The beauty & the ugliness of “everyday life” in East Asian cinema

For a long time and still to some degree now, it seemed the only East Asian movies or TV that became popular in North America were martial arts, horror, Japanese anime, and crime (triads & yakuza). There was a bit of change when Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries got a bit into martial arts and horror. The biggest change has been the Hallyu wave spilling over from East Asia to the rest of the world. South Korean TV dramas aka Kdramas (especially romance ones) have become hugely popular alongside Kpop, in a way displacing the positions that Jdramas and Jpop had in the past. South Korean movies have also dabbled in horror, action, crime, and thriller genres too. Of course there’s that one Korean film that won four academy awards including best picture in 2020.

While there are many excellent movies in these genres, when I started actively trying to discover more East Asian movies, I deliberately tried looking for more “everyday life” or slice of life type movies. Movies that were about regular people living their everyday lives in a more realistic setting and mostly without sensationalist or thriller elements. I’m glad I did because some of my strongest emotions as a movie-goer were felt when watching these sorts of slice of life human dramas. These were films that made me gain a new perspective on an issue or made me feel empathy for someone or a situation that I wasn’t familiar with or with something I was all too familiar with.

No More Martial Arts Movie Stars

There seems to have been some discussion on the internet about the lack of martial arts stars in recent years or asking the question, who will be the next big martial arts star. By martial arts star I mean someone who trained in martial arts when they were young and won competitions or showed exceptional skill in martial arts before making movies. Or at least a relative newcomer specifically scouted and trained to make multiple martial arts movies.

Donnie Yen is probably considered to be the last martial arts star but he’ll be 60 years old soon. He never quite reached the heights of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li or debatably even Tony Jaa in terms of peak popularity. Despite being able to speak English fluently, he has never been the main lead in a USA made movie. But he definitely paid his dues and eventually became a lead martial arts star in Hong Kong movies. I believe his lead role in SPL / Killzone (2005) was his breakout role. I think that movie still has some of the best fights in his whole career. Then he really gained a giant leap in popularity with Ip Man (2008) and its sequels.

Fantasia 2023 – Third Wave

The Fantasia International Film Festival has released their third wave of film announcements and also the full schedule is now available on their website. The festival runs from July 20-August 9, 2023. Recent movies from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as some old classics (especially from Hong Kong and South Korea) will be screening.

Official Press Release

Fantasia 2023 – Second Wave

The Fantasia International Film Festival recently announced their second wave of film screenings. The festival will run from July 20 to August 9, 2023. Here are the East Asian Films that were announced.

Kurayukaba
Insomniacs After School
Time Is but a River
Killing Romance
The First Slam Dunk
Manhole
As Long as We Both Shall Live
Deep Sea
In My Mother’s Skin
Journey to The West
Mad Fate
Marry My Dead Body
Shin Kamen Rider

Official Press Release

First Wave

Some Trailers below:

Korean Film Festival Canada – starting May 26, 2023

Korean Film Festival Canada will have some film screenings and events starting on Friday, May 26, 2023 in Montreal at the McCord Stewart Museum. There will also be screenings at Cinema du Parc and Dazibao. Kingston and Vancouver will also have their own events and film screenings later in June. The schedule can be found here. I’ve posted some trailers and links to some of the films but there’s more than what I’ve included here so be sure to check out the festival website for full details.

Peppermint Candy by Lee Chang-dong is the first film screening on May 26.

In the K-Contemporary section of the Montreal program, here are some of the films that will screen at Cinema du Parc. There are some others that will screen at McCord Stewart Museum.

Next Sohee
Cat’s Apartment
Jeong-Sun
Unidentified
The Hill of Secrets
Aloners

Trailers below:

Pachinko – book review

I’d heard about the TV/Streaming limited series adaptation of the same name but without having any access to watch it I decided to buy the book by author Min Jin Lee. It’s a fairly thick book (at 479 pages with up to 34 lines per page), which was a bit intimidating for someone like me who’s not an avid reader. The book is separated into three parts or three books as they are called within the pages of this novel. But what helped me is that the chapters are all mostly pretty short. Often around 10 pages give or take so it was easy to read just short bits here and there when I could.

I was slow to get through it at the beginning. It wasn’t out of disinterest as there were interesting little things that I would learn about the lives of these characters but not a whole lot happens in the beginning in terms of plot. Each chapter feels like a sort of episode in the mundane lives of the characters. But it does help to really establish the characters, their living situation and social status. It also jumps around in time sometimes between chapters, which confused me a bit but it pretty much settles into a straightforward chronological order before the end of book 1.

The back of the book does spoil the book 1 part of the story so you might want to avoid reading it if you care about such things. You have to read most of book 1 to discover those things but it doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the story but it did make me wonder…”hey when is this thing mentioned on the back going to happen?”

Fantasia 2023 – First Wave

The Fantasia International Film Festival recently announced their first wave of film screenings. The festival will run from July 20 to August 9, 2023. There will also be a Korean cinema retrospective with screenings of Korean films from the 2000s that helped propel its popularity. Here’s a list of some of the East Asian films announced, mainly from Japan and South Korea including a Korean stop motion animated film!

New Normal
The Night Owl
The Roundup: No Way Out
Take Care of My Cat
President’s Last Bang
Tokyo Revengers 2 Part 1 & Part 2
People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind
Mother Land (Stop motion animated film!)

Official Press Release

And some trailers below:

Korean Hip Hop concerts in Montreal: Epik High & Sik-K

Not sure what’s going on but there’s not one but two Korean hip hop concerts in the same week in Montreal. Epik High was one of the earliest hip hop groups and pioneers of the scene and have been hugely popular for a long time. Sik-K is a solo rapper whom I’m not familiar with although he seems have a strong following. Tuesday, March 21, 2023 will have Epik High (part of their All Time High tour) and Friday, March 24, 2023 will have Sik-K (part of his Pop a Lot tour)