Family Archives - London Korean Film Festival

The Land of Morning Calm

admin — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 10:34:27 +0000

In a neglected coastal village, bullying, cantankerous Vietnam vet Yeong-guk (Yoon Joo-sang) drowns his sorrows every night, and goes out early each morning in a fishing boat that, like him, has seen better days. With his straight talk and bellowing voice, he is perhaps the worst man to keep a secret, but he has one.

Park Ri-woong’s drama is a bleak portrait of an ageing, dying community, of those left behind by Korea’s economic boom, and of a whole way of life that is running on empty. All these characters lead harsh, precarious existences – and there seems to be only one way for any of them truly to escape their misery.

Anton Bitel

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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.

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A Lonely Island in the Distant Sea

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 06:22:00 +0000

In his forties, Yuncheol (Park Jong-hwan) is divorced and has failed to live up to his early potential as a sculptor. But new currents are swirling in his life. For one, his artistically gifted daughter Gina (Lee Yeon) has decided to drop out of high school and enter a Buddhist temple. Yuncheol, who himself once imagined becoming a monk, is not sure what to think of his daughter’s decision, but he makes an effort to understand her. At the same time, he forms a romantic attachment with an independent-minded history lecturer Youngji (Kang Kyung-hun). As time passes, nothing in Yuncheol’s life will proceed according to plan, but these relationships will develop and deepen in unexpected ways. A quietly observed film that gains in resonance throughout its running time, A Lonely Island in the Distant Sea is a thoughtful consideration of the things that are important in life.

Darcy Paquet

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The Hill of Secrets

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 06:10:19 +0000

12-year old Myung-eun (Moon Seung-a) is naturally ambitious, and anxious to please her 5th-grade teacher. President of her class, she wins over the support of the other students with a letterbox where anyone can leave confidential suggestions and queries. But there is tension at home, and Myung-eun feels that her crude-talking mother and lazy father who run a stall in the local market are best kept a secret from her classmates and teacher. Gradually a gap begins to grow between the identity Myung-eun constructs for herself in school, and the life she leads at home.

Set in 1996, The Hill of Secrets begins in what feels like familiar territory for Korean independent cinema, but it gradually expands in breadth and scope to take on some unexpected themes. Presented with sensitivity by debut director Lee Ji-eun, the film is powered by a luminous performance from Moon Seung-a (The Voice of Silence, Scattered Night), one of Korean cinema’s most exceptional child actors.

Darcy Paquet

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Poetry

admin — Tue, 10 May 2022 10:14:56 +0000

Mija is a 66-year-old grandmother living in a modest apartment with her uncommunicative teenage grandson, Jong-wook. Facing the onset of dementia, Mija joins a poetry class, where the tutor encourages students to see beauty in the world. As she begins to craft her poem, writing notes about the things she sees, a sense of strength awakens in Mija. However, life is about to get more complicated when her small community is rocked by the suicide of a schoolgirl and Mija finds herself caught up in a conspiracy to cover it up.

Director Lee Chang-dong demonstrates his unique visual style with this lyrical summertime drama. Korean screen legend Yun Jung-hee delivers a subtle performance as a woman facing the realities of memory loss. Poetry is a remarkable meditation on the nature of life, death and memory, foregrounding the summer as a time of growth, rebirth and change.

Caroline Seddon

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House of Hummingbird

admin — Mon, 09 May 2022 13:08:38 +0000

In a rapidly expanding Seoul in 1994, Eun-hee’s chaotic life is bearable thanks to her secret boyfriend and best friend at Chinese class. At home, however, her parents are overbearing and distant, focused more on scolding her than addressing their own issues. Eun-hee’s world changes when a new Chinese teacher arrives who takes an interest in her feelings and teaches her about things beyond her own experience. But even the good things in her life seem like they won’t last forever. A new friend’s advances complicate her perception of self, and there is the small concern of a mysterious lump behind her ear.

Fifteen-year-old Park Ji-hu takes on her first leading role with grace, while Bora Kim’s autobiographical touch imbues House of Hummingbird with loving tributes to the joys and confusion of adolescence, using a notorious summer in Korean history to exemplify a period of profound discovery and change.

Chris Cassingham

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The House of Us

admin — Mon, 09 May 2022 12:34:04 +0000

Hana longs for the kind of family who eat dinner together and go on fun-filled holidays. Instead, her summer vacation is spent eating alone and watching her parents constantly argue. When Hana’s attempts to mend their relationship fall on deaf ears, she befriends sisters, Yoo-mi and Yoo-jin, who themselves have grown weary of constantly moving and rarely seeing their parents. The lonely trio build a makeshift family together, finding moments of carefree summer joy missing from their own homes.

Director, Yoon Ga-eun, whose debut feature The World of Us (2016) screened at Korean Film Nights in 2019, carefully builds the children’s idealised vision of summer, finding exuberant images bursting with colour, before deconstructing them by not shying from the thornier reality. The end result is a moving ode to the adventures and precarious bonds of a childhood summer, anchored by the naturalistic and delightful performances by the three lead actors.

Josh Bullin

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Canola

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 13:00:24 +0000

Hong Gyechoon (Youn Yuh-jung) is getting on yet still working as a diver along the black rocky coast of Jeju Island. She dotes upon her grand-daughter Hyeji, left behind by an absconding daughter. Then one day as the two of them walk through the town’s central market, little Hyeji (Lee Seul-bi) disappears. We shift to the story of an 18-something woman fallen in with a bad crowd in the big city. This ‘Hyeji’, a long sought for grand-daughter, will be returned to Jeju Island and the seemingly inexhaustible love of Gyechoon , even as the old woman’s mind is beginning to fade. But some things don’t add up about this prickly new Hyeji (Kim Go-eun).

Perhaps the most rewarding moments in the film are scenes between new-comer Kim Go-eun as older Hyeji and our veteran Youn. The young woman’s painful, subtle journey to self-respect is Kim’s gift to the production.

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