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Blue Finch Film Releasing presents A Bittersweet Life, The Foul King and The Chaser on digital platforms from 8 April. These must-see modern Korean cult cinema classics from acclaimed filmmakers Kim Jee-woon and Na Hong-jin, are exploding back onto screens, with The Foul King available in the UK and Ireland for the very first time.

A Bittersweet Life

Gangster Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) has worked his way up the ranks in his organisation, earning the trust of his callous crime boss Mr. Kang, who assigns him to spy on his mistress fearing she may be having an affair. When Mr Kang's suspicions are found to be true, Sun-woo finds his life on the line when his choice to spare the mistress and her secret lover's lives starts an irreversible gang war.

This ultra-stylish neo noir is written and directed by renowned filmmaker Kim Jee-woon, and features a career-defining performance from international star Lee Byung-hun,...

Reliably one of the most euphoric and rewarding events on the circuit, the New York Asian Film Festival emerged at a time when hardcore cinephiles were forced to import prohibitively expensive foreign-region DVDs if they wanted to watch the latest hits from the other side of the world, and the first editions of the fest — then hosted at the Anthology Film Archives — got a major boost by screening hard-to-find cult objects and/or future classics at a time when Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean cinema were all on the rise to one degree or another.

No disrespect to the prestigious New York Film Festival, but Nyaff beat them to the punch when it comes to major auteurs like Park Chan-wook, whose “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” screened at the 2002 event alongside millennial breakouts like Corey Yuen’s “So Close,” unheralded pop masterpieces like Fumihiko Sori’s “Ping Pong,” and what the fuck did I just witness?...

Two women band together against the patriarchy in the sun-drenched rural revenge drama Her Hobby, the feature debut of director Ha Myung-mi. Taking a big page out of the playbook of cult island revenge drama Bedevilled, though without the graphic gore, Ha's film unfolds in a small farming community where the men are lecherous creeps and the nagging and nosy middle-aged women do nothing to stop them from preying on the few young women unlucky enough to be living amongst them. One of those women is the diffident young Jeong-in (Jung E-seo) who returns to the village following her divorce from an abusive husband, only for her beloved grandmother to pass away immediately upon her arrival. Left to fend for herself, she works on the...

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

“The Novelist’s Film,” which Wednesday earned Korean director Hong Sang-soo the Grand Jury Prize in Berlin, has scored multiple rights deals.

With Seoul-based Finecut handling the rights sales, the film was licensed to Ama Films for Greece and Cyprus, Mimosa Films for Japan, Atalante Cinema for Spain, Arizona Films Distribution for France and to The Cinema Guild for the U.S.

Finecut also did European Film Market business with “Contorted,” an unorthodox horror about a family tragedy. It pre-sold the title to Thailand’s Sahamongkol Films and to Indonesia’s Pt. Prima Cinema Multimedia).

“Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness,” was licensed by Finecut to Little Monster Films for Australia and, New Zealand, to Twin for Japan, Viva Networks for The Philippines, and to Long Shong for Taiwan. The film is directed by Im Sang-soo and was part of the official selection for Cannes in 2020, when the festival did not take place,...

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"When Sherman Met Frankenstein"

By Mark Cerulli

To celebrate the release of producer Sam Sherman’s memoir, When Dracula Met Frankenstein (Murania Press) Cinema Retro presents this exclusive interview with the man himself. In our two-hour conversation, the filmmaker demonstrated a virtual photographic memory when discussing his remarkable 60 plus year career. Our interview was a time capsule of the drive-in era where creative marketing, distribution and production exemplified the true spirit of independent filmmaking.

Sam Sherman grew up a horror and western film fan. The first horror film Sam ever saw was Universal’s classic monster comedy, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) which captivated his imagination at a very young age. Following his dream, he attended City College of New York to study filmmaking. Like most Cr readers, he was also an avid collector – in his case, horror stills, which one imagines were...

The first feature film by Park Ji-Wan is part of this year’s Florence Korea Film Fest. The director created with “The Day I Died: Unclosed Case” an unusually calm thriller. Her protagonist is a mature and emphatic police officer who has to close a seemingly simple case. But nothing will result as easy as her boss predicted.

“The Day I Died: Unclosed Case” is screening at the Florence Korea Film Fest

Hyeon-soo is a detective in Seoul. She is about the get back to work after a severe accident. Once back, she has to face internal investigation. At the same time, her husband is divorcing her, and he fights with dirty tricks to divert the attention from his own infidelity. Packed with this emotional baggage Hyeon-so travels to a small island where a girl went missing. Jung-Ui is a teenager living on the island isolated. She is the main...

