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Asian science fiction has been dominated for many years by Japanese animation, which has provided countless masterpieces to the genre. But in the past 25 years or so, a new batch of live-action films have given the genre new momentum by providing more diversity in terms of format, national origins and thematic scope. While Japan is still making great science fiction that feels fresh and innovative, other countries, most notably South Korea and China, have begun taking the genre more seriously than in the past. Leading filmmakers now use sci-fi to tell great extrapolative stories about science and technology, the future(s) of human society, or more allegorically to deal with mental illness or the precariousness of the adult world.

Science fiction is a notoriously difficult genre to define, but the list below takes a look at films that try to break free of the traditional Japanese formats and subgenres – beyond...

South Korean star Don Lee has revealed that four more films are being planned for the hit Roundup franchise and confirmed he is lined up to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The action star is in Berlin with The Roundup: Punishment, which will receive its world premiere tonight (February 23) as a Berlinale Special Gala.

It is the fourth instalment in a series that began with The Outlaws in 2017 before sequel The Roundup became the top grossing film at the Korean box office in 2022 with takings of nearly $100m (KRW131.3bn) – bringing audiences back to cinemas post-pandemic – and The Roundup: No Way Out...

The gruesome subject of organ theft has long been popular in Korean cinema, ripped from the headlines style tales of unfortunate people having their vitals forcibly removed having made for a number of very effective chillers over the years. Though the theme might not be new, with “Traffickers” debut writer director Kim Hong Sun definitely offers a different spin, playing out the story with one of the smugglers as his protagonist. The criminal in question is played by Lim Chang Jung, in a massive departure from the goofy comedy roles in “Sex is Zero”, “Shotgun Love” and others that he made his name in, joined by up and coming actor Choi Daniel (Cyrano Agency) as a man whose wife is snatched for harvesting, with Oh Dal Soo (“The Thieves”), Jo Yoon Hee (“Doomsday Book”) and Lee Young Hoon, (“No Regret”) in supporting roles. Lim plays Young Gyu, the former head...

Kim Jee-woon recently signed his Hollywood debut with the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Last Stand and his next feature project will be a live-action adaptation of the anime Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, but it looks like we'll be getting another new work from him very soon. Following his work on the omnibus Doomsday Book, Kim is returning to the short film format with Hide & Seek, a new experimental short commissioned by Cgv, Korea's largest exhibitor.Starring Gang Dong-won (Duelist, Haunters) and Shin Mina (A Bittersweet Life), Hide & Seek involves a character known as X who becomes involved in a chase as he seeks to deliver an unknown object.Previously responsible for 4Dx technology (I'm not a fan), Cgv is hoping to demonstrate the value...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

You'll be seeing several of these cram sessions from me as I catch up from a particularly eventful winter during which I was unable to maintain my preferred review schedule. Hopefully these wrap-ups will be useful as I can help you decide what is worth your money and what isn't. Well Go USA is one of the more prolific labels with whom I deal on a regular basis. In the last two months, they've dropped some major releases on us, including their theatrical/Blu-ray release of Stephen Fung's steampunk kung-fu epic, Tai Chi Zero; and Korean box office explosion, The Thieves, among others. Here are a few words about each of their recent releases from our archival reviews:Doomsday Book:This apocalyptic triptych is the joint work of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

There is no greater time to kick this article into life for 2013 than with the release of the year’s first English language debut from a Korean director. That director is Kim Jee Woon and that film in question is the Last Stand, his English language debut and even more inexplicably Arnie’s return to action cinema (ignore the inert expendables 2). As part of our look at Kim Jee Woon, we shall be breaking his catalogue into three parts. This is the first part in which I will be covering his two breakout films, action thriller a bittersweet life, and the vastly superior (to its genre kin) a tale of two sisters. After that, it’s the stabby violence of I saw a devil and the western cool of the good, the bad and the weird. After which we close out with the quiet family (later ‘remade’ by Takashi Miike...

Following the baseball drama GLove, director Kang Woo-suk of the Public Enemy trilogy has set his sights on another sport, mixed-martial arts, in Fist of Legend (no relationship to the Jet Li film of the same name). Based on a webcomic series written by Lee Jong-kyoo and illustrated by Lee Yoon-gyun, it centers on a group of middle-aged men who were once hailed as legends during their teenage years, participating in a fight tournament to win the grand prize money.The cast include Hwang Jung-min (New World), Lee Yo-won (May 18), Yoo Jun-sang (R2B: Return To Base) and Yoon Je-moon (Doomsday Book).A moment of bad luck derailed Deok-kyu's Olympic dreams and led him and his friends to jail. Jin-ho got out of jail quickly because of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The announcement of the Asian Movie Awards has just been released with some big films and actors going against against each other to win the big awards. Some of these include Drug War (Louis Koo), Outrage Beyond, actors such as Choi Min-sik and Tony Leung Ka-fai, to Directors such as Takeshi Kitano and Lou Ye.

I do have a few favorites in this list and i feel best movie could go to Drug War and best actor should fall to Choi Min-sik (just brilliant in every movie).

Here is the list of nominations below, feel free to write your favorites in the comment box at the bottom of the page.

Best Film

“Drug War” (Mainland China)

“Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)

“Mystery” (Mainland China)

“Outrage Beyond” (Japan)

“Pieta” (South Korea)

Best Director

Anurag Kashyap, “Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2″ (India)

Abbas Kiarostami, “Like Someone in Love” (Japan/France/Iran)

Kim Ki-duk,...

Four Indian films have been nominated for the 7th Asian Film Awards with Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur leading the pack with four nominations: Best Film, Anurag Kashyap for Best Director, Wasiq Khan for Best Production Designer and Rajeev Ravi for Best Cinematographer.

In other nominations, Nawazuddin Siddiqui will compete for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Talaash, Anand Gandhi contends for Best Screenwriter for his debut film Ship of Theseus and Pritam Chakraborty vies for Best Composer Award for his melodies in Barfi!.

Andy Lau, a noted actor of Hong Kong will head the judging panel. A total of 30 films from nine countries will compete under 14 categories at the award function to be held on 18th March, 3013. The annual event is organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.

Full List of Nominations:

Best Film

Drug War (Mainland China)

Gangs of Wasseypur, Part 1 & 2 (India)

Mystery (Mainland...

By Allen Gardner

Killer Joe (Lionsgate) William Friedkin’s film of Tracy Letts’ off-Broadway hit about a family of Texas trailer park cretins (Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon) who hire a cop-cum-hitman (Matthew McConaughey) to take out their troublesome mother, then foolishly cross him, is a stinging satire, given double-barreled audacity by Friedkin’s sure, and fearless, directorial hand. Earning its Nc-17 rating in spades, “Killer Joe” reminds us that daring, frank material like this is why movies exist in the first place. McConaughey gives the performance of his career, hopefully redefined after this. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes; Commentary by Friendkin; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros.) Christopher Nolan’s coda to his “Batman” trilogy finds Christian Bale returning as a brooding Bruce Wayne/Caped Crusader, this time faced with a hulking villain (Tom Hardy) with respiratory...

Our recent Movie Trailers of 2013 roundup should be seared into your brain by now, but in case you need a gory reminder, we have a few new images from one of the movies mentioned: "Texas Chainsaw 3D." Entertainment Weekly featured some photos of the chainsaw-wielding baddie from the horror series, Leatherface.

It looks like he's stalking his prey at a local carnival. The film takes place decades after the original 1974 storyline introduced us to the famed killer and his demented family. When a young woman learns she's inherited a Texas estate, she hits the road with friends to collect her namesake. Her family reunion takes a turn for the bloody. See what happens when Bill Moseley, Alexandra Daddario, Gunnar Hansen, Trey Songz, Marilyn Burns, and the rest of the cast return to Texas on January 4.

David S. Goyer is Not Directing a Live-Action 'Hellsing' Movie

Fans of the "Hellsing" manga...

Curious about who will be writing the sequel to Bong Joon-Ho's Korean monsterpiece The Host? How about who'll be directing and when you'll be able to see it? We've got all that and more for you right here.

According to Twitch Film, director Im Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel, Doomsday Book) recently finished a script which will be helmed by debut filmmaker Park Myung-chun. While no word has surfaced on the plot yet, it has been revealed that The Host 2 will feature two different monsters this time around. An early summer 2014 release date is being eyed for the hotly anticipated monster movie.

The Host 2's CG effects were produced domestically by Macrograph, and in their 2012 showreel you'll find some good old fashioned monster mayhem. The footage hits 27 seconds in and, later, at the three-minute mark. Check it out!

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A few weeks ago Al Young gave us a glimpse of Macrograph's test footage for the long-awaited follow-up to Bong Joon-ho's enormously popular creature feature The Host. The impressive clip, which actually dates back a few years, got a lot of people excited as it made its way around the net but now the silence has been broken on the sequel as producer Choi Yong-bae has shed light on the production's status.Director Im Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel, Doomsday Book) recently finished a script which will be helmed by debut filmmaker Park Myung-chun. While no word has surfaced on the plot yet, it has been revealed that The Host 2 will feature two different monsters this time around. An early summer 2014 release date is being...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Directors: Pil-Sung Yim, Jee-woon Kim. Writers: Jee-woon Kim, Pil-Sung Yim. Cast: Doona Bae, Joon-ho Bong and Ji-hee Jin. For some people, December is Doomsday month. The obsession may have some film buffs exploring creative ways cinema has for how the Earth can stand still, or simply go boom. A well-made anthology titled Doomsday Book (인류멸망보고서) fits the bill. Quite literally, the movie's original title means, "Report on the Destruction of Mankind." Instead of the Earth rebelling against civilization, the onus is on what humanity can do unto itself. That can make for some great storytelling. Each tale is unique in relating how one solitary act can doom an entire world, or nation in the first short, "Brave New World (멋진 신세계)." This amusing tale looks at how a nerdy research scientist, Yoon Seok-woo (Ryo Seung-beom) unwittingly unleashes the zombie apocalypse by discarding a rotten apple. He is set up by...

Directors: Yim Pil-sung and Kim Ji-Wwoon. Review: Stan Glick Doomsday Book (2012), a Centerpiece Selection at the 2012 New York Asian Film festival this past July, will be released in the U.S. on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital by Well Go USA Entertainment on Tuesday, December 11th. This review is of the Blu-ray version. The film is a terrific science fiction anthology that features three stories set in the near future. Leading things off is Yim Pil-sung’s “Brave New World” which stars Ryoo Seung-bum (The Servant) as Yoon Seok-woo, a young man finishing his military service in a lab. Left behind when his parents and sister go on a vacation, his innocent act of throwing out the garbage leads to an outbreak of an uncontrollable epidemic, with people turning into rampaging zombies. The path by which a discarded apple leads to this widespread disease is marvelously depicted. On the more amusing...

It’s no big secret I love horror films, but 2012 hasn’t been a great year. In my top ten, three films carry over from 2011, two won’t be released until 2013, two are animated and another isn’t much of a horror film. With that said, 2012 gave us Berberian Sound Studio and Cabin In The Woods, and for that, I am forever grateful. Here is a list of the 21 horror films from 2012 I liked best.

****

#1: Berberian Sound Studio

Directed by Peter Strickland

Written by Peter Strickland

UK, 2012

Berberian Sound Studio reminds us of the power of sound over the visual image, and can surely join the ranks of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Brian DePalma’s Blow Out as an absorbing appreciation of sound design. But both thematically and visually, Berberian is more of a descendant of the school of David Lynch and Roman Polanski. As things get increasingly,...

Doomsday Book from the South Korean director of I Saw the Devil (2010) A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and 3 Extremes II (2002) takes on the theme of the end of the world through three vignettes that present different ways the apocalypse may occur. Whether the end of days arrives in the form of a zombie outbreak Man vs. Machine or a meteor from outterspace Jeewoon Kim and PilSung Yim tackle the subject matter with humor camp and tremendous thoughtfulness.

