In “Contagion,” the fast, frightening global pandemic drama opening Friday, Jude Law is a mad blogger, a Web journo whose raging posts against Big Pharm and Big Gov turn incendiary when people start dropping like flies. Is Law’s Alan Krumwiede (pronounced “crum-woody”) prophet or paranoiac? A voice of sanity in the chaos and dread, or a nutter? “I love that it’s left open for you to decide,” sa...

Director Hong Sang-soo’s 12th film, “The Day He Arrives,” has been officially invited to the 55th BFI London Film Festival, the movie’s production company Jeonwonsa Film Co. announced this week. The film was the opener for the 5th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CinDi) in Seoul last month, and premiered in May in the Un Certain Regard section of the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Hong received t...

Pain (Korea) Opening Sept. 7. Drama. Directed by Kwak Gyeong-taek. Nam-soon (Kwon Sang-woo), whose family members were killed by his mistake when he was young, has lost all his feeling ― including his palate ― from the trauma. This made him incapable of feeling any pain even when he gets hurt. He makes money by threatening debtors to pay their money back to his clients. To do so he injures hims...

There’s really nothing more you can say about Helen Mirren. That she’s one of stage, screen and TV’s greatest actresses is a given. If nothing else, her Oscar-winning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in “The Queen” and her multiple Emmy Award-winning performance as tortured policewoman Jane Tennison in the “Prime Suspect” TV series speak to her astonishing versatility and range. In addition, at age ...

Veteran actress Choi Eun-hee has been selected as one of the three recipients of the 56th National Academy of Arts award this year, the institution announced Thursday. The 81-year-old started her film career in 1947 and led the Shin Film company together with her husband and the acclaimed director Shin Sang-ok. Some of her significant work includes: “The Houseguest and My Mother” (1961); “Seong ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― The good news for Hollywood: Summer movie revenues are up worldwide as studios rebounded from a dismally slow start to the year. The bad news: Domestically, revenues rose only a fraction compared to the previous year’s, while actual movie attendance dropped for the fourth-straight year. Taken together, the summers of 2010 and 2011 combined form the smallest domestic audiences...

VENICE (AFP) ― Hollywood star George Clooney spoke Wednesday of his disillusionment with the U.S. political scene ahead of the premiere of his dark political thriller “The Ides of March” in Venice. The director told reporters ahead of a star-studded opening of the world’s oldest film festival that the work was ready to begin filming in 2008 when Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential elections, ...

He was once called a great master of slapstick comedy with his trademark persona, a fool named "Young-gu." After becoming a movie director, Shim Hyung-rae became the first to receive "Korea's new intellectual" medal from the liberal government led by President Kim Dae-jung in 1999. The honor was given in recognition of his success in exporting his first sci-fi monster picture "Yonggari" to the U...

Park Jin-young, South Korean music mogul, may take a leading role in a movie. JYP Entertainment, Park’s agency, said on Monday that he is in talks to star in the film “Five Million Dollar Man.” Park is a singer-song writer and producer, as well as founder and head of JYPE, one of the top three Korean entertainment agencies. The film will be about a K-pop star-wannabe who gets tangled up in a mo...

Three big-name stars ― Jang Hyuk, Park Hee-soon and Ha Jung-woo ― have worked together to create what’s reportedly the first courtroom thriller in Korea. “The Client,” which is anticipated to be released in late September, aims to combine both drama and suspense with its character-driven narrative surrounding a murder trial where the dead body is missing. “This is a courtroom thriller and the t...

The Korean film industry’s production capabilities are extraordinary, but it is unfortunate that the content is still being made for Korean people, an American visual effects expert said at a forum Tuesday. Scott Ross, co-chairman of inDSP USA, a company specializing in converting 2-D motion pictures to 3-D, said content business is the future of all economies, including Korea. Ross is former c...

A has-been filmmaker who now teaches cinema in Daegu visits Seoul. He meets up with his long-time buddy, visits his old girlfriend, drinks and dines, gets talking with some people he’s just met, and falls for an attractive bar owner who strikingly resembles with his ex. Hong Sang-soo’s 12th film, “The Day He Arrives,” offers an interesting cinematic portrait of a frustrated and often pathetic ar...