If you're anywhere near Fort Lauderdale, make the trip over to the Mai-Kai restaurant on October 30th, where they'll have a drive-in screening of Beast of Blood and newly designed tiki mugs!

"What better way to celebrate Tiki Culture and Monster Mania this Halloween season then to attend the World-Famous Polynesian Pop Palace, The Mai-Kai Restaurant. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a Drive-In screening of the Tiki Jungle Creature Feature, Beast Of Blood.

True to its roots as a mid-century icon, the historic Mai-Kai restaurant will reanimate its parking lot as a drive-in theater, complete with a screening of Beast Of Blood, the fourth film in the "Blood Island" Monster franchise. Made in the Philippines in 1970 for the U.S. Drive-In market by Hemisphere Pictures, Beast Of Blood features a lush jungle-island setting with former Rockabilly singer and "Beach Party" star, John Ashley, alongside "Star Trek" alum and former Elvis Presley co-star,...

Translated by Grace Han

Choi Yoon-tae was born in 1982 in the Yeongdeok county on the eastern coast of South Korea. A graduate of the prestigious Korean Academy of Film Arts (Kafa), Choi would go on to work as an editor for a number of years and work in the editing department on projects such as “Bedevilled” and “The Piper”. 2019 saw him take a leap to behind the camera with his debut feature “Baseball Girl“, an independent production funded by Kafa. The film screened at the Busan International Film Festival in the “Korean Cinema Today – Panorama” section as well as competed at the Seoul Independent Film Festival, where it won the Independent Star Award.

On the occasion of “Baseball Girl” having its international premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival, we spoke to him on his inspiration for the story, the situation of female sportspersons in Korea, his leading lady Lee Joo-young and more.

As the old adage goes, “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” But Kim Sung-ho is a man who just cannot die in director Sin Jeong-won’s comedy thriller “The Night of the Undead”.

Synopsis

In this sci-fi comedy thriller, So-hee married the perfect man but while she looks into the secret of his everlasting stamina, she finds out she’s about to be killed by him and joins powers with her friends in order to kill him first.

“The Night of the Undead” is led by Lee Jung-hyun, who has only just hit cinemas the world over (or at least in the countries with open cinemas) with “Peninsula”. She is joined by Kim Sung-ho (“Door Lock”), whose rise to prominence after years of small but important supporting roles continues, with this being his first major leading role. Also featuring Seo Young-hee (“Bedevilled...

You’ll have to excuse me. Lately I’ve been gravitating towards a particular corner of the genre room, one in which a lot of films clamor for space and I don’t always recognize the labels. Brides of Blood (1968) is in that corner, one in which Filipino exploitation meets old fashioned horror tropes to the advantage of both.

Released at the end of May stateside by the Philippines' own Hemisphere Pictures, Brides of Blood did well for the company in drive-ins everywhere - well enough that two more sequels followed, Mad Doctor of Blood Island (also ‘68) and Beast of Blood (1970). But Brides is actually the second in what came to be known as the Blood Island series; this was preceded by Terror is a Man (1959) almost ten years prior.

Rudimentary knowledge for some, no doubt; but I’m a Blood Island virgin you see, and my late arrival to...

There’s a lot of Al Adamson floating around the horrorsphere right now thanks to Severin Films’ gargantuan box set, Al Adamson: The Masterpiece Collection. While I don’t have that set (yet), after watching the fantastic documentary Blood & Flesh about him and his works, I was itching to bed down with Al. This brings us to Brain of Blood (1971), a one part Frankenstein, one part espionage, all parts goofy fun that is so entertaining I am down for whatever next comes down the Adamson pike.

Distributed by Hemisphere Pictures, the Philippines-based company that made the Blood Island films, Brain of Blood was made to seem like a continuation of the series; having not seen any of those either (I Know), I can’t vouch for the similarities. However, I can say that what they did produce is drive-in fodder of the highest order, with enough ridiculousness to spill over to another screen.

At this time of our National Emergency, when people are being advised to avoid crowds and remain at home, how can the public go out into the world for entertainment and keep a safe distance from potential germ-laden crowds? The answer: take a trip back in time to a Drive-In Movie Theatre! As the coronavirus wreaks havoc on the movie industry and our way of life, major indoor theatre chains have been forced to close. As an alternative, Sam Sherman, veteran producer/distributor and showman of drive-in movies from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, will be making his newly-restored catalogue of “B-Movie” film classics from Independent-International Pictures Corporation available to drive-in operators nationwide with the help of veteran drive-in theatrical distributor Mel Maron; former AMC programmer, David Sehring of Drive-In-Sanity Films; drive-in promoter and movie reviewer, George Reis, who runs the popular DVD Drive-In website; and David Gregory of Severin Films...

