Tag: Korea

Screening Room: ‘The Handmaiden’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-ForeignLeave a comment

handmaiden1

This Halloween, skip Madea and check out The Handmaiden. It’s playing now in limited release and is just about the best chance out there for a good time at the theater: chills, shocks, romance, secret perversions, period outfits, it’s got it all.

My review is at PopMatters:

Nothing is as it seems in The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi). Park Chan-wook’s victorious return to the Korean filmmaking scene after his American debut, 2013’s Stoker, is rife with pungent physicality and nearly overwhelmingly aesthetic surfaces. We saw Park pay that same level of attention to each detail in Stoker, all those burning glances and insect closeups laid over a stifling plot. This time, he has a story that more than justifies his flagrantly overripe style…

Here’s the trailer:

//v.traileraddict.com/113911

New on DVD: ‘Snowpiercer’ is Revolution on a High-Speed Train

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - Film, Graphic NovelsLeave a comment
'Snowpiercer': We'd like a seat in first class, please (Anchor Bay)
‘Snowpiercer’: We’d like a seat in first class, please (Anchor Bay)

snowpiercer-dvdBong Joon-ho is a South Korean director who isn’t a household name in the States but by all rights should be. In his newest film, Snowpiercer, he imagines a quasi-steampunk post-apocalyptic thriller that’s also a handy little morality tale about class inequality.

Snowpiercer is available now on DVD and Blu-ray. My review is at PopMatters:

The physics of Snowpiercer’s futuristic plot are as stripped-down as the backstory is convoluted. Every human being left alive is on board one train snaking across the frozen wasteland. First class is up front, replete with late Roman Empire consumption and a mindset best described as rave-club Borgia. Everybody else is crammed cheek-to-jowl in the filthy back of the train. Those in back want to get up front. All that stands between them are many locked doors, squads of malevolent guards, years of social conditioning, and Tilda Swinton acting like a toothy Margaret Thatcher after one too many gin and tonics…

You can see the trailer here: