Crime Archives - London Korean Film Festival

Broker

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 14:32:56 +0000

Sang-hyun(Song Kang Ho) runs a laundry shop, but is constantly saddled with debt. Dong-soo (Gang Dong Won), who grew up in an orphanage, works in a baby box facility. One night in the pouring rain, they secretly carry off an infant who was left at the baby box. But on the following day, the mother So-young (Lee Ji Eun) unexpectedly returns for her son Woo-sung. Realising that her baby has been taken, she is about to call the police when the two men tell her everything. Their claim that they stole the baby in order to find him a good home seems outrageous, but So-young ends up joining Sang-hyun and Dong-soo on a journey to find new parents for Woo-sung. Meanwhile, the police detective Su-jin (Doona Bae) and her younger colleague Detective Lee (Lee Joo Young) are silently tailing the group, hoping to catch them in the act at all costs to wrap up their half-year investigation.

The post Broker appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

The Thieves

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 06:44:17 +0000

After a large heist, five of Korea’s most infamous thieves – Popeye, Pepsi, Yenicall, Zampano and Chewingum – jump at the chance to get out of town when offered a job in Macao. Their goal is to steal the ‘Tear of the Sun’, a 318 carat diamond worth over $20 million held at the Macao Casino. The brains behind the break-in is Macao Park who has assembled his own Chinese team to join the crew. However tensions run high when personal histories get in the way of the present and some of the criminals have their own designs on the diamond.

The Thieves is one of Korea’s largest co-productions with a fantastic Korean and Hong Kong cast including Kim Yoon-suk (The Yellow Sea), Kim Hye-soo (Coin Locker Girl), Lee Jung-jae (Hunt), Simon Yam (Election 1 & 2) and Derek Tsang (The Eye 2). Director Choi has a number of critically acclaimed films to his name including Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard (2009), Assassination (2015) and Alienoid (2022), his new time-traveling sci-fi adventure, opening film for 2022 London Korean Film Festival. This mix of amazing talent and a gripping, high impact story has made The Thieves one of the biggest grossing films in Korea’s box office history.

The post The Thieves appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Hot Blooded

admin — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 19:43:40 +0000

Back in the Nineties, Cheon Myeong-kwan helped write Chang Gil-soo’s I Wish What is Forbidden To Me (1994) and Kim Ui-seok’s A Great Chinese Restaurant (1999). Although it has been over two decades between then and Cheon’s directorial debut (which he also adapted from Kim Un-su’s 2016 novel), the wait has been worth it.

This traces the simultaneous upward and downward trajectory of low-ranking gangster Park Hee-su (Jung Woo) from pawn to king of fictitious rundown port town of Kuam, despite his hopes of leaving with his long-term fiancée and her son for an even smaller, quieter life on Geoje Island. It is a noirish tale of dashed dreams, treacherous sacrifice and existential despair, revealing the pointless, soul-destroying play of power. The plotting is labyrinthine, the characters are multiple, but all is held together by Jung Woo’s performance as a man who, though the accidental protagonist, is no hero.

Anton Bitel

The post Hot Blooded appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Collectors

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 13:00:18 +0000

A gentleman thief (Lee Je-hoon). A superrich collector (Song Young-chang). A museum curator (Shin Haesun). An unethical archaeologist (Jo Woo Jin). A professional excavator (Lim Won-hee). These five grave-robbers improbably team together to steal an ancient artefact, ‘the Excalibur of Joseon’, from Seolleung right in the middle of Gangnam, Seoul. The royal sword of Yi Seong-gye is a priceless piece of history, but those trying to take it do not all have the same motives, and are keeping their different plots well-buried.

Park Jung-bae’s twisty crowd-pleaser is all at once a tomb-raiding action adventure (expressly evoking Indiana Jones), a triple-crossing heist thriller, and a confidence-trick revenge movie, while never forgetting to be riotously entertaining. Yet Park is interested in exposing the real values that underlie modern Korean society, as these national treasures are not so much stolen as recovered.

The post Collectors appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.

Voice of Silence

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 20:59:26 +0000

Sometimes good people do bad things. Chang-bok (Yoo Jae-myung) and Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in) run a humble business selling eggs. The bulk of their income comes from providing spotless crime scene clean-up services to the criminal fraternity. Then, they are asked to babysit a kidnap victim just until the ransom is paid. They reluctantly agree and Tae-in is left to care for Cho-hee (Moon Seung-ah), a bright, capable 11-year-old girl who is soon re-arranging his world. A beautifully shot, bittersweet crime caper with an award-winning performance from Burning’s Yoo Ah-in.

The post Voice of Silence appeared first on London Korean Film Festival.