 2011).  It does need to be noted that I have not seen Himzu yet, but will be seeing it soon and posting a review on my site in due course. My honorable mention goes to Dancing Queen (댄싱퀸, Lee Suk-hoon, South Korea: 2012), which I enjoyed more than a typical romantic drama/comedy partly due to strong performances but also because the film managed to deal with a variety of social issues without disappearing into melodrama. Unfortunately and despite its ambition, my dishonorable mention has to go to Return to Burma, which was just too long and repetitive: it was a film that mimicked a documentary, which would have been better if it had been a documentary. In terms of a critique of contemporary capitalism, UFO in Her Eyes was much more successful, managing to comment on the localized nature of Chinese State Capitalism while at the same time, marking a globalized experience of late capitalism that has a resonance far beyond its locality.

I was also lucky enough to attend a masterclass with Guo Xiaolu, which was a highlight of the festival for me. As I am tend to watch mostly Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong cinemas, I had no prior knowledge of Xiaolu, either as a writer or a director. I attended the Masterclass as I am interested in the work of East Asian female directors, particularly through my current work on South Korean cinema. The Masterclass was fascinating with Xiaolu referencing in European art house cinema, alongside theories of literature and philosophies of cinema, in her discussions of both her work and her life. I have four pages of notes from the session that I will be transcribing and posting when I have more time.

While I have already posted a review of My Way on this site, I will be writing a more extensive review for the forthcoming Directory of World Cinema: South Korea, which will share film of the year along with Kim Ki-duk’s Arirang (I will not be doing a long review of it for this site therefore). My Way and Arirang represent opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of contemporary South Korean cinema: one an epic war drama which tells of events in World War 2 from the perspective of a Korean soldier that constructs its cinema using broad brush strokes, the other a more subtle and precise painting of a director’s internal conflict, which may well be fiction masquerading as documentary and for which Kim Ki-duk, appropriately enough won Prize Un Certain Regard at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (sharing the award with the Argentian film, Los Labios).

Fittingly enough, I will finish this post with the trailer for Arirang with Kim Ki-duk singing the title song.

I am already looking forward to Terracotta 2013!

Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2012, 12-15 April, Prince Charles Cinema, London

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival is now in its third year and boasts an outstanding programme this year with UK, European and International premieres of South Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese films. Highlights of the festival include the opening film, My Way (Kang Je-kyu, South Korea: 2011), an outstanding war film from the director of Shiri and Brotherhood, a special preview showing of Studio Guilbi’s latest anime, From Up On Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka kara, Goro Miyazaki, Japan: 2011) and the UK premiere of Kim Ki-duk’s award-winning, documentary, Arirang (South Korea: 2011).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAORmPkSOog

For all us horror fans, there is the Terror-cotta film marathon, co-sponsored by FrightFest on Friday 13th,  which sees premieres of ZOMBIE 108 (Joe Chien, Taiwan: 2012), the Japanese anime Gyo, directed by Hakayuki Hirao and based upon a manga by Junji Ito, perhaps best known in the West for being the author of the manga on which the TOMIE series of films are based as well as a big screen outing for Shimizu’s seminal and incredibly scary, Ju-On: The Grudge (Japan: 2002). There are also some shorts showing including Inchun Oh’s Metamorphosis (which those of you that read my review of it, I loved). So this an evening for all you fans of horror films and of East and Far East Asian cinema that is not to be missed.

In terms of Korean cinema, there is a breakfast double bill on Sunday of Couples (Jeong Yong-ki: 2011) followed by Dancing Queen (Lee Seok-hoon: 2011). This double bill starts at 12 noon, and I am expecting to see many of my fellow Koreanophiles there, including some from my Korean language class that I take at the Korean Cultural Centre in London (that is until I get thrown off the course for lack of progress)!

The festival closes with the UK premiere of Sion Sono’s Himizu (Japan: 2011).

In addition to the film screenings, there are a range of events including a Taiwanese Party, Director Q&A’s and Masterclasses.

I have already booked my festival pass (£60.00), which gives me admission to all of the films and special events. I hope to see some of you there!.

Details of the full programme can be found at:

http://terracottafestival.com/home

I will be updating my site regularly with reviews and news from the festival.

