KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: JOINT SECURITY AREA
Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun) and Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho) see things from different sides in JOINT SECURITY AREA
JOINT SECURITY AREA (Park Chan-wook, 2000)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, June 29, 7:00
Admission: free; reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.koreanculture.org
While most free Korean Movie Nights at Tribeca Cinemas focus on newer films, this week it reaches back to 2000 to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War. Park Chan-wook’s (the Vengeance Trilogy) drama takes place at the DMZ Joint Security Area known as Panmunjeom, the dividing line between North and South Korea and where soldiers from each country actually face one another directly. Major Sophie Jean of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (Lee Young-Ae) has arrived to investigate the violent murder of two North Korean officers but discovers during her inquiry that key facts are missing involving South Korean hero Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok’s (Lee Byung-hun) relationship to injured North Korean Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho). Told in a series of flashbacks, the gripping story deals with duty, honor, courage, and brotherhood — as well as the absurdity that war and politics inject into individual behavior and common human decency. As always, Song Kang-ho’s (THE HOST, THIRST) big, round face dominates the screen, his hulking figure at the center of the controversy.
CINE FEST PETROBRAS: BRASIL – NY
Music legend Bezerra da Silva, the father of Gangsta Samba, is profiled in Márcia Derraik and Simplício Neto’s documentary STRAIGHT TO THE POINT at the Brazilian Film Festival at Tribeca Cinemas
BRAZILIAN FILM FESTIVAL
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
June 5-12
212-941-2001
www.tribecafilm.com
www.brazilianfilmfestival.com
The eighth annual Brazilian Film Festival takes place at Tribeca Cinemas June 5-12, featuring fifteen films that both celebrate and take a hard look at Brazil and its vibrant history and culture. Felipe Hirsch and Daniela Thomas’s SUNSTROKES portrays unrequited love, Fernana Tornaghi and Ricardo Bruno’s QUEEN OF BRAZIL follows a small-town boy’s attempt to become Miss Gay Brazil, Jorge Bodanzky’s WITHIN THE RIVER, AMONG THE TREES heads into the Alto Solimões region to bring photography workshops to the native people, and José Joffily’s BLUE EYES delves into the growing worldwide immigration problem and racial profiling. Throughout the festival, DJ Marcelo Brasil will be spinning tunes in the Lounge Inffinito, with the free June 12 closing night and awards show being held at SummerStage in Rumsey Playfield, with live music and more.
ARTIVIST FILM FESTIVAL
Saturday night’s screening of Barry Levinson’s POLIWOOD documentary will be followed by a discussion with producers Tim Daly, Robin Bronk, and Robert E. Baruc
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Through March 27
212-941-2001
www.artivists.org
www.tribecacinemas.com
Combining art and activism, the Artivist Film Festival is “dedicated to addressing human rights, children’s advocacy, environmental preservation, and animal advocacy.” The seventh annual festival kicked off last night with a screening of Jamal Joseph’s PERCY SUTTON: A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and HARLEM IS MUSIC and continues today with Brian Single’s CHILDREN OF WAR, about Ugandan children who have escaped from the Lord’s Resistance Army, preceded by Linda Chavez’s THE ONE WAYZ, involving an immigrant family dealing with the father’s deportation to Mexico. Friday night also includes Brian Malone’s INTELLIGENT LIFE: CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR WORLD and Taghreed Saadeh’s ROUGH CUT. The stars come out on Saturday night, featuring Barry Levinson’s POLIWOOD documentary, which examines the 2008 Democratic and Republican Conventions; the compilation film 8, with shorts by Gus Van Sant, Mira Nair, Gael Garcia Bernal, Gaspar Noel, Addis Ababa, Jane Campion, Jan Kounen, and Wim Wenders; Joyce Chopra’s New York-set GRAMERCY STORIES (followed by a discussion with Chopra); and Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy’s BELONGING documentary about climate change, narrated by Dustin Hoffman. The Artivist Film Festival shows that the world needs a lot of help – and that each one of us can make a difference.
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE
A kidnapping goes terribly wrong in ultra-violent Korean flick
SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (Park Chan-wook, 2002)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Alternating Tuesday nights at 7:00 through April 6
Admission: free; reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.koreanculture.org
Park Chan-wook kicked off his revenge trilogy with SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (even though the second film, OLDBOY, was the first one released in the States), a creepy, quirky tale that lays low for quite a while before busting loose with a massive splattering of the old ultra-violence. After deaf-mute Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin) fails miserably in a desperate, ridiculous attempt to get his dying sister (Ji-eun Lim) a kidney, the recently laid-off Ryu is convinced by his anarchist girlfriend, Youngmin (Doo-na Bae), to kidnap the four-year-old daughter (Bo-bae Han) of Park (Kang-ho Song), the man who owned the factory that kicked him out. But when the plan goes awry, both Ryu and Park become obsessed with avenging their torn-apart lives. Although the first half of the film is too slow and heads off in too many directions, the second half brings everything together, chock full of the kind of violence promised by the title. The film is being screened as part of Korean Movie Night presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service and Subway Cinema.
