Movie Update!

I'm heading to another film festival tomorrow, it's going to be my last in Korea which is a little sad to say the least!

The film festival is about 2 hours from Seoul in Jecheon, I'm really excited about heading along as well as the films the website says there is a market area with crafty stuff. I can't wait.

But this post is to update you on films I have seen, rather than films I am going to see! So here's the films I've watched recently:

Film 42 - Cellular

This is a rather brainless movie I watched whilst returning on a long bus trip on a teachers overnight trip. It's all about crooked LA cops kidnapping the family of a real estate agent who caught them up to no good (on camera) . It's fairly horrible.

Film 43 - Down Terrace

Down Terrace is one of the best black comedies I've seen in ages, it's about a fairly working class crime family. One of the family members has just returned from the courts, escaping conviction and they want to find out who in their circle has been talking and letting their secrets out. This movie is pretty dark and has a pretty impressive body count. I loved it - but only because I have a pretty dark sense of humour.

Film 44 - Confessions

This is another incredibly dark, but beautifully shot Japanese film. It's the story of a teacher, whose young daughter has been drowned at the pool at the school she teaches at. The teacher knows two of her students are responsible for the death of her daughter but knows the justice system will allow the boys to walk free due to their age. The rest of the film is about four characters confessions about what really happened and the fall out of the girls drowning. It's a another dark movie, but it's so beautifully made.

Film 45 - Death Bell 2

Death Bell 2 is a Korean Horror film, if you're a horror film fan then it's just good fun. If you're not a horror fan then you won't like this film. It's a pretty simple plot - the brightest students at a high school are taking part in a school "camp" (by camp I mean additional study!) to better prepare them for university.

However - many of these students are responsible for a past wrong (it's a fairly BIG wrong too) and those that have suffered are out for revenge.

Film 46 - House of the Devil

I loved this film so MUCH! It's a relatively new film but it really has the feel of a 1970's style horror - helped by the fact it's set in that time. Even the opening credit's have a delightfully cheesy 1970's feel to them. It's a pretty basic story - a college girl is moving into her first apartment but is finding getting the money together a little difficult. She takes a job, which she thinks is babysitting but is actually looking after an older woman. She accepts a huge amount of money for one nights - it's also the night of a rare eclipse and things end up becoming very weird.

Film 47 - Monsters

When I started watching this film I thought - "not another cheesy monster movie". But it's not really a monster movie at all. The setting is that a US satellite that fell to earth on the boarder between the US and Mexico bought with it some rather nasty creatures from out of space. The US and Mexican governments are now trying to contain these creatures.

But, as I said, the movie isn't really about monsters. It's about how people survive when everything goes wrong.

A photographer is trying to get the daughter of the media CEO her works for out of Mexico and back home to the US as the monsters are going a little crazy. The story is about their journey - it's an amazing movie and you quickly forget about the cheesy monsters.

Film 48 - Gintama

Gintama is a Japanese Anime I found fairly entertaining. There's way too much going on in the story for me even to remember now! But I do clearly remember being surrounded by Korean Fan Boys and Fan Girls whilst watching it.

Film 49 - The Lost Boys

I watched Lost Boys in my hotel in Vietnam one day - it's one of the best vampire films - ever!

Film 50 - Crackerjack

An Aussie Comedy I watched in the hotel in Vietnam - to be honest it's not the best Aussie comedy I've ever seen - but it still made me laugh. Plus Fred Dagg plays the bad guy - go Kiwi!

Film 51 - The Prestige

A completely amazing film set in Victorian England where two magicians seem to do battle over the years to have the most incredible trick, as well as try and work out how their opposition makes their magic work. Plus it has David Bowie. Everything is better with David Bowie.

Pifan or Pucheon Fantastic Film Festival

On Friday after work Rich and I took an hour and half subway journey to Pucheon to attend the Pucheon Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan). We had been waiting for this festival forever! I was really excited as it was the first time I'd actually gone to a film festival rather than just attending whatever festival's were in my city.

Here's a couple of shots of our hotel - it's actually one of the nicer hotels we've stayed in but as it turns out it becomes a bit of a love motel after dark!

Here's a night time shot of Pucheon, it's acutally much bigger than I thought! It also seems to be a city of neon. It felt like there was more neon here than in central Seoul.Our first movie was "Down Terrace" which we watched on the first night with Joseph and his son Cohen who is in Korea for his summer break from University. We also caught up the guys the following morning to watch a Japanese film called "Confessions".

After that we had some time to kill so decided to check out some of Pucheon. Here's the Pucheon "cultural bridge" - I'm a little fuzzy on what makes it soon cultural but it's a pretty cool bridge.

We also visited a park near one of the many venues where they were playing films - this was a very cool park and they had closed down the road near the park so kids could ride their pedal cars around. Which was pretty cute.


Here's a few photo's we took outside on of the venue's for the festival, the Pucheon town hall, there was some kind of competition on where people make sculptures out of food packaging.



Here I am, feeling rather happy with a whole bunch of movie tickets! A lot of ghouls turned up for the screening of Death Bell 2 - I even got to meet a couple of them. I thought afterwards maybe I should look more scared in this photo.Part way through the festival, we all decided we needed a break so we headed to Aiins World, a theme park which features minitures of some of the worlds great buildings and monuments. It was great cheesy fun!





Here's a few photo's from our last day, we watched our final film at a museum in Pucheon. It was a pretty cool museum - it even had a Miffy exhibition on but we didn't really have time to check it out.



I'll blog a little more about the films I actually watched later when I have a little more time.

I'm leaving for Hanoi and Hong Kong early tommorrow, so blogging will be pretty limited in that time.

I hope everyone has a great week!