FILMASIA – film festival on asian cinema in Prague celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. During the past years the festival introduced over one hundred and fifty movies, mainly leading Asian genre films, however, each year the festival focused more closely on one region. This year, the jubilee program allows us to view movies from all the territories. But as the tradition has it, most of the titles are from South Korea. Once again we will introduce one of the biggest film hits of the last decade from South Korea and not only in Park Chan-wook’s retrospective we will be able to see how Korean cinema developed.
After couple of years we will once again introduce new releases from Taiwan, mainly those in the most popular genres: festival productions and genre movies targeted at young adults. The past few years Hong Kong has been co-producing many movies with China, however, the local movies retain their explicit style. The Chinese cinema introduces two big talents this year, both very different yet equally inspired by movie genres from the west. Japan’s film production has been facing more and more uniformity. We will also show two of Takeshi Miike’s movies, who’s one of the few directors that can truly stir the calm waters of cinema. The master of animation who left the industry recently will be also honoured this year with a special screening for children of his next-to-last movie Ponjo.
We would like to thank you all, particularly our audiences, because it is thanks to you that the tenth Filmasia is happening.
Enjoy the movies, come and travel with us to the Far East and have a wonderful time celebrating the tenth Filmasia in the cinemas Lucerna and Svetozor, 1st – 7th December 2014.
Xin dong dai hao: Sun Yat Sen
Taiwan, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Yee Chih-yen
cast: Zhan Huai-yun, Wei Han-ting,
distributor: Ablaze Image
A young man nicknamed Left-Handed thinks he’s the poorest student on his high school. But one day, while hiding in the school‘s basement from bullies, who are after him because he didn’t have the money that needed to be collected from the students that day, he finds a bronze statuette of Sunjatsen. Left-Handed and his classmates scheme what to do with the valuable portrait of the revolutionary co-founder of Kuomintang. Should Left-Handed sell it and solve his financial problems? This is Yee Chih-yen’s third feature film, the director and screenwriter who became known for his romantic drama Blue Gate. In this picture he concentrates on the coveted genres of high school comedies and „heist films“ that scheme and plan thefts, as well as on the social groups. Meeting Dr. Sun is a comedy but at heart it’s a story about poverty in Taiwan.
Bing du
Myanmar, Taiwan, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Midi Z.
cast: Wu Kexi, Wang Xinghong, Zhou Caichang, Yang Shulan, Li Shangda
distributor: Flash Forward Entertainment
Unique meet-cute in the midst of ordinariness… She hurries to her grandfather’s funeral and he tries to make it as a motorbike taxi driver, because out in the country his family starves. Ice Poison is an emotional piece about courage, confidence and love and is so far the most well received film by a Burmese director, Midi Z. The director studied on Taiwan, where he also gained production support from the famous Hou Hsiao-hsien, who helped him with his previous films. Midi Z’s movies were very widely appreciated and successful on various film festivals in Asia as well as in the west, for example in Rotterdam, Tribeca or Berlin, where also his Ice Poison premiered.
Hui guang zoumingqu
Taiwan, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Chienn Hsiang
cast: Chen Hsiang-chi, Easton Dong, Pai Ming-hua, Sunny You, Alice Huang, Jenny Wen
distributor: MM square film
This emotional drama about loneliness and growing old was filmed by a very talented Taiwanese cameraman and director, Chienn Hsiang. Exit is a brilliant motion picture with an outstanding acting performance. The starring actress Chen Hsiang chi became well known after excelling in Tsai Ming-liang’s movies. The film tells a story about Ling-tzu, a former tailor who lives alone while her husband works in Shanghai. As she visits her mother at a hospital, she slowly befriends a badly injured man who is also a patient there. The director and actress created a sensitive portrait of a woman stuck in her own small universe, busy with everyday routines and family issues, seeking a way out. The decent atmosphere is coloured by wonderful cinematography that sensitively depicts the isolation of the characters.