Not just one of the world's leading science fiction festivals, the Trieste Science+Fiction festival is one of the finest genre events in the world regardless of the genre in question and it kicks off tomorrow with a sterling program that includes Looper, Holy Motors, Resolution, Errors Of The Human Body, Antiviral, Doomsday Book, classic Italian titles and a whole lot more.Trieste Science + Fiction / International Festival of Science-Fiction is a multidisciplinary event that explores the many worlds of the fantasy and science fiction genres, focusing on the experimental languages and new technologies of cinema, television, visual arts and entertainment.The festival as we know it today is the natural progression of The International Film Festival of Science Fiction that started in the 1960s. Every November,...

Two architects of Cinematography. Three Prophetical Visions of Humanity’s Future

Breaking a Paradigm

Doomsday Book

Kim Ji-woon and Yim Pil-sung’s combination for the creation of an Epic Sci-Fi Anthology

Debuts on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital December 11th

Internationally-acclaimed Directors Kim Ji-woon (I saw the Devil, The Good, The Bad, The Weird) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel) deliver us three visions on an apocalyptic theme in the anthology film Doomsday Book, debuting on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital December 11th.

In the first story, Director Yim Pil opens with Brave New World, Ryoo Seung-bum (The Servant) starring as a young man fighting for survival in a world infected by biological toxins. A recurring theme in the modern Sci-Fi that dares to explore the depths of

the unconscious, exploiting humanity’s collective fear on the misuse of technologies and hazards that mortals are yet to understand completely.

The core of the film,...

With one of the longest lists of award winners we've ever seen, the 2012 Toronto After Dark Film Festival has announced who brought home the gold, silver, bronze, and more from this year's event.

From the Press Release:

Toronto After Dark Film Festival is thrilled to announce the Award Winners of its 7th Annual Edition! As is tradition at Toronto After Dark, the Jury were the fans themselves with over 4,000 votes cast this year by festival-goers to determine the best new horror, sci-fi, action and cult movies from around the world!

Genre comedies won audiences over at Toronto After Dark 2012 with the crowd-pleasing British gangsters meets zombies action comedy Cockneys Vs Zombies winning the festival’s Top Prize, the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film, Gold. Close behind, Dead Sushi the latest splatter comedy from Japanese cult director Noboru Iguchi, gobbled up the Silver, while A Fantastic Fear Of Everything,...

Toronto – With twenty horror, sci-fi, action, and cult movies crammed into nine nights, and an eclectic mix of short films thrown in between, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2012 gave the Toronto genre fan a multitude of reasons to be sleep-deprived. Before going into a sustained state of hibernation, audiences cast their ballot for which film they liked the best; the results are as follows:

Audience Choice Awards, Best Feature Film

1. Gold: Cockneys vs Zombies

2. Silver: Dead Sushi

3. Bronze: A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Audience Choice Awards, Best International Short Film

1. Gold: Henri

2. Silver: Vicki

3. Bronze: Numbers

Audience Choice Awards, Best Canadian Short Film

1. Gold: Bio-Cop

2. Silver: A Pretty Funny Story

3. Bronze: Frost

Audience Choice Awards, Best Independent Video Game

1. Gold: Hotline Miami

2 Silver: Tales from Space: Mutant Blob Attacks

3. Bronze: Mcpixel

Fans Choice Awards

Best Horror Film: Citadel

Best Sci-Fi Film: Doomsday Book

Best Candian Feature Film: American Mary...

Three shorts comprise distinct glimpses into the end of the world in the Korean film Doomsday Book. The end of the world has always been a popular subject with filmmakers of all ilks and in Doomsday Book we’re treating to three possible ways the world will end; by zombie outbreak, robot takeover, and a huge Magic 8 Ball plummeting from the sky. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, except each ending is long and exasperating.