My Way (마이웨이: Kang Je-Kyu, South Korea: 2011)

My Way (마이웨이) is Director Kang’s follow up to his successful 2004 Brotherhood: Taegukgi (태극기 휘날리며) award winning and box office record breaking epic – with more than 10 million box office admissions – about the impact on the Korean War on two brothers, who end up fighting for different sides during the brutal conflict. While Brotherhood: Taegukgi is inward looking – concerned with internal divisions and conflict – My Way is outward looking, taking as its inspiration a ‘true story’ of a Korean Soldier, Yang Kyoungjong, who is said to have fought for the Kwantung army in 1938 before being captured first by the Soviet Army and then by the German Army. Purportedly he was eventually captured by the US army during the invasion of Normandy  and ended up in a POW in Britain before being released in 1945 (see ‘Going My Way with KANG Je-kyu ‘ in Korean Cinema Today, Kang Byeong-jin [ available at <http://koreanfilm.or.kr/webzine/sub/feature.jsp?mode=A_VIEW&wbSeq=41>] for further details). While some critics have questioned the ‘veracity’ of the story on which My Way is based, Director Kang’s most ambitious and South Korea’s most expensive film to date is a ultimately tragic tale of the fate of ordinary soldiers (whether they are Korean, Japanese, German or Russian), who are caught up in a brutal conflict beyond their understanding and who risk losing their humanity in the fight for survival.

My Way’s starry cast includes the popular South Korean actor JANG Dong-gun as KIM Joon-Sik, ODARGIRI Joe, one of Japan’s most famous actors, as HASEGAWA Tatsuo, and noted Chinese actress and singer BINGBING Fan.  However it must be noted that Fan Bingbing is underused in her role as Shirai, a Chinese Solider and sharpshooter who helps Joon-Sik escape from the Japanese Army, and ends up dead for her efforts. Bingbing sparkles briefly but is too soon extinguished to have any real impact in a film that it concerned about [military] masculinity and identity. This is all too true of War films, unless they are concerned with woman’s domestic struggle or valiant efforts on the home front.

Like Director Kang’s Brotherhood, My Way mainly focuses in on the relationship between two men who end up on opposite sides of a conflict. Joon-Sik and Tatsuo become childhood friends when Tatsuo’s family moves to Seoul (Gyeongseong) where his grandfather is a high ranking official in the Japanese Colonial Army in 1928. Their friendship is based upon a common interest in Marathon running, an interest which will be divisive in a later years when both compete to be included in the Olympic team: a race which Joon-Sik wins but is disqualified in order that Tatsuo can take the place in the team.  This ‘unfair’ decision directly leads to Joon-Sik being conscripted into the Japanese Army where he is forced to fit alongside the determined Tatsuo, for whom sacrifice in the name of the Emperor is the true sign of a man, and leads a suicidal charge against the Mongolian Army, before being captured and forced to fight for the Russians alongside his friend and competitor, Joon-Sik.

The film’s panoramic scope from South Korea, to the icy expanses of Siberia and the beaches of Normandy, offers a snapshot of the killing fields of World War 2 that is never less than impressive, managing to be both horrific and beautiful at the same time.  Eschewing military jingoism, My Way is concerned with the day to day life of ordinary soldiers, who are the literal embodiment of the vagaries of War for whom which political ideology and economic ambition means little beyond the human instinct for survival.

The fact that My Way has not performed particularly well to date at either the South Korea or Japanese box offices, especially compared to Brotherhood, attests to the fact that the historical conflict between Japan and South Korea is still a raw sore in the national imaginary of both countries. In addition, My Way is silent about the plight of woman, especially the ‘comfort’ woman – Korean military prostitutes –whose stories are one of the true horrors of the conflict between Japan and Korea. However, irrespective of this, Director Kang’s film is a cinematic tour-de-force and unmissable.

If you live in the UK, My Way is the opening film of the Terracotta Far East Film Festival, on 12^th April 2011, at 20:30 pm, which takes place at the Prince Charles Cinema in London’s Leicester Square.

Details on the Festival and how to book are available here:

http://terracottafestival.com/films/2012/my-way

Metamorphoses (변신이야기, OH In-chun, 2011)

Metamorphoses [변신이야기 - literal translation, transformation stories] is a short film by OH In-chun. The film begins with Sung-gil Oh, a comic book (manhwa/만화) artist, sat in his car struggling to compose his next story while talking to his girlfriend on his mobile (a shit flip-phone as it is later called by another character). Sung-gil gets out of the car, and in vain attempts to attract the attention of a beautiful young woman who jogs past him without acknowledging his presence. She drops her MP3 player, which Sung-gil picks up and runs after her to return it. Unfortunately for Sung-gil, he runs into a gang of 5 young men who terrorize our unlikely hero before he seeks shelter in a storehouse and is ‘rescued’ by a security guard -who like the other characters in the film is not who he appears to be – hence the English title of the short, Metamorphoses.

