With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013

With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013
With Dada Chen at NYAFF 2013

Thursday, May 31, 2018

South Korean Action Thriller GOLDEN SLUMBER Releases on Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play on June 5, 2018

CJ Entertainment
presents
Golden Slumber / Gol-deun seul-leom-beo
Directed by NOH Dong-seok
South Korea, 2018, 108 minutes

Golden Slumber is a South Korean action thriller packed with twists, turns and deception as a man fights to stay alive after being framed for murder. It will release on Amazon, iTunes and Google Play on June 5, 2018. The film, based on the novel Golden Slumber by Isaka Kotaro, is directed by award-winning director NOH Dong-seok (My Generation).

After getting his start with two critically acclaimed indie features, Golden Slumber is director NOH’s first mainstream action film. He previously received the Special Jury Award from 2004’s Busan Film Critics Association Awards for My Generation. His second feature film, Boys of Tomorrow won International Competition from 60th Festival del Film Locarno. Golden Slumber stars GA NG Dong-won (Romance of their Own), KIM Eui-sung (Train to Busan), KIM Sung-kyun (The Neighbors), and KIM Dae-myeung (Insignificant Life).

In Golden Slumber, Gun-woo (GANG Dong-won) is an honest and hardworking courier who even won a Model Citizen Award for saving a singer from a robbery incident. Out of the blue, his old friend Moo-yeol comes to visit him at work. With just a short moment to enjoy the pleasant surprise, Gun-woo witnesses a bombing incident that kills a presidential candidate right before his eyes. Moo-yeol tells Gun-woo that he is responsible for the bombing and that everyone will come after him as it is the agency’s plan to make him the prime suspect.

Gun-woo manages to flee from the scene but all evidence, including security camera footage, witness testimonies and fingerprints point toward him as the suspect. Teaming up with former secret agent Mr. Min (KIM Eui-sung), who is an old friend of Moo-yeol, they work to clear Gun-woo’s name as he fights with all his strength to stay alive.

Golden Slumber is distributed by CJ Entertainment. The cost is $14.99 to purchase High Definition (HD), $9.99 to purchase Standard Definition (SD), $4.99 to rent High Definition (HD), and $3.99 to rent Standard Definition (SD).

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

BELIEVER opening in select North American theaters on June 8, 2018

Well Go USA
Entertainment
presents
Believer
Written and Directed by Hae-young Lee
Starring Kim Joo-Hyuk, Cho Jin-woong, Ryu Jun-yeol,
Kim Sung-ryung, and Park Hae-joon
South Korea, 2018, 123 minutes

Believer, an action/crime/thriller from South Korea, follows an investigator who, in an effort to bring down the boss of Asia's biggest drug cartel, conspires with a lowly member of the gang seeking revenge against the boss.

Believer will be playing at the following theaters:

ATLANTA (LAWRENCEVILLE) AMC - Sugarloaf Mills 18
BOSTON - AMC Loews Boston Common
BUENA PARK, CA - CGV Cinemas Buena Park
CALGARY - Cineplex Westhills
CHICAGO (NILES) - AMC Showplace Niles 12 DALLAS AMC Grapevine Mills 30
DENVER - AMC Arapahoe Crossings 16
EDMONTON - Cineplex Movies 12
HONOLULU -  Consolidated Pearlridge 16
HOUSTON - AMC Studio 30
MONTGOMERY, AL - New Vision Chantilly 13
NEW YORK - AMC Bay Terrace 6
NEW YORK - AMC Empire 25
NYC (EDGEWATER) - National Amusements Edgewater Multiplex
NYC (RIDGEFIELD PARK, NJ) - AMC Starplex Ridgefield Park 12
PHILADELPHIA - AMC Plymouth Meeting 12
PHOENIX - Harkins Arizona Mills
SAN DIEGO - AMC Fashion Valley 18
SAN FRANCISCO - AMC Van Ness 14
SEATTLE (LYNNWOOD) - AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16
SAN FRANCISCO (CUPERTINO) - AMC Mercado 20
TORONTO -  Cineplex Empress Walk
VANCOUVER - Cineplex Cinemas Coquitlam and VIP

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WellGoUSAhttps://www.facebook.com/WellGoUSA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WellGoKoreanCinema
Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jopY1WkXKdo

Monday, May 28, 2018

12th annual edition of JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film to run July 19 to 29 at Japan Society NY

Japan Society NY
presents
JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film
When: July 19 to 29, 2018
Where: Japan Society NY
333 East 47th Street, NYC
Map
Tickets go on sale to Japan Society members June 11 and to the public on June 18

Now entering its 12th year, JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film returns to present the best new movies made in and around Japan and the filmmakers and performers who made them, with new titles never before seen in New York and many screening for the first time outside Japan or in North America.