While the Covid-19 pandemic is currently keeping cinemas from opening their doors, this summer could see a resurgence in drive-in movies that allow attendees to enjoy films from the comfort of their cars. It's fitting, then, that producer/distributor Sam Sherman will bring his eclectic catalogue of movies on a drive-in road show this summer, featuring Al Adamson movies such as Dracula vs. Frankenstein, The Blood Island franchise, and more!

Press Release: Freehold, NJ, April 20, 2020 - At this time of our National Emergency, when people are being advised to avoid crowds and remain at home, how can the public go out into the world for entertainment and keep a safe distance from potential germ-laden crowds? The answer: take a trip back in time to a Drive-In Movie Theatre where you can see movies the way they were meant to be seen … on the Big Screen … all in the safety and comfort of your car!

Hunter S. Thompson liked to say “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” And monstrous times call for monstrous measures. As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc on the movie industry, forcing major indoor theater chains to close and new movies to be released in miniature through streaming, the classic B-Movie film Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) will be seen on the big screens.

Veteran producer and B-movie showman, Sam Sherman, will take his newly restored reissue of the Independent-International Pictures library of B-Movie drive-in films on a retro roadshow. The camp classics tour will be screened across the nation on drive-in big screens. The road show kicks off on May 26 at the Circle Drive-In Theatre in Dickson city, Pennsylvania with a screening of the Al Adamson cult classic, Dracula vs. Frankenstein.

Sherman, who is currently finishing up his memoir, When Dracula Met Frankenstein, handpicked one of the studio’s most...

The crime thriller starring Cannes Best Actress award winner Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine) and top star Jung Woo-sung (Asura: The City Of Madness).

South Korea’s M-Line Distribution has sealed a raft of deals on recent Rotterdam Tiger Competition Special Jury Award winner Beasts Clawing At Straws led by French-speaking territories (Wild Bunch), Japan (Klockworx) and North America (815 Pictures).

Kim Yong-hoon’s debut feature film is a crime thriller starring Cannes Best Actress award winner Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine) and top star Jung Woo-sung (Asura: The City Of Madness).

Based on Japanese author Sone Keisuke’s dog-eat-dog novel Beasts That Cling To The Straw,...

South Korean cinema has a history of strong, engrossing female action leads. Films like “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance”, “Bedevilled” or last year’s “The Villainess” successfully mined the revenge thriller genre to give us memorable female characters. 2018 sees director Im Kyung-taek give us another action female lead in his sophomore effort “Sister”.

Synopsis

“Sister” is an action movie about a woman settling her secretive past and taking revenge for her sister who was abandoned by the world.

“Sister” stars former Champion-level amateur boxer Lee Si-young, who was last seen in “The Divine Move” and “Killer Toon”, as the titular elder sister. Also featuring Choi Jin-ho (“Illang: The Wolf Brigade”), Lee Jun-hyuk (“Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days”) and Park Se-wan (“Omok Girl”), “Sister” releases in South Korea in December, 2018.

When a filmmaker makes a great debut, expectations are bound to be quite high for the follow-up. Such was the case for Jang Cheol-soo, who took the world by storm with his terrific island revenge saga Bedevilled in 2010. When word first surfaced of his next feature, which would see him adapt the popular webcomic Secretly Greatly, the initial buzz was one of excitement. However, as it progressed through casting and then production, it became more and more clear that this would be a completely different kind of film, and certainly not one aimed at the audience that was so enthralled by his debut. Starring a trio of fresh-faced and supremely popular TV stars, Secretly Greatly is a resolutely commercial film that seeks to placate...

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

Fantasia 2013 has announced the second wave of titles screening this year. If the first wave, along with the announcements of special guests wasn’t enough to get you excited, this surely will.

009 Re: Cyborg

Japan Dir: Kenji Kamiyama

Mechanized mayhem, mysticism and moral ambiguity meet when the influential ’60s manga/anime property 009 Cyborg gets a dark, postmodern makeover care of the mighty Production I.G, in the spirit of the iconic Ghost In The Shell films. Anime fans won’t want to miss this one. North American Premiere.

Animals

Spain Dir: Marçal Forés

Evocative of both Donnie Darko and Leolo with a touch of Charles Burns, Animals taps into a volatile whirlpool of adolescent anxieties and identity issues, addressing complex themes through a wealth of unconventional approaches. A heavy trip, but an entertaining and fantastical one. Winner: Best First Feature, Sant Jordi de Cinematografia 2013, Official Selection: Sitges 2012, Miami International Film Festival 2013. Quebec Premiere.

