Korean movies have taken Asia by storm, and for the seventh year in a row, The New York Korean Film Festival, America’s largest showcase of Korean-made films, is providing New York audiences with a chance to get swept up in Hallyu [the Korean Wave]. The Festival will run from August 21 to September 2 at Cinema Village and the IFC Center in Manhattan and BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn. A full schedule of screenings and events is available at www.koreanfilmfestival.org.
Since 2001, the New York Korean Film Festival has been the premiere venue for Korean cinema in the United States. It also has been the event through which dozens of Korean blockbusters have made their North American premieres. Organized by The Korea Society, the 2007 New York Korean Film Festival is proudly sponsored by Helio, ImaginAsian TV and the Korean Film Council.
This year’s celebration will kick-off with an opening night party at Manhattan‘s Sol nightclub on the evening of August 23. Director Kim Yong-hwa (200 Pound Beauty) will attend this opening party as well as two Q & A sessions after the August 24 & 27 screenings.
Festival films, which will begin a run of evening showings on August 21 at Cinema Village and the IFC Center in Manhattan and BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn, are a diverse line-up of Korean box office hits from 2005 and 2006. Pulse-pounding action thrillers like Bloody Ties (starring Chu Ja-hyeon and Ryu Seung-beom) and A Dirty Carnival (Zo In-Sung and Chun Ho-Jin) will alternate with unexpected romantic comedies like Herb (Bae Jong-ok and Gang Hye-jeong) and 200 Pound Beauty (Kim A-joong and Joo Jin-mo). The slate also includes taboo-breaking historical pieces (The King and the Clown), quirky family dramas (Family Ties) and Korean documentaries that Americans wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else (Our School and Between). All films will be shown in the original Korean with English subtitles.
Horror will be a focus though as Tartan Asia Extreme presents Korean Horror Day, a series of special screenings of some of the most blood-chilling work ever produced by Korean directors. Horror aficionados will be able to catch up on recent Korean screamers like The Ghost and The Red Shoes as well as the classics, like Whispering Corridors on August 27 – “28 at Cinema Village.
The Festival will also honor Im Kwon-Taek, one of the most innovative and successful Korean directors of the last decade, with a retrospective. Im’s seminal works – ”Festival, Come Come Come Upward, Chunhyang and The General’s Son – ”will be screened August 21 – “22 at BAM Rose Cinemas.