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: BREATHLESS
Yeon-hee (Kim Kkot-bi) and Sang-hoon (Yang Ik-june) make an unlikely pair in BREATHLESS
BREATHLESS (DDONGPARI) (Yang Ik-june, 2008)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, February 23, 7:00
Series continues alternating Tuesday nights at 7:00 through April 6
Admission: free; reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.tribecacinemas.com
www.koreanculture.org
Named Best Debut Feature at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival and winner of a Tiger Award at Rotterdam, Yang Ik-june’s BREATHLESS is an involving portrait of family hidden beneath a veil of blood and violence. Yang, who wrote, directed, and produced the film, also stars as Sang-hoon, a local gangster who goes out every day and does whatever is necessary to collect for his loan-shark boss, Man-sik (Jeong Man-sik). Dour, angry, and full of rage, Yang curses at and strikes his coworkers, cops, and strangers as well as the people who owe Man-sik money. Not one to make friends, he is soon hanging around with a high school girl, Yeon-hee (Kim Kkot-bi), who has taken a liking to him and his young nephew, Hyeong-in (Kim Hee-soo). Although they don’t know it, Yeon-hee and Sang-hoon are drawn to each other because of their difficult relationships with their fathers, both of whom are struggling to deal with different kinds of tragedy. Although Yang does try to pull at the heartstrings with some over-the-top melodrama near the end, BREATHLESS is well-paced study of family and friendship, following a bloody path to show the importance of blood. The free screening at Tribeca Cinemas will be followed by a Q&A with Yang, who mortgaged his house to make this low-budget picture.
BREATHLESS concludes the first part of the free Korean series being screened alternating Tuesdays at Tribeca Cinemas. The second section, Remakes, which includes Korean films currently scheduled to be remade in English, kicks off March 9 with Ryu Seung-wan’s DIE BAD, followed by Park Chan-wook’s SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE on March 23 and Ahn Byung-ki’s PHONE on April 6.
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: BEAUTIFUL
Korean psychological thriller looks at beauty and dangerous obsession
BEAUTIFUL (A-LEUM-DAB-DA) (Juhn Jai-hong, 2008)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, February 9, 7:00
Admission: free; reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.tribecacinemas.com
www.koreanculture.org
Juhn Jai-hong’s 2008 debut feature, BEAUTIFUL, based on an unfinished script by Kim Ki-duk, is a harrowing psychological tale of dangerous obsession. Cha Soo-yeon stars as Kim Eun-young, a beautiful woman who wants to live a normal life but is constantly harassed by teenage girls who want her autograph, refusing to believe she is not a celebrity, and men who are uncontrollably drawn to her because of her perfect face and body. When one of her many secret admirers attacks her in her apartment, she soon decides to try extreme methods to change her appearance as she begins a slow descent into madness. At first, a local detective (Choi Myeong-soo) seeks to protect her, but he becomes obsessed with her as well, leading to a violent, dramatic conclusion. BEAUTIFUL goes from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again as Kim proclaims her desire to live despite the horrible things that are happening to her, with Junh alternating between the lurid and the exploitative to the poignant and heartbreaking, in some ways a mix of executive producer Kim Ki-Duk’s TIME and BAD GUY. The film is being screened as part of Korean Movie Night presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service; the series continues on February 23 with BREATHLESS, a film written, directed by, and starring Yang Ik-june, followed by three films in March and April (every other Tuesday) that are all being remade in America.
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: MEMBERS OF THE FUNERAL
Dysfunctional family comes together unexpectedly in MEMBERS OF THE FUNERAL
MEMBERS OF THE FUNERAL (Baek Seung-bin, 2008)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, January 26, free, 7:00
Reservations accepted at info@koreanculture.org or 212-759-9550
www.subwaycinema.com
www.tribecacinemas.com
The Korean Cultural Service is presenting Korean Movie Night on the second and fourth Tuesdays of January and February at Tribeca Cinemas, with free screenings of contemporary Korean cinema. Things got under way on January 12 with the New York premiere of Noh Young-seok’s DAYTIME DRINKING and continue on January 26 with the North American premiere of Baek Seung-bin’s 2008 dysfunctional family drama MEMBERS OF THE FUNERAL. The death of a teenage boy brings together an estranged father (Yoo Ha-bok), who is attracted to younger men, mother (Park Myeong-sin), who is a mean-spirited teacher but desperately wants to be a mystery writer, and daughter (Kim Byeol), who has a thing for dead people. Flashbacks reveal how they each came to be the way they are, deeply scarred by nasty grandparents, closeted therapists, and other odd figures. Meanwhile, one of the mother’s students (Lee Joo-seung) is writing a novel that seems to mimic the family’s life. It’s all kind of creepy and tongue in cheek, especially the awesome score. It’s a compelling tale, and one that was made for a mere sixty grand. Junh Jai-hong’s 2008 debut feature, BEAUTIFUL, based on an unfinished script by Kim Ki-duk, screens on February 9, followed by BREATHLESS on February 23, a film written, directed by, and starring Yang Ik-june. Korean cinema has been gradually infiltrating North America; this free series is a great way to see what all the fuss is about.
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