The full Fantasia 2013 lineup will be announced next Tuesday, July 9th, but in the meantime we have the second wave of titles to share, and per usual, it's a doozy!

From the Press Release:

Following last week’s first wave of programming announcements, the Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to unveil several additional highlights to warm you up for our July 9th Press Conference, where we’ll be unveiling of our full 120+ film lineup. The festival runs from July 18 to August 6.

Official Opening Night Film – Takashi Miike’s Shield Of Straw (North American Premiere)

Hot off its screening in official completion at the Cannes Film Festival, Takashi Miike’s riveting crime thriller Shield Of Straw will be kicking off Fantasia’s 2013 edition with its first screening on the North American continent. Shield Of Straw stars Takao Osawa, Nanako Matsushima, and Tatsuya Fujiwara. Fantasia’s 1997 screening of Fudoh marked the...

South Korea’s Showbox/Mediaplex has sold box office hit Secretly Greatly to Dreamwest Pictures for North America.

Directed by Jang Cheol-soo (Bedevilled), the action comedy drama about North Korean spies infiltrating a small South Korean village is set to make its international premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival on July 11.

Seoul-based Dreamwest Pictures will then release the film on July 19, starting with Los Angeles and New York City, followed by 10 to 15 cities across the Us. The company will also release the film in Canada on July 26 after screening at the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Featuring up-and-coming stars Kim Soo-hyun, Park Ki-woong and Lee Hyun-woo, the film is based on a hit online cartoon with more than 40 million views. The three North Korean spies take on the guises of an idiot, a rock musician and a high school student.

Secretly Greatly broke the local Korean film record for opening day with 498,000 admissions on its...

South Korea’s Showbox/Mediaplex has sold box office hit Secretly Greatly to Dreamwest Pictures for North America.

Directed by Jang Cheol-soo (Bedevilled), the action comedy drama about North Korean spies infiltrating a small South Korean village is set to make its international premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival on July 11.

Seoul-based Dreamwest Pictures will then release the film on July 19, starting with Los Angeles and New York City, followed by 10 to 15 cities across the Us. The company will also release the film in Canada on July 26 after screening at the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Featuring up-and-coming stars Kim Soo-hyun, Park Ki-woong and Lee Hyun-woo, the film is based on a hit online cartoon with more than 40 million views. The three North Korean spies take on the guises of an idiot, a rock musician and a high school student.

Secretly Greatly broke the local Korean film record for opening day with 498,000 admissions on its...

Article by Charlie Dunlap

Cheers, my dark and demented kiddies… Looks like we’ve survived another apocalyptic year in no small thanks to a fresh batch of impressively morbid goodies, many of which would have collectively stained your silver screens black and red if theaters could even find the testicular fortitude to show them!

Although most film critics don’t have the balls required to plumb these newfound depths of depravity, those with enough courage will emerge on the other side (albeit after many hot and soapy baths), triumphantly hearkening 2012 as a banner year for the horror genre. While other media publications swamp you with pretentious, so-called “best of 2012″ lists destined to put you into a permanent slumber, your loyal media daemon and macabre sin eater has collected the delectably worst offenders spawned by the film industry’s – very alive and kicking – bastard children.

Rip apart your deceitful newspapers, spit...

At first glance it may be difficult to make the connection between Yim Pil-sung's dark fantasy, Hansel & Gretel and Jang Cheol-soo's visceral revenge thriller Bedevilled, but a little digging beyond the surface shows that they both stem from the same rotten place, the family.  These two films, and many if not most Korean thrillers and horror films exploit the facade of family as a wholesome thing. They tear down those most comforting walls, the ones which keep you safe inside your home with your family, and instead use those same walls to trap their protagonists in increasingly hostile circumstances. This theme is by now means limited to these two films, however, in watching them one after the other, the similarities began to jump out...

There's no shortage of horror films, psychological thrillers, and deep, dark character studies that delve into the darkest parts of the "spurned woman" story, and while many are simplistic rape/revenge stories of some kind, several are quite fascinating and morbidly insightful. (Films like Grace, May, Teeth, and Inside, for example.) The ferocious new import from Korea entitled Bedevilled most assuredly falls into the latter category. While it does deal with horrific abuse of women -- and while virtually all of the male characters are invariably scum -- Bedevilled is less interested in the formative abuse than it is in the resulting fury. In other words, a woman can only be pushed so far, and if you push the wrong buttons, you'll bring down the wrath of unholy hell.

The story begins in familiar territory: a brusque and unpleasant professional woman who works in a Seoul bank decides to visit...

Here's the thing... people need to stop traveling to remote islands. Things just never work out there. Locals are never friendly, and if you're lucky, by the time you leave you may just have most of your pieces intact.

From the Press Release

Yeong-hie Seo (The Chaser) and Seong-won Ji (Harmony) star in director Chul-soo Jang's chilling first feature Bedevilled (review here), debuting on Blu-ray™, DVD, and Digital October 9th from Well Go USA Entertainment. When her pleas for help are ignored and cause her daughter's death, a woman seeks revenge on the person she blames. Bedevilled won the Audience Award for “Best Film” and Yeong-hie Seo was named “Best Actress” at Austin’s 2010 Fantastic Fest. In addition, the film was awarded the Grand Prize as Best Film at the 2011 Gérardmer Film Festival and Yeong-hie Seo won “Best Actress” at the 2011 Fantasporto International Fantasy Film Award. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Bedevilled – The Award-Winning, International Hit Revenge Horror Film Debuts on Blu-ray®, DVD and Digital October 9th

Bonus Features Include a Behind-the-Scenes Featurette

Yeong-hie Seo (The Chaser) and Seong-won Ji (Harmony) star in Director Chul-soo Jang chilling first feature Bedevilled, debuting on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital October 9th from Well Go USA Entertainment. When her pleas for help are ignored and cause her daughter’s death, a woman seeks revenge on the person she blames.… More...

Heads up, horror fans. Like us, you've probably been waiting quite a while now to see Jang Cheol-soo's nasty horror thriller Bedevilled hit the States and the fine folks at Well Go USA have finally announced that it's going to happen! The flick is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on October 9th and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Year: 2010

Director: Chul-soo Jang

Writer: Kwang-young Choi

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Marina Antunes

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Revenge can be an ugly thing and in movies, particularly those trickling in from the east, they're a particularly popular trope. Some of the best are hugely entertaining, action packed extravaganzas but in the case of Chul-soo Jang's debut Bedevilled, revenge is a dish best served after settling.

It opens in Seoul with Hae-won, a beautiful woman with attitude who is asked to take a vacation. She meanders around the city for a few days before setting off to a small island where, as a child, she had spent some time with her grandparents. Nothing much has changed since Hae-won's youth and she quickly, though reluctantly at first, re-ignites her friendship with Bok-nam, a young woman who lives on the island with her daughter, her husband and her husband's family who...

The New York Asian Film Festival has announced that its tenth anniversary edition will open on July 1 with the North American premiere of Yoshimasa Ishibashi's Milocrorze: A Love Story ("one solid slab of psychedelia," promises the festival; image above) and close on July 14 with the New York premiere of Na Hong-Jin's The Yellow Sea (aka The Murderer), which has just screened at Cannes in Un Certain Regard (see the roundup).

There'll be two Centerpiece Presentations, Benny Chan's Shaolin, with Andy Lau, Nic Tse and Jackie Chan, and Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!! — which, you may remember Danny Kasman caught in Cannes, and got quite a nice kick out of it, too. The festival will also be screening Miike's "director's cut" of 13 Assassins.

There'll be three special focuses. First off...

Wu Xia: Hong Kong's Flying Swordsmen

Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame...

An irate office worker goes on a forced vacation to her home town on a remote Korean island to reunite begrudgingly with her childhood friend. When she gets there she finds the village is extremely backwards and her friend is ill-treated. Eventually her weakness, fear and selfishness cause a devastating chain of events that leave the island in chaos and her own life in danger.Bedevilled is Chul-soo Yang's directorial debut but he served as assistant director on Ki-Duk Kim's Samaritan Girl, and the influence is there but ultimately he makes the film his own and it is a stellar first feature. The dictionary definition of the word bedevilled is "to torment mercilessly; plague." This explanation immediately has relevance as the opening shot is the streets...

Chul-soo Yang’s Bedevilled (2010) is a slow burning South Korean psychological thriller that hits hard at the end, which is the reason why it wouldn’t be categorised as a film for the faint hearted. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to categorise it in a genre altogether. It would probably be wrong to call it a horror, a drama or a revenge film although it has elements of all three. It is, in the end, a film concerning human nature driven to extremities.

Hae-won (Seong-won Ji) is a young middle class woman with sociopathic tendencies. Cold and distant, she seems to avoid any type of personal involvement, which affects her life in all its aspects. She refuses to identify the authors of a rape, denies any help to a desperate elderly customer at work and slaps one of her colleagues - as a result of which she is forcefully...