Hey , boils and ghouls… Jeff here with another Toronto After Dark 2012 update for you all! Sunday was Day 4 of Toronto After Dark 2012, and as usual, it was longest day of the festival, with four different features and four short films. Usually by Sunday night, folks are hitting what I call the Tadff Wall… You’re tired from several days of back-to-back films, late nights at the pub, and – for those of us who review films and cover the festival – trying to find time to do your writing. This year was no different, and while it wasn’t a bad day of films, I have to say that it was fairly middle-ground; especially for a day with almost 12 hours of back-to-back screenings.

Things kicked off at 1pm with a short film called Frost, which I did not get a chance to see due to some subway delays. I heard the film was pretty crazy though,...

We’re back with the latest installment of the Indie Spotlight. In today’s feature we have the first two episodes of the Ghost Trek webseries, a trailer for Rites of Passage, a Walking Dead-inspired musical, and much more:

Ghost Trek: The Kinsey Report: “Do you ever watch those ghost hunting shows and scratch your head, thinking to yourself, “These shows are so ridiculous. Why am I watching this?” Well, Ghost Trek creator, Michael Plumides sat through marathon episodes of paranormal reality TV one Christmas and came up with a comic-horror concept called, Ghost Trek, which takes a swipe at the whole genre – with you in mind.

Ghost Trek follows the Paranormal Underworld Detective Society (Puds) as they investigate haunts across the U.S. and abroad between tanning beds, babes, body-building, and bong hits — all the while risking life and limb capturing the undead and unexplained on video.

The team is lead by Dr.

Doomsday Book

Written and directed by Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim

South Korea, 2012

H.G. Wells, a godfather of modern apocalyptic literature, once said that, “all this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are not latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a foot-stool and shall laugh and reach their hands amidst the stars”.

Decades later and continents away, Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim’s Doomsday Book, an anthology of apocalyptic possibilities, channels the ethos of Wells’ work in a distinctly Korean endeavour. Broken into three disparate parts, the film is at times silly and farcical, and at others profound and insightful.

The film kicks off with a segment called A Brave New World, as in the Aldous Huxley novel of the same name.

Internationally-renowned Directors Kim Ji-woon (I Saw the Devil, The Good, The Bad, the Weird) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel) present three interpretations on an apocalyptic theme in the anthology film Doomsday Book, debuting on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital December 11th from Well Go USA Entertainment. In the first film, Director Yim Pil-Sung opens with Brave New World, starring Ryoo Seung-bum (The Servant) as a young man trying to survive in a world infected by… More...

The latest anthology on the horror block, Doomsday Book, is coming home to Blu-ray and DVD this December, featuring tales of terror from Korean directors Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil, A Tale of Two Sisters) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel)! Read on for details!

From the Press Release

Internationally-renowned directors Kim Ji-woon (I Saw the Devil; The Good, The Bad, the Weird) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel) present three interpretations on an apocalyptic theme in the anthology film Doomsday Book, debuting on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital December 11th from Well Go USA Entertainment. In the first film, director Yim Pil-Sung opens with Brave New World, starring Ryoo Seung-bum (The Servant) as a young man trying to survive in a world infected by biological toxins. The centerpiece of the film, Heavenly Creature, directed by Kim Ji-woon, stars Kim Kang-woo (A Better Tomorrow), Kim Gyu-ri (Portrait of a Beauty) and Park...

Fans of sci-fi and apocalyptic films take note, superb Korean omnibus film Doomsday Book is heading for U.S DVD and Blu-ray. It’s a movie in three segments each directed by a different Big name in Korean filmmaking; Lim Pil-seong (Hansel & Gretel, Antarctic Journal), Han Jae-rim (The Show Must Go On) and Kim Ji-woon (I Saw The Devil, A Bittersweet Life). With that kind of pedigree you should’nt even need to see a trailer but it cant hurt now can it? Doomsday Book streets on December 11, 2012. First Chapter ("Heaven's Creation") - Director Kim Ji-woon: A story about a robot who gains consciousness and the abusrdity that follows. Second Chapter ("The New Generation") - Director Lim Pil-seong: A clever action film told from the point of view of a boy who has become a zombie, this segment explores how humans lose control of planet Earth, becoming mere food for a different species.

