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Conceived in Busan and born in Seoul, Cho Jinseok is a filmmaker who also developed the Cholol Technique for philosophical inquiry by blending contemporary western and Korean practices of argumentation. He studied media and communications theory and Chinese language at university. Colonel Panics is his debut film.

We talk to him about his life, the film, history, technology, art and many other topics.

How does an S.Korean who deals with philosophy, and has studied media and communications theory, and Chinese language, ends up shooting a Japanese film?

A friend in Tokyo approached me a couple of years ago and asked me whether I wanted to housesit their place as they were going away for quite a while. I agreed, made the move to Tokyo and lived there for a while, soaking up the culture, the history and the people. I found the political situation in Japan very fascinating and...

The film revolves around two men, who seem to be living in different timelines. The first one, Kaito, is living in the present, is a writer for a political magazine with a nationalistic line. Despite his seemingly regular persona of a dedicated employee who occasionally drinks with his friends, he has another, quite dark and perverse one. He keeps stalking Kuniko, an ex-colleague in university he used to have an affair with, who is now a very successful author. Furthermore, he has regular sex sessions with Yumi, a prostitute, where he is dressed in a Japanese military uniform and she is made to act in various, submissive roles, at least when he is not masturbating with a tube-like gadget. Even more than that, he seems to hide a rage in him, which is bound to be released at some point. This moment comes when a colleague declines his invitation to dinner.

It was back in April that we shared the first teaser for Cho Jinseok's Japanese cyberpunk thriller Colonel Panics. Blessed with an array of high profile talent behind the scenes talent from the Japanese cult movie and video game scene - FX wizard Nishimura Yoshihiro (Tokyo Gore Police), producer Inoue Midori (Sakaguchi Tak's Re:Born), gaming veteran Watanabe Yun (The Evil Within) -this is clearly one for cult movie fans to keep an eye on. And now we follow with a better look at the picture in the form of a new poster and trailer for the film. This one is definitely from the underground and for the underground - mainstream audiences would be left with their heads spinning here - but if you're a part...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Though the upcoming Colonel Panics may be the directorial debut of Korean filmmaker Cho Jinseok there is an array of talent behind the cyberpunk thriller - that talent overwhelmingly from Japan, oddly enough - sure to attract the attention of regular Twitch readers. There's SFX wizard Nishimura Yoshihiro (Tokyo Gore Police), for one thing. There's producer Inoue Midori - currently hard at work on Sakaguchi Tak's Re:Born - for another. There's The Evil Within cinematics director Watanabe Yun moving over to film from the world of video games as art director. And so the list goes on for what appears to be a promising indie effort. The destinies of two men, one from the future and one from the past, become entwined as a malevolent...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...