The revenge thriller Bedevilled that marks the directorial debut of Korean helmer Jang Cheoi-Sowas was released on DVD, Blu-ray & Est yesterday and we have teamed up with Optimum Releasing to give away five Blu-ray copies to our readers.

Read on to find out how…

A film with excruciating suspense leading to a gore leaden whirlwind of violence starts with Hae-won (Ji Sung-won), a middle management woman who with the increasing pressures of work and home situation decides to take a break from it all and return to the pleasant, remote island that she spent happy summers with her grandparents. Arriving she finds her childhood friend Bok-nam (Yeong-Hie So). Ecstatic to see her friend, Bok-nam begs her to help her and her child escape from the island. Perplexed Hae-won ignores her pleas but is shocked to witness the horrific torment that Bok-nam endures every day. Each woman is stretched to their...

Excellent news out of Korea yesterday. Though The Man From Nowhere is not a perfect film, a bit clumsy down the middle, it is a pretty darned good one. I believe all of us who were in Austin saw it and we all liked it. Rather a lot. So did the Korean Film Awards, giving out seven of them to the thriller.

"The Man From Nowhere" triumphed at the 2010 Korea Film Awards on Thursday, raking up the most trophies at the annual ceremony including its main star Won Bin who won the prize for best actor. The action flick directed by Lee Jeong-beom took the awards for best actor, best new actress, best cinematography, best music, best lighting, best visual effects and best editor. The movie, also starring child actress Kim Sae-ron, has been one of the hottest movies of the year, attracting over six million moviegoers during its run...

AFI Fest 2010 announced Thursday the four feature audience awards and two short film jury winners, respectively. Among the audience winners, the World Cinema feature winner is Sundance entry Boy, about a young boy in 1980’s New Zealand who confronts his long-absent father when he returns home (Taika Waititi. New Zealand). (Trailer is below.) The New Auteurs feature winner is Bedevilled, about an island vacation that turns deadly (Cheol-soo Jang. South Korea). The Young Americans feature winner is Littlerock, about a Japanese student who discovers a different America than the one in her dreams (Mike Ott. USA). The Breakthrough award winner (accompanied by a $5,000 cash prize) is Hamill, inspired by the life of deaf Ufc fighter, Matt Hamill (Oren Kaplan. USA). As in previous ...

Grimmupnorth 2010 is coming to Manchester for a second time this Halloween! Readers may remember last year’s coverage from the first Grimmfest last October ‘09. Well, we’re going back for more this year too. Festival director Simeon Halligan and his crew have spent all year finding some amazing new titles to screen at Manchester’s biggest horror film festival, including Evil: In The Time Of Heroes, which I missed at Eiff so am well up for seeing. There’s also the inventively named Canadian shocker, Dead Hooker In A Trunk, the Japanese genre mash-up Alien Vs Ninja, Thai thriller Slice, Zombie mock-u-mentary Reel Zombies and a horror doc featuring all kinds of industry insiders, The Splat Pack. There’s also a ton of activities and seminars for festival goers to participate in too. Personally I’m looking forward to the special screening for my favourite Argento film, Deep Red.

Filed under: Cinematical

'Bedevilled', directed by Jang Cheol-so (S. Korea)

Everyone gets fed up sometimes. Hae-won (Ji Sung-won) is a curt young woman, bullied by thugs on the street when she's not denying loan applications at her bank. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, she has plenty of time with which to take a much-needed vacation to her childhood home on Moo-do Island. For Hae-won, it's a rural locale devoid of modern conveniences; for Bok-nam (a terrific Seo Yeong-hee), her friend's arrival is a welcome respite from the constant chores and sexual assaults that make up her day-to-day life. Bok-nam is curious about the mainland, and just as desperate to flee Moo-do with her daughter in tow. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, though, the island's population begins to be whittled down with ruthless efficiency...

Making his directorial debut, Jang Cheol-so slowly...

Filed under: Cinematical

'Bedevilled', directed by Jang Cheol-so (S. Korea)

Everyone gets fed up sometimes. Hae-won (Ji Sung-won) is a curt young woman, bullied by thugs on the street when she's not denying loan applications at her bank. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, she has plenty of time with which to take a much-needed vacation to her childhood home on Moo-do Island. For Hae-won, it's a rural locale devoid of modern conveniences; for Bok-nam (a terrific Seo Yeong-hee), her friend's arrival is a welcome respite from the constant chores and sexual assaults that make up her day-to-day life. Bok-nam is curious about the mainland, and just as desperate to flee Moo-do with her daughter in tow. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, though, the island's population begins to be whittled down with ruthless efficiency...