Set for July 19 to 29, the 2018 edition will feature an exclusive premiere roster of nearly 30 feature films, ranging from big budget blockbusters to powerful shoestring indies, and includes spotlights on documentary cinema, experimental films, shorts and recent rediscoveries and restorations of classic Japanese favorites.

With the full schedule to be announced in early June, first highlights include:

Mori, The Artist’s Habitat – Centerpiece Presentation – North American Premiere: A warm, comical portrait of artist Morikazu Kumagai and his wife Hideko, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki and featured festival guest Kirin Kiki. Directed by Shuichi Okita (Mohican Comes Home, The Woodsman and the Rain).

KUSHINA, what will you be – International Premiere: A strikingly original debut by promising new filmmaker Moët Hayami, in attendance. Recipient of the 2018 JAPAN CUTS Award at the 2018 Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Night Is Short, Walk on Girl – East Coast Premiere: A highly original and visually astounding animated comedy about unrequited love and a wild night on the town from acclaimed animation director Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby, Mind Game).

Sennan Asbestos Disaster – North American Premiere: A ten-years-in-the-making epic about victims of asbestos-related diseases by influential documentarian Kazuo Hara (The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On), in attendance with producer Sachiko Kobayashi.

Yocho (Foreboding) – New York Premiere: Internationally renowned director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s follow-up and companion piece to Before We Vanish (2017) is a darker and scarier apocalyptic sci-fi thriller about alien invasion.

Also this year, the festival will award the 2018 CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Performance in Film to Kirin Kiki (After the Storm, Sweet Bean) — a veteran film and television actor who started her career in the 1960s, best known to international audiences for her memorable work in recent films by leading Japanese directors Hirokazu Kore-eda and Naomi Kawase.

“Kirin Kiki is a legend, and we are so honored to present her with this well-deserved award this year,” says Aiko Masubuchi, Senior Film Programmer at Japan Society. “Despite being on screen for over 50 years, she only continues to impress us with her nuanced, true-to-life performances that elevate every film in which she appears.”

Masubuchi continues, “We still have a lot up our sleeves, but we are so excited to share these first few JAPAN CUTS 2018 titles and guests. It’s a perfect slice of what the festival is all about: bringing the latest in both established and fresh new voices in Japanese cinema and celebrating the diversity it has to offer."

In the run-up to this year's festival, the 2017 JAPAN CUTS Audience Award winner Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High receives an encore screening on Friday, June 15, 7:00 pm as a "JAPAN CUTS Encore" within Japan Society’s Monthly Classics programming.

Friday, May 11, 2018

EVERYTHING GOES WRONG at Japan Society NY this evening

Japan Society NY
presents
© 1960 Nikkatsu Corp
Everything Goes Wrong / Subete ga Kurutteru
Directed by Seijun Suzuki
With Tamio Kawachi, Sayuri Yoshinaga,
Yoshiko Yatsu, and Shinako Nakagawa

Japan, 1960, 71 minutes, 35 mm, b&w
In Japanese with English subtitles

When: Friday, May 11th at 7:00 PM
Where: Japan Society NY
333 East 47th Street, NYC
Map
Tickets: $13/$10 seniors & students / $5 Japan Society members

This lesser known early Seijun Suzuki film was produced by Nikkatsu studios in an effort to relaunch the taiyozoku ("Sun Tribe") youth in revolt films that sent shockwaves through Japan in the mid-1950s. Released the same year as Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, Suzuki's film about a rebellious teen who tries to break up his mother's affair with a married man similarly tapped into the restlessness, frustration and violent energy of Japan's postwar youth with a pronounced visual style that signaled the emergence of the Japanese New Wave. Screening in commemoration of star Tamio Kawachi, who passed away earlier this year.

Friday, May 04, 2018

THE MIMIC coming to digital and Blu-ray on June 12th

WELL GO USA
ENTERTAINMENT
presents
The Mimic / Jang-san-beom
Written and directed by Huh Jung
South Korea, 2017, 100 minutes

Following the acclaim for his first feature film Hide and Seek, writer/director Huh Jung returns to the genre that made him famous with his sophomore horror-thriller THE MIMIC, generating terror on digital and Blu-ray™ June 12th from Well Go USA Entertainment.

Based on the mythological “Tiger of Mt. Jang,” where a legendary ghost that mimics humans, a woman takes in a lost girl she finds near the mysterious Mt. Jang and mystifying things begin to happen to her frightened family. The Mimic stars Yum Jung-Ah (Tell Me Something), Park Hyuk-Kwon (A Taxi Driver), Shin Rin-Ah (Ode To My Father), Heo Jin (The Wailing), Kil Hae-Yeon (Missing) and Lee Yool (Hello Murderer).

Synopsis:
A classic Korean ghost story gets a horrifying new spin in THE MIMIC, as the mother of a missing child takes in a lost girl she finds in the woods and soon begins to wonder if she is even human.