Jeff is ready to geek out! That means it must be time for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival starting October 18th and running through October 26th. Shawn Savage, Jeff Konopka and Kirk Haviland get down and dirt with the entire festival line up. This is a content packed podcast filled with all the info a festival-goer could want. If you can’t attend the Toronto After Dark Film Festival this year this will be a great way to get ready for our future casts that will follow Jeff’s journey into madness of festival land Toronto. These are movies that are going to be talked about throughout the next year. If you’re a horror, cult, genre movie fan than these are most likely movies that you’re going to want to see. Inbred, American Mary, Rec 3… Movies… you’ll… want… to… hear about. As you’ll notice there...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

After directors Kim Jee-woon (A Tale Of Two Sisters; The Good, The Bad, The Weird) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel and Gretel) completed two-thirds of filming for their riotous anthology film Doomsday Book in 2006, production issues left the remaining work incomplete for six years, and finally, it has arrived in sensational, ludicrously entertaining fashion. With one story concerning a zombie outbreak, one a Buddhist robot, and another an impending apocalypse, the directors have crafted a pleasantly unpretentious festival film that will nevertheless appeal to the smart cinemagoer given its satirical nature and inherent intelligence.

The first segment, A Brave New World, is a playfully grim yarn, as a rotten apple becomes mixed into the cattle production line and ends up causing a massive viral epidemic as a result. Patient zero, Suk-woo (Seung-beom Ryu), makes for a hilarious protagonist, as his efforts – or rather, his failures – with women intersect with the plague,...

★★☆☆☆ Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim's portmanteau film Doomsday Book (2012) started production in 2006 when the first two segments of the piece were complete. Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - a year later the directors were able to raise funds for the third part of the anthology of shorts. All three shorts that make up Kim and Yim's own Doomsday Book are a critique on modern living in some form or another, a quasi-pithy take on well-established genres - with the first applying a unique spin on zombie apocalypse.

Read more »...

The third day of press screenings for the 56th London Film Festival provided quite an odd array of choices. Mexico’s Here and There represented the “Journey” strand of the festival, while Save Your Legs! was then meant to provide some much needed laughs (it’s in the “Laugh” category, you see) before “Cult” pick Doomsday Book ended the afternoon on quite a bizarre note. – London Film Fan

Here and There

There’s a reason Antonio Méndez Esparza’s debut feature film isn’t playing as part of the “First Feature” competition at the Lff, it’s atrocious. The “story” of a father (Pedro De los Santos) returning to his family in Mexico to start a band after working in the Us is about as bland and poorly produced as any film could be and still get into the Festival. With excruciatingly static cinematography, stilted performances and cringe-inducing blocking, Here and There...

Doomsday Book

Written by Kim Jee-Woon & Yim Pil-Sung

Directed by Kim Jee-Woon & Yim Pil-Sung

South Korea, 2012

The triumvirate anthology film gets a welcome revival in this South Korean horror / Sf hybrid picture, with a mixture of social criticism thrown in for oriental larks. After filming two segments of the tale back in 2006 – and its early incarnations glisten with some social concerns of the last decade – directors Kim Jee-woon (best known for A Tale Of Two Sisters) & Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel) provide three tales of a Twilight Zone flavour, all overshadowed by a dystopian theme, from extinction level threat asteroids of a spherical variety to a robotic revolution, the three part film initiated with a gutsy episode of pandemic pandemonium.

In the first tale (subtitled ‘Heaven’s Creation’) a young scientist is left home alone and somehow manages to infect himself and his new girlfriend with a plague inducing virus, swiftly...