Bai mi zha dan ke
Taiwan, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Cho Li
cast: Huang Chien-wei, Nikki Hsieh, Michael Chang, Hsu Chia-jung, Wu Fan,
distributor: Ablaze Image
Ten years ago bombs made of rice began to explode on Taiwan. Man called Yang Ju-men used the 17 bombs to criticise the activities the Wold Trade Organisation had on Taiwanese agriculture. Director and screenwriter Cho Li based her film on this story, making it a think piece about the state of the world today. The movie was filmed by a very talented cameraman, Jo Yong-gyu, who used to work with famous directors such as Bong Joon-ho and Lee Chang-dong. The movie premiered this year on Berlinale Film Festival.
Gong fan
Taiwan, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Chang Jung-chi
cast: Wu Jian-he, Deng Yu-kai, Cheng Kai-yuan, Yao Ai-ning, Sunny Hung, Wen Chen-ling
distributor: Double Edge Entertainment
Three high school students with various personalities haven’t been in contact for some time but are bound together when they find one of their classmates dead. The group begins to investigate her death on their own and as they reveal her past private life’s secrets, some of their own secrets begin to unfold. The offences and wrongs they did to each other reveal the dark side of the girls. Partners in Crime is about putting the riddle of the murder case together while witnessing peculiar lives bound by a generation that faces ordinary everyday problems. From cyber-bullying to the hierarchy of the school teams, the world of the students is not only a rage of hormones but it’s mainly a cruel confrontation of suppressed emotions and harsh self-censorship.
Nanfang xiao yang muchang
Taiwan, 2012
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Hou Chi-jan
cast: Kai Ko, Chien Man-shu, Tsai Chen-nan, Kuo Shu-yau, Lin Ching-tai, Dennis Nieh, Lu Ting-wei, Nikki Hsieh
distributor: Ablaze Image
Two heartbroken souls are timidly trying to get closer to one another in the area of Nanyang in Taipei, which is famous for its night schools, where hundreds of people gather every day but never stay longer than is necessary. In his second feature film, director Hou Chi-jan juggles two genres that were popularised in Taiwan the past few years – a romantic comedy and a comedy from the quirky communities filled with sympathetic characters. This genre combination builds an enchanting yet not at all schemed storytelling, mingling decent romanticism and playfulness, while adding a special sense for atmosphere and introduction of colourful characters. And this all gives the movie its very unique quality.
Wara no tate
Japan, 2013
Japanese with English and Czech subtitles
director: Takashi Miike
cast: Takao Osawa, Nanako Matsushima, Goro Kishitani, Masato Ibu, Kento Nagayama, Tatsuya Fujiwara
distributor: Celluloid Dreams
Creative workaholic Takashi Miike found himself in the Japanese mainstream for the past few years, however, he continues in his previous attempts, filming independent genre movies. Each of his movies enriches his portfolio with a new genre and style, but also strengthens the standards of the main stream. This time he delved into a high budget thriller, however instead of filming a routine-like shooting scenes, he decided to use the action sequences to colour of provocative ethical questions that deeply touch the audience. A team of five policemen need to prepare a sadistic murderer for his trial. Their goal has a difficult obstacle though – an old dying millionaire, whose granddaughter was the last victim of the murder series and who announced a reward of 10 million dollars to whoever kills the perpetrator.
7beonbangeui seonmool
Korea, 2013
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Lee Hwan-gyeong
cast: Ryoo Seung-ryong, Park Shin-hye, Gal So-won, Oh Dal-soo, Park Won-sang, Kim Jeong-tae
distributor: Finecut
Mentally disturbed family man has been unjustly charged with rape and murder of a young girl and sentenced to death. In the prison he meets fellow prisoners who at first despise him but eventually realise that he his innocent. They decide to help him get to the the prison his six-years-old daughter Ye-sung. The director Lee Hwan-gyeong and his screenwriters create an unreal world of sentimentalism that touch even the most resistant audience. The second part of the movie is even more moving, as the now grown up Ye-sung tries to free her father. The sentimental comedy and social drama merged into a beautiful motion picture became the fourth most popular movie in South Korea. Moreover, many famous Korean actor-veterans and a rising television star Park Shin-hye star in it!