Making his directorial debut, Jang Cheol-so slowly...

Korean filmmaker Jang Cheol-so's feature film debut Bedevilled took home the Audience Award for best horror film at this week's Fantastic Fest. A searing, no-holds-barred meditation on domestic violence, and a metaphor for the lack of empathy in today's Korea, I found Bedevilled deeply uncomfortable to sit through. But the effectiveness of the story – about a Seoul loan officer who, after avoiding testifying in a rape case, runs off to vacation with relatives on a remote island only to discover far worse levels of inhumanity– is undeniable. By popular demand, two simultaneous screenings were held this week, a rarity at Fantastic Fest 2010. After my screening, the director spoke (via translator) about his...

The winner of the Audience Award at Fantastic Fest 2010, Bedevilled, nearly made me throw up.  It was not the most violent film I saw, but it was definitely the saddest. It proves once again that cinematic brutality stems from an emotional connection, rather than sheer gore.  Bedevilled really got to me.

It is a simple story, one that argues that one who witnesses cruelty, but does nothing to stop it, shares in the guilt.  At first you think this movie will be told against the backdrop of a police drama in contemporary Soeul, but director Jang Cheol-so quickly changes things up by bringing the action to an isolated island as loaded with bold metaphor as Scorsese's last picture.

Bedevilled is instantly engaging, wonderfully shot and very, very manipulative.  Some fellow critics dubbed me a chump for "falling for it," but I don't think I would have had the performances not been this sharp.

Jenn already covered the list of this year's Fantastic Fest Award winners in her Fantastic Fest: Day 5 Dispatch, so I'll just share the highlights through photos. And like Jette mentioned in her earlier post, words are hard to put together when you average five films a day and a 4 am bedtime.

The audience award winner of Fantastic Fest 2010 was Bedevilled, with director Jang Cheol-so and Producer Han Man Taeg (seen above). Bedevilled is primarily a horror film, but the story is a blend of dark humor, drama and suspense. Actress Ji Sung-won took the Best Acress award for the Amd and Dell "Next Wave" Spotlight Competition for her role as Hae-won Chung, a young woman with a bad attitude living in Seoul. She's identified as a murder witness, but she doesn’t want to cooperate with the investigation. An involuntary vacation leads to even more trouble.

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When Jang Cheol-so's Korean revenge drama "Bedevilled" premiered at Cannes, critics had a tough time figuring out if they liked it. As the portrait of a damaged woman whose life consists of an abusive marriage and little else, it spends nearly an hour lingering in her depressing existence before suddenly turning into a slasher movie. It's an unkempt mix, a chaotic unevenness that fits the feeling of entrapment plaguing the protagonist ...

 

Earlier this week, several women I know at Fantastic Fest commented that they're "over" certain kinds of violence in film, particularly rape/revenge themes and taking the woman-in-peril concept to brutal extremes. Earlier today, Ain't It Cool contributor Massawyrm made a similar comment. After reading it aloud to a table of badgeholders, there was a moment of pause when someone said, "I don't think I saw rape yesterday." How jaded we've become, when we have to notice if we haven't seen such brutality in film. But that's a bigger discussion than I have time for here.

Interestingly, the first movie of my day did involve rape, but was not among those films I'd classify as typical: Bedevilled, which won a Fantastic Fest audience award as well as a best actress win for Seo Yeong-hee. She delivers a powerhouse performance as a woman struggling to escape her oppressive life just as...

Though the festival continues for a few days yet all of the jury deliberations have wrapped up and each publicly announced film has screened at least once, allowing the audience votes to be tallied, and so last night the awards hardware (winners at Fantastic get beer steins) was broken out. And here are the winners:

Best Festival Bumper: Cherry Pie

Best Shakey Face: Cole Dabney

Best Animated Short: Teclopolis

Best Fantastic Short: Sorry, I Love You

Best Horror Short: The Legend of Beaver Dam with an honorable mention to Deus Irae

The features are broken into four sections: Audience Awards, Fantastic Features, Horror Features and the signature Amd Next Wave section awarding the best of the up and comers. Around these parts the Amd Next Wave is considered the top prize. And these went to:

Audience Awards:

Winner: Bedevilled

1st Runner Up: Golden Slumber

2nd Runner Up: Rubber

3rd Runner...

After the dust has settled at Austin's 2010 Fantastic Fest, the audiences and esteemed juries announced the winners of this year's awards. Jang Cheol-so's "Bedevilled" took home the Audience Award for best film, and the "Next Wave" Competition winner was Jorge Michel Grau's "We Are What We Are." "Bedevilled" tells the story of a girl who takes revenge on her tormentors after reaching her breaking point. Grau's "We Are What We ...

