Director Um Tae-hwa’s fourth feature now arrives with a new trailer for Concrete Utopia. Big in scale and spectacle, the new survival epic is based in-part on a 2015 webtoon, with a cast that includes Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-joon, Park Bo-young, and Park Ji-hu.
It was around 2005 or ’06 when I finally managed to observe the work of director Park Chan-wook with an online buy of Oldboy. At this point, Park had already reveled in the ceremony of his previous work, notably with his 2000 film, Joint Security Area (JSA), which still stands on ceremony to this day with film fans as one of the most highly regarded of the last two decades.
MPI Home Video is proudly releasing Korean blockbuster epic, Ashfall, on DVD and Blu-Ray in the U.S. beginning October 6. The film previously opened in South Korea from CJ Entertainment last December, scoring in the top 20 markets, earning a total of $61 million internationally.
Credit: Wiki Commons (center: Yoon Min-hoo, right: Dispatch)
Sometime late last year, Robb Antequera of The Cinema Drunkie sought for the services of several online film reporters, bloggers and willing participants to help contribute to a top fifty list – with sets of ten of our own written summaries – of the previous decade’s best action gems. I contributed about twelve films among which can currently be read among a mix of forty others now opined online as of this article, and in the wake of entries published over at The Action Elite, Action Flix and Bulletproof Action, the series continues below.
With five directing credits between them, Lee Hae-jun and Kim Byeong-seo had their work cut out for them with their latest disaster epic, Ashfall – internationally titled for market appeal and for western audiences, particuarly in the U.S. where CJ Entertainment will eventually signal its own release stateside.
(l) Korean Culture and Information Service/Jeon Han; (r) Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India
A recent report from KoBiz notes the current production of political thriller, Chiefs Of Namsan, reuniting respective Inside Man star and director Lee Byung-hun and Woo Min-ho. Chiefs Of Namsan is based on the true story centered on the activity of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), and the period leading up to President Park Chung-hee’ assassination in the 1970s.
It was in 2010 that director Kim Jee-Woon spawned a sensational response with fans drawn from his winning suspenseful action horror thriller, I Saw The Devil. Adi Shankar’s own 1984 Private Defense Contractors acquired the English language remake rights three years later prior to possibly attaching Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett of You’re Next and The Guest fame.
The series hails from Hwa&Dam Pictures and Studio Dragon with Lee starring as US marine officer Eugene Choi. The Handmaiden actress Kim Tae-ri plays the aristocrat’s daughter, Go Ae-sin, with Yoo Yeon-seok, Kim Min-jung, and Byun Yo-han headlining as series principals.
Actor Lee Byung-Hun’s next is offering a punch of comedy or as we approach the release of Keys To The Heart next week. The Fatal Encounter scribe Choi Sung-Hyun makes his directorial debut here now with Lee in the role of a washed-up boxer who amends his uneasy relationship with his handicapped genius pianist brother via stories of their past as shared by their mother.
At some point earlier on, an international trailer was unveiled for Hwang Dong-Hyuk’s new period war drama, Namhansangseon. Of course it helps now that its new title is The Fortress for said internarional appeal and while a date is still yet to be set, the latest trailer has arrived – Korean subbed, but plenty of excellent footage to delve into with Hwang’s fourth movie.
I’m almost certain director Hwang Dong-Hyuk’s new period drama, Namhansangseon, will be re-titled with a more international appeal by its September theatrical release. Until then, that’s the name of the film as it so reads on author Kim Hoon’s 2007 Hakgojae novel publication, set amid the warring 17th century Joseon era.
A friend of mine named Takai got on my case for not remembering an action scene from the film, Kundo which featured actor Gang Dong-Won as the main villain. She’s an avowed fan of his and that being said, she sort of put me in the doghouse (jokingly) even though I hadn’t seen the film in a couple of years.
Still though, I give her credit for following up on Gang and his activity with his most recent film, director Chi Ui-Seok’s Master, in which he leads the tale of a intellectual crime unit led by a detective as they take on a massive fraud case. Also starring principally are Lee Byung-Hun and Kim Woo-Bin as the respective president and brains of the very corporation now in Gang’s sights and clearly our villains are trying to hide something, considering the conniving, scheming and explosive chaos occuring as a result.
The film opens on December 21 in South Korea while we undoubtedly wait for further releases in other territories. Check out the latest trailer!
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