“Lolita” goes Korean with “A Muse”, the story of a 70 year old poet falling in love with a young high school girl. Based upon the popular and controversial novel “Eun Gyo” by Park Bum Shin, the film was directed by Jung Ji Woo, who previously tackled unconventional relationships in his acclaimed 1999 debut “Happy End”. As well as its premise, the film attracted attention for the choice of award winning actor Park Hae Il (“War of the Arrows”) as the male lead, the 35 year old apparently undergoing nearly 8 hours of makeup daily to fit him for the part. In addition to Park, the film also stars Kim Moo Yeol (“Doomsday Book”), and actress Kim Go Eun in the pivotal role of the girl, a first time actress whose only prior experience had been in student productions. Park Hae Il plays the 70 year old Lee Jeok Yo, one of Korea’s top and most praised poets,...

The decision to step into the world of New Kids Nitro was one that was made literally at the last possible second. Originally, I was content to spend my witching hour with Kim Ji-Woon’s new sprawling apocalyptic guessing game, Doomsday Book. However while en route, I was assured that unless I was truly looking for a 120+ minute Chinese film that moved almost as fast as a turtle in full sprint, I would perhaps be better off spending my time with a group of rowdy Dutch folk! In hindsight, I’m not sure I have ever made a more deft decision in my entire festival career.

Now this is generally the part of the review where I go on some long tangent trying to explain the film’s plot to readers who, more than likely, know nothing about this film. Well, that would be all fine and dandy, were the...

Doomsday Book

Directed by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung

Screenplay by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung

2012, South Korea

Doomsday Book, the Korean anthology co-directed by Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel) and Kim Jee-woon (The Good, The Bad and The Weird and I Saw The Devil), offers three unique takes of society in decline and the end of the world as we know it. As with most anthologies, it’s a mixed bag, but Doomsday Book tends to impress more than it falters.

The first story, Yim Pil-Sung’s A Brave New World, offers the first vision of the Apocalypse in the form of a zombie outbreak. It’s familiar territory to be sure, and while Yim doesn’t exactly show us anything new with his contribution to the canon of undead cinema, he does muster a fair amount of style and sets the quirky tone that carries through to the third film.

The first thing any review of an anthology film usually mentions is that the format, by its very nature, invariably leads to a mixed bag when it comes to quality. Doomsday Book, a new anthology film from South Korea, is a mixed bag… but thankfully the quality only ranges from good to fantastic. Directors Pil-sung Yim (Hansel & Gretel) and Jee-woon Kim (I Saw the Devil) combined forces to deliver an oddball look at mankind’s demise. Some say the world will end with zombies, and others say with an asteroid. This three part film offers up both options and tosses in a third less literal end that serves as more of an awakening. All three segments have observations to share on humanity, and while the book-ending parts do so with blackly comic heart the middle story is a ruminative commentary on what it means to be a human with designs on the spiritual. Yim...

While the Toronto International Film Festival holds a well-deserved spot as one of the premier movie events in the city, fans of pulpier fare and cult classics never found a place for themselves the the event. In 2006, however, these fans were given an oasis in the desert in the form of The Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Taking place very October, the seventh annual event will take place this year from October 18th to October 26th, effectively leading in to Halloween with 9 days of movies geared towards the cult audience, ranging from horror to science fiction to action to comedy, and everything in between.

The festival screens all of its movies at the historic Bloor Cinema, and this year will be no different. Having already screened four films this summer, those four being the horror comedy Juan of the Dead, the horror anthology V/H/S along with The Pact and Detention,...

The Toronto After Dark film festival has unveiled its first wave of film announcements for 2012, and included in these ten films are some of the most critically acclaimed and eagerly anticipated horror, sci-fi, action, and cult films from this year’s international film festival circuit.

These ten new movies will all have their Toronto or Canadian theatrical premieres hosted exclusively at the festival’s 7th annual edition this October 18th-26th at the city’s historic Bloor Cinema. Check out the fest's sizzle reel below, and for more info visit the official Toronto After Dark website, "like" Toronto After Dark on Facebook, and follow Toronto After Dark on Twitter (@Tad FilmFest).

Ten more exciting feature films, a collection of cutting-edge short films, and the complete festival schedule will be announced at the end of September. At that time fans will also be able to buy single tickets to all screenings.