Fantastic Fest came to a close late last night after numerous horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, Asian, and cult films were screened at the Alamo Drafthouse.

It culminated with an awards ceremony in Austin, TX to honor the best of the festival.

The press release from Fantastic Fest, including all the award winners, is embedded below:

Austin, TX— Monday, September 27, 2010— Fantastic Fest is excited to announce this year’s crop of Fantastic Fest titles includes some of the brightest and hardest-hitting films of all time. We’ve seen a psycho-kinetic tire, a secret ninja, a town invaded by 8-bit enemies, and a family of cannibals that you might consider going home with. It’s a terrible task to pick favorites and single out any of the magnificent films, but our esteemed team of jurors have done the nearly impossible and chosen the best and most striking films of the festival.

Tonight in Austin the awards for this year's top films at Fantastic Fest were announced. Find out who won both the audience and juried awards after the jump. Let's look at horror first... The big winners this year were Kidnapped, A Horrible Way to Die, and the Korean thriller Bedevilled. Kidnapped nabbed two prizes -- Best Horror Picture and Best Director (for Miguel Ángel Vivas), while A Horrible Way won Best Screenplay (Simon Barrett), Best Actor (A J Bowen), and Best Actress (Amy Seimetz). Meanwhile Bedevilled broke out of its genre to score the Audience Award for its director, Jang Cheol-so.  In the short film category, Best Horror Short went to Legend of Beaver Dam (director Jerome...

Fantastic Fest has announced the list of award winners for the 2010 festival. Jang Cheol-so's Bedevilled won the audience award, Miguel Ángel Vivas' Kidnapped won Best Horror Film, and Sound of Noise won Best Picture in the Fantastic Features category. Read the full list of winners after the jump. Fantastic Fest 2010 Announces The Fantastic Fest Awards Austin, TX--- Monday, September 27, 2010--- Fantastic Fest is excited to announce this year’s crop of Fantastic Fest titles includes some of the brightest and hardest-hitting films of all time. We’ve seen a psycho-kinetic tire, a secret ninja, a town invaded by 8-bit enemies, and a family of cannibals that you might consider going home with. It’s a terrible task to pick favorites and single out any of the magnificent films, but our esteemed team of jurors have done the nearly impossible and chosen the best and most striking films of the festival.

Austin, TX--- Monday, September 27, 2010--- Fantastic Fest is excited to announce this year’s crop of Fantastic Fest titles includes some of the brightest and hardest-hitting films of all time. We’ve seen a psycho-kinetic tire, a secret ninja, a town invaded by 8-bit enemies, and a family of cannibals that you might consider going home with. It’s a terrible task to pick favorites and single out any of the magnificent films, but our esteemed team of jurors have done the nearly impossible and chosen the best and most striking films of the festival. The juries were comprised of some of the most esteemed filmmakers, critics, festival directors and show biz people in the industry. Their thoughtful deliberations provided the following acknowledgments of cinematic excellence in all things Fantastic: The audience awards are presented by accounting firm Maxwell Locke & Ritter, who provided the certified tabulation of ballots this year.

Have you ever felt a chill on a warm day? Bedevilled unfurls under calm, sunny skies in a location that resembles a certain kind of paradise. Moo-do Island is pastoral and lush. Populated with just a handful of people, it looks like the perfect getaway for a woman on the run from her personal demons.

Hae-won (Ji Sung-won) witnessed a crime, but doesn't want to testify against the gang of young toughs. Instead, she explodes in anger at a persistent older woman seeking a bank loan. She's even more furious when a fellow worker helps the old lady, after Hae-won had yelled at the woman to get out and never return.

Hae-won's outburst prompts her boss to order her to get out -- and take a week's vacation. She is clearly on edge from her encounter with the hoodlums, but seems the type to keep it bottled up inside until it bubbles forth in rage.

Another August Bank Holiday weekend has just left us, and along with it so too has this year’s Film4 FrightFest. The UK’s premier horror film festival continues to go from strength to strength and this year was certainly no different – filled with thrills, chills, spills, controversy, legendary guest appearances and more. Dread Central was on the scene for the five days of the fest, braving malnutrition, sleep deprivation and impaired liver function to bring you all the pics, news and reviews we know you crave!

Of course, if you’re a regular follower of the site, you’ll already be aware that the opening film was the world premiere of Adam Green’s excellent Hatchet II (review here). Along with him, Green brought stars Tony Todd, Danielle Harris and Kane Hodder to give the audience a well received Q&A session after the screening as well as a poster signing.