The Korea Herald

Italian seeks kung-fu stardom in Shanghai

Feb 21, 2011

SHANGHAI (AFP) ― At a Shanghai building site, a man in a black Stetson looks over his shoulder at two approaching thugs. Four others appear, fists raised. They lock eyes and the cowboy springs up in a whirlwind of kicks. The scene is from “Shangdown: The Way of the Spur,” an independent kung-fu spaghetti western, and the cowboy is Christian Bachini, a 25-year-old Italian actor who came to Shangh...
Director tells more than her family story in ‘Goodbye Pyeongyang’

Feb 21, 2011

Personal documentary recounts tale of Korean-Japanese who resettled in N. Korea Movie director Yang Yong-hi has a one-of-a-kind family. She lives in Tokyo, her mother in Osaka and her brothers in Pyongyang, North Korea. Born in Japan to pro-Pyongyang ethnic Korean parents, Yang tells about her life and family history in a cinematic form. But the 47-year-old director’s second personal document...
S. Korean actress Lee Young-ae gives birth to twins

Feb 21, 2011

South Korean actress Lee Young-ae, widely popular across Asia, has given birth to twins, her agent here said Monday. Lee, 40, became a mother of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at a Seoul hospital, said Storms Company. "The mother and the babies are healthy," it said. She was secretly married in 2009 in the United States to a Korean businessman, surprising fans everywhe...
Downbeat S. Korean drama booed in Berlin

Feb 21, 2011

BERLIN (AFP) – The sole Asian contender for the Berlin film festival's Golden Bear top prize, minimalist South Korean breakup drama "Come Rain, Come Shine", met with jeers from critics Thursday. It tells the story of a woman who announces to her husband she is leaving him but, before she goes, spends one last day with him in their home -- an experience that fills them both with longing and regre...
‘Night Fishing’ brings home Golden Bear

Feb 20, 2011

Park brothers’ iPhone-shot short film wins award at Berlinale South Korea’s highly acclaimed director Park Chan-wook and his younger brother, media artist Park Chan-kyong , captured a Golden Bear at Berlin International Film Festival for their first collaboration. “Come Rain, Come Shine,” a feature-length film which was the only Asian contender for the festival’s Golden Bear top prize, howeve...
Adam Sandler: Is he the new Woody Allen? No, and yes

Feb 18, 2011

We humans divide ourselves into camps. Liberals and conservatives. Cat people and dog people. Woody Allen fans and Adam Sandler fans. Sandler, whose “Just Go With It” opens Friday, occupies a place in the hearts of Gen-Xers much in the way that Woody Allen is a cultural icon for baby boomers. Those sounds you hear are the howls of protest and snorts of derision from graying movie watchers ac...
Director Lee defends pace of Berlin’s sole Asian entry

Feb 18, 2011

BERLIN (AFP) ― The sole Asian contender for the Berlin film festival’s Golden Bear top prize, minimalist South Korean breakup drama “Come Rain, Come Shine,” met with jeers from critics Thursday. It tells the story of a woman who announces to her husband she is leaving him but, before she goes, spends one last day with him in their home ― an experience that fills them both with longing and regret...
Box office

Feb 18, 2011

Come Rain, Come Shine (Korea) Opening Mar. 3 Drama. Directed by Lee Yoon-ki. A woman (Im Soo-jeong), who has been married for five years, one day tells her husband she wants to leave him for another man. The husband (Hyun Bin), an introvert who rarely speaks his mind, does not ask her why. On the day she moves out, he makes coffee and wraps her favorite teacup so she can take it with her. The f...
Box-office rankings

Feb 18, 2011

Feb. 11 ― feb. 13 1. Detective K : Secret Of Virtuous Widow Opened Jan. 27 Directed by Kim Seok-yoon Starring Kim Myeong-min, Han Ji-min 2. Tangled (Rapunzel) Opened Feb. 10 Directed by Nathan Greno, Byron Howard Starring Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi 3. Sanctum Opened Feb. 10 Directed by Alister Grierson Starring Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd 4. Battlefield Heroes Opened Jan. 27 Dir...
He-men of a certain age contend with young rivals

Feb 18, 2011

This summer, 68-year-old Harrison Ford will be mixing it up with Old West-invading extraterrestrials in “Cowboys & Aliens.” Next month, 67-year-old Robert De Niro will star in the action thriller “Limitless.” When “The Expendables II” opens in 2012, the combined age of its top five prospective stars, God willing, will be 291 years. The landscape of recent motion pictures, in particular Manly Mov...
Iranian drama cheered at Berlin fest

Feb 16, 2011

BERLIN (AFP) ― A warmly applauded Iranian drama emerged Tuesday as a front-runner at the Berlin film festival, which is throwing the spotlight on the country’s embattled film-makers. “Nader and Simin: A Separation” by Asghar Farhadi, who won a best director prize for his haunting film “About Elly” at the 2009 festival, brings another fascinating portrait of contemporary Iranian urbanites to the ...
Documentary ‘The Last Tundra’ shows culture’s respect for nature

Feb 13, 2011

They follow the stars and the moon when they travel, melt gigantic pieces of ice for drinking water, and use natural moss for baby diapers and dish washing ― all in minus-50 degree weather. SBS documentary “The Last Tundra ― Movie Edition” offers a very rare glimpse into the life of the Nenets, the last reindeer herding nomads living in Siberian tundra. Through a yearly migration of more than a...
Liz Taylor treated for congestive heart failure

Feb 13, 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Elizabeth Taylor remained in a Los Angeles hospital on Saturday for treatment of congestive heart failure. The Oscar-winning actress' condition was unchanged, her spokeswoman Sally Morrison said early Saturday afternoon. She did not know how long Taylor would remain at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The 78-year-old Taylor first disclosed in November 2004 that she suffered from ...
Box office

Feb 11, 2011

Late Autumn (Korea) Opening Feb. 17 Drama. Directed by Kim Tae-yong. Prisoner Anna (Tang Wei), a Chinese-American woman who murdered her husband seven years ago, is released from jail for three days to attend her mother’s funeral in Seattle. In the bus heading to Seattle, Anna runs into Hoon (Hyun Bin), a Korean gigolo. Spending the next 72 hours together, the two begin to develop genuine feeli...
Elton John takes surprising turn with ‘Gnomeo & Juliet’

Feb 11, 2011

The image of Elton John in bejeweled stacked shoes, garish glasses and colorful costumes will forever be a part of the 1970s. But these days, he presents a very different image ― both professionally and personally. “As I grow older, I’m much more content in my own skin,” says John, who is dressed in black and wearing a pair of John Lennon-style sunglasses. The 63-year-old music icon is doing int...