From Korea with love
The rich and splendid South Korean cinema will be displayed in a four-day long Korean Film Festival in Colombo in 2015 kicks off on December 4.
One of the leading film industries in Asia, South Korean cinema has been acclaimed internationally for its classic art house movies and box office hit commercial cinema.
A nation that is proud of watching more domestic movies than imported films in theatres, South Korea is also a role model for many Asian film industries.
The festival comprises of films Harmony (Drama 2009) on December 4 (invitates only), A Barefoot Dream (Drama 2010), Forever the Moment (Drama 2007) on December 5, 200 Pound Beauty (Comedy 2006) and The King and the Clown (Drama & History 2005) on December 6 and Scandal Makers (Comedy 2008) on December 7 will be screened.
On November 5, the festival focuses sports as two films revolving around two sports will be screened.
Directed by Tae-gyun Kim and starring Gabriel Da Costa, Junior Da Costa and Zefancy Diaz, the ‘A Barefoot Dream’ (at 2 pm) revolves around a retired soccer coach. After a series of pipe dream ventures go belly up, retired pro soccer player Kim Won-kang happens to visit East Timor, where he finds children playing the game barefoot on rocky pitches.
Sensing a new business opportunity on finding that the country doesn’t have a single sporting goods store, he embarks on a scheme to get rich quick by purveying athletics shoes to the unshod youngsters.
Sadly, no one there can afford to pay $60 for a pair of shoes, even on a generous installment plan, and before he knows it, he is reduced to coaching a team of ragged 10-year-olds and prospects are looking grim.
Screening at 5.30 pm ‘Forever the Moment’ is about the return of once super star national handball players.
Once a professional Korean handball player, Mi-Sook (Moon So-Ri) is now working in a grocery store after her team disbanded. Hae-Kyung (Kim Jung-Eun), now a coach for a handball team in Japan, returns to Korea to become the replacement coach for Korea’s national team.
In order to improve the team she asks her former teammates, including Mi-Sook, to join the national team and regain their past glory. Directed by Soonrye Yim it stars So-ri Moon, Jeong-eun Kim and Martin Lord Cayce.
Romantic comedy ‘200 Pound Beauty’ directed by Yong-hwa Kim will be screened at 2 pm on December 6 while thriller drama ‘The King and the Clown’ will be screened at 5.30 pm.
‘200 Pound Beauty’ is the story about a talented but obese girl, who ghost-sings for a not-so-talented pop star, undergoes extensive plastic surgery to become a slender beauty with a new identity. It stars Jin-mo Ju, Ah-jung Kim and Dong-il Sung.
The King and the Clown directed by Joon-ik Lee depicts the tale of two clowns living in Korea’s Chosun Dynasty and get arrested for staging a play that satirizes the king.
They are dragged to the palace and threatened with execution but are given a chance to save their lives if they can make the king laugh. It is played by Woo-seong Kam, Jin-yeong Jeong and Seong-Yeon Kang.
Closing the festival will be ‘Scandal Makers’ (2008) directed by Hyeong-Cheol Kang which revolves around a radio DJ/entertainer who is in his 30s suddenly who learns he may be a grandfather, thanks to a young girl who has a baby son and claims to be his daughter. The film stars Tae-hyun Cha, Il-Kwon Ahn and Kyeong-min Hong.
Organised by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Sri Lanka and the Korea Foundation in partnership with the National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka, the festival will be held at the National Film Corporation (NFC) Theatre in Colombo.