Running at a little under 30 minutes, Metamorphoses is an accomplished  piece of cinema which effectively and effortlessly mixes together elements of horror, action and fantasy genres. The action sequences are nicely realized, and the use of the free camera/shaky cam in these sequences, is not, for a change, overused. The shaky cam adds pace and tension as Sung-gil tries to flee his persecutors, and frenetic pace to the bloody action sequences in the storehouse when the tables are turned on the young gang. The horror is nicely balanced by a strong vein of humor throughout, which includes the director casting himself as a victim of the gang, whose dismembered arm Sung-gil discovers to his horror,  and about who one of the gang comments: “The guy that looked like E.T. with small eyes” and the dismissal of Sung-gil’s crucifix by the security guard turned vampire – as he is, along with the beautiful girl that leads Oh into danger – a “Buddhist vampire.”  The violence which erupts towards the end of the film, is an apt cinematic realization of the conventions of manhwa, with copious amounts of blood gushing out as dismembered limbs and a gouged out eye fly through the air. While OH cites diverse influences on his work including Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Transformations) and Korean traditional fairy tales of goblins (doggabi/도깨비), the shift from one genre to another and back marks Metamorphoses out as uniquely Korean and demonstrates the reason why South Korean cinema is generating so much interest within the global marketplace. There is a sense of innovation and inventiveness about contemporary South Korean Cinema, and in particular the manner in which it fuses the global with the local to produce something special as can be seen in Director OH’s Metamorphoses.

Cast: YOO Jeong-Ho, DONG Hyeon-bae, SONG Jae-hee, KIM Hyung-Hwan, JUNG Sung-hoon, SEO Sung-min, NOH Gi-Ju, Heeju

Written and Directed : OH In-chun

Director of Photography: UM Tae-Sik

Produced by: SHIN Sang-ho

Action Choreographed by: JEONG Hee-Jun

Production Designer: Frances E. OK

Make-up and Special Effects Supervisor: LEE Chang-man

Costume Designer: Frances E. OK

Edited by: OH In-chun

Music: Clarice E. OK

More detailed information on Director OH and Metamorphoses can be found at the HanCinema: The Korean Movie and Drama Database including details of how to contact the Director if you wish to view the film (which I highly recommend): Film Review: Inchun Oh\’s \”Metamorphoses\”

KIM Ki-duk at the London Korean Film Festival 2011

For me the most exciting news about this year’s festival is that Kim Ki-duk will be present for a director’s Q&A following the closing film, the award winning and intensely personal Arirang in which the director mediates on the nature of the creative process, and confronts his own personal demons. Arirang is a Korean folk song – according to some sources Korea’s unofficial national anthem – which has a number of regional and historical variations, while ostensibly a love song, Arirang’s theme of parting and sorrow provides a potent metaphor for Korea’s suffering as a nation and its enforced division at the end of the Korean War.

Kim Ki-duk is a prolific director, and while noted for what some see as the excessive [sexual] violence of his early films, Crocodile (악어, 1996), The Isle (섬, 2000)/Bad Guy(나쁜 남자, 2001), his films possess an artistry and authenticity that are the hallmarks of a true auteur. Director Kim’s 2006 mediation on the shifting nature of identity in a globalized world and ephemeral quality of love, Time ( 시간) is my favorite Kim Ki-duk film to date.

Director Kim has also encouraged and nurtured new talent  including  Juhn Jai-hong (Kim wrote the script for Juhn’s directorial debut, Beautiful (아름답다, 2008)  and Cheol-su Jang, who directed the extraordinarily beautiful, horrific and poignant Bedevilled (김복남 살인사건의 전말 , 2010) was assistant director to Kim on Samaritan Girl [사마리아, 2004] and Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and Spring [봄 여름 가을 겨울 그리고 봄:2003). Juhn Jai-hong's, second film, also scripted by Kim Ki-duk, Poongson (풍산개, 2011), will have its European Premiere as part of the North & South Section of the Festival.

London Korean Film Festival 2011

I was lucky enough to attend the preview screening of War of the Arrows (aka Arrow: The Ultimate Weapon [최종병기 활], KIM Han-Min, 2011), at the May Fair Hotel Screening Room on Friday, 16th September 2011.

The opening film on 3rd September 2011 is War of the Arrows, the third feature film, from KIM Han-Min, which has just smashed through the 6 million admissions barrier in South Korea. A historical drama, (사극 - sageuk), set in 1636 during the second Manchurian invasion of South Korea, War of the Arrows is an interesting film and certainly a change to the more traditional action-oriented films which are associated with South Korea in the West.  I suspect that it will play to a packed house on the opening night of the London Korean Film Festival, and so it should.

