From Korea, 7/3.

Starting with a whopping DVD roundup, X has a slew of fresh Korean film-related entries at Twitch: Im Sang-soo's next project will be A Good Woman in Paris and a teaser for Lee Jae-yong's Dasepo Naughty Girls. But the biggest batch of news is gathered in the freshly updated Chungmuro Daily: "Be it news updates, DVD rankings, reactions to the latest Korean movies released in theaters, you'll find something new every day here. And, although it'll take a while to develop the way our K-Film Databank and K-Drama Hub have, in a couple of weeks you should see more content and more variety."

Kyu Hyun Kim: "Shot in grimy HD video with just a handful of cast members, Bloody Aria is guaranteed to deeply divide non-Korean viewers into two opposing camps, as much as it has for the domestic audience and critics. Some will no doubt revile it as a premier example of Korean cinema's gloating indulgence in nauseating depictions of physical violence and horrible treatment of women... Others might champion it as one of the more honest cinematic statements about the vicious cycle of violence, an unflinching snapshot of degraded human souls hobbling toward, not redemption, but the Nietzschean abyss in which they see shiny-black reflections of their own bloodshot, insanely grinning faces."

Also at Koreanfilm.org, Nils Clauss on Papa, Daddy, Father and Darcy Paquet on Hanbando, "one of the two major releases of the summer, together with Bong Joon-ho's The Host."

Meanwhile, the quota of domestic films screened in South Korea, regarded by many as instrumental in the Korean wave of recent years, was officially cut on Saturday, but the protests, as the AP's Kelly Olsen reports, are as vigorous as ever.

Posted by dwhudson at July 3, 2006 7:50 AM