Kumie
Japan, 2014
Japanese with English and Czech subtitles
director: Takashi Miike
cast: Ebizo Ichikawa, Ko Shibasaki, Hideaki Ito, Miho Nakanishi, Maiko, Toshie Negishi, Hiroshi Katsuno
distributor: Celluloid Dreams
Famous unpredictable director, Takashi Miike, truly enriched his film portfolio this year. Inspired by the classical Japanese ghost stories, Yotsuya kaidan, he filmed a novel story about a group of actors who, while rehearsing a theatre play, mirror their own stories in those of the classic play. This masterpiece has been compared to Miike’s breakthrough movie, the bloody thriller titled Casting. And just like in the previous movie he prefers strong characters, their morality and the gradation of the conflicts between them, over the typical plots of the modern horrors. And that is why the finale is so impressive, because the world of the reality and theatre coalesce into a frightening nightmare.
Ggeutggaji ganda
Korea, 2014
Korean with with English and Czech subtitles
director: Kim Seong-hoon
cast: Lee Seon-gyoon, Jo Jin-woong, Sin Jeong-geun, Jeong Man-sik, Shin Dong-mi, Kim Dong-yeong
distributor: Showbox
Detective Go from the murder investigation department is troubled while preparing his mother’s funeral, when he accidently drives his car into a random walker. What to do with the body becomes the first of many problems that day. Korean cinema is famous for tough dramatically intense police thrillers that circle around morality of human kind, however, this movie is unique in its genre, because of the enjoyable ironic humour. Thanks to the well-written screenplay, there are brilliant dramatic twists and turning points, which often result in absurd situations and moreover, the morality of the story mingles with a specific dark humour. The chain of decisions, their consequences and ceaseless coincidences are particularly charming due to the exceptional performance and energy of the main actor.
Rang zi dan fei
China, 2010
Mandarin with with English and Czech subtitles
director: Jiang Wen
cast: Chow Yun Fat, Jiang Wen, Ge You, Carina Lau, Feng Xiaogang, Ma Ke, Chen Kun
distributor: Emperor Motion Pictures
Actor, director and screenwriter Jiang Wen is one of the key figures of modern Chinese cinema. The key motive of his movies is ambiguity, meaning not only ambiguous characters and historical events, but mainly genre ambiguity. His latest movie is a historical tale based on westerns, an ideological farce enriched by the intoxicating trinity of famous Chinese actors and stars: Jiang, Ge You and Chow Yun Fat. Brilliant dialogues, precise situational humour and absurd stylisation bring to life to a story about a bandit, who gives himself the post of a governor in a remote town, which has until then been ruled by an avaricious mafioso.
Stoker
US, Great Britain 2013
English with Czech subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, Dermot Mulroney, Alden Ehrenreich
distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
It was just about time that Hollywood not only remakes but actually supports Korean talents just like it used to in the past when the Hong Kong and Mexican movies were on the rise. Park Chan-wook’s first English speaking movie is a story about a young Indian girl, who with the help of her mysterious uncle, begins to uncover mysteries surrounding her family after her father’s funeral. The movie resembles classical Hitchcock’s thrillers, but Park changed them into a spectacular visual symphony, where the exciting chain of shots turn into the main story-telling device. Quite impressively, Park illustrated the coming-of-age story and the blossom of an ambiguous powerful heroine.
Shen tan Hengte Zhang
China, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Gao Qunshu
cast: Zhang Lixian, Zuo Yeben, Zhou Yunpeng, Wang Xiaoshan, Ning Caishen, Gu Xiaobai
contact: Beijing Yuanxin International Culture and Media, Shanghai Inlook Media Group, English Pictures
Dealing with street thieves is an every day routine for the main hero of Beijing Blues, detective Zhang Huiling. His favourite weapon is the miniature camera that he always carries with, as well as the street cameras build in on every corner. The movie is a montage of street crime, from pocket stealth to unpaid bills and blackmail. One day the notorious thief Golddigger Zhang announces his robbery plan to the detective and thus his most important chase of his career begins. This is not the first time that the director Gao Qunshu filmed a thriller set in the poor quarters in China. However, this time he decided to cast mainly non-actors and the usage of the real street cameras gives the movie a documentary feel. The result is an independent realistic police drama with a hint of comedy. In 2012 the movie won the Golden Horse price in the Best Film category.
Bakjwi
Korea, 2009
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin, Kim Hae-sook, Shin Ha-kyun, Park In-hwan
distributor: CJ Entertainment
While in the Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Mrs. Vengeance, the theme was revenge