Before the screening, an announcement was made about the films that would be showing at the festival along with a show reel presenting a collage of the films. In this post, I will talk briefly about some of the films that will be showing and that I am looking forward to seeing during the festival.

First up is The Frontline ( 고지전,  PARK Sang-yeon: 2011), a murder mystery which is set towards the end of the Korean War – during the ceasefire between North and South leading up to the geographical and psychic division of Korea along the DMZ –  and managed an impressive 800,000 admissions in its opening week at the domestic box-office. Starring one of my favourite Korean actors,  SHIN Ha-kyun, who also had a starring role in PARK Chan-wook’s similarly themed Joint Security Area (공동경비구역, 2000) as well as the wonderful Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골, PARK Kwang-hyun, 2005), The FrontLine is part of the North & South Programme focusing on films made about the Korean  War.

Another film I am looking forward is Suicide Forecast (aka Suspicious Customers,수상한 고객들, JO Jin-mo, 2011), which is a comedy about an Insurance  Agent, Byung-Woo (RYOO Seung-bum) who takes it upon himself to try and talk some of his ex-clients from committing suicide. This seems like a nice counterpoint to my usual viewing habits in which a film about suicide would involve few laughs and a great deal of blood and gore. Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow (조선명탐정 : 각시투구꽃의 비밀, KIM Sok-yun: 2011), a period mystery/comedy  is another film to look out for in the Comedy Film Section of the Festival.

Perhaps surprisingly the film that I am most looking forward to is the animation, Leafie: A Hen Into the Wild (마당을 나온 암탉, OH Seong-yoon, 2011), a film about a chicken who desires to hatch her egg into the wild rather than in the pen in which she is kept. Based upon the best-selling children’s book by Hwang Sun-mi, this has been garnering excellent reviews and while South Korea is not recognized for its animation in the way that Japan is, it is representative of a vital and growing area of South Korean cinema. According to Jaeyeon Woo, the first animated South Korea film was Hong Kil-dong (홍길동전 in 1967 (The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2011). Leafie: A Hen Into The Wild, will be just one of the films in the Children’s Films and Animation Section which will bring this little recognized area of South Korean cinema into the spotlight. 

Action films will also be represented. Of particular note is the ‘Ryoo Seung-wan Retrospective’, which will include a showing of The Unjust: City of Violence(부당거래 2010) among others.

In addition is a ‘Mise-en-Scene shorts’ section which will include PARK Chan-wook’s and PARK Chan-kyong’s 10 minute short, Night Fishing, shot on the iPhone 4 which won the Golden Bear Award at the 61st Berlin Film Festival. Darcy Parquet talks about the film in some detail for Screen Daily, http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/latest-reviews/night-fishing/5023095.article.

The full programme has still to be released, so that I am not sure what horror films will be showing at the Festival. I am, however, pretty sure that The Cat  (고양이 : 죽음을 보는 두 개의 눈, BYUN Seung-wook, 2011) will NOT be showing. This is a shame as I have been hearing good things about it, and it is top of my films to see list (which is rather long I have to admit). I will however update this blog once I know what horror films will be showing. Here however is a clip from The Cat, which is available from yesasia.com for pre-order (http://bit.ly/nFy66p)

Terracotta Far East Film Festival

Just a quick note to say that if you are in around London over the next week, come and join us at the Terracotta Far East Film Festival (5th-8th May 2011). It should be fun, great film showing including Helldriver ( Yoshihiro Nishimura, Japan: 2011) and Man of Vendetta (Woo Min-ho, South Korea: 2010) and lots of events. Not to be missed.

Details can be found at:  http://terracottafestival.com/

Quick Update

Sorry all, that I haven’t posted anything on the site yet. Pressure of work at the moment, but attending a symposium and film festival on East Asian Cinema at Coventry over this weekend, and should have lots to report back on next week. Details of the symposium can be found here: http://cueafs.com/?page_id=1355 Quite a few panels on Korean horror which is always a good thing.

Welcome

This site is dedicated to all things horror related that originate from Asia (predominately East and South East Asia) including films, video games and television dramas. At the same time, images of the “orient” and the Other that emanate from the West will also discussed here. The title reflects this two-way flow, while at the same time enabling a dialogue about the fusion of Eastern and Western horror media  in a global context.

Colette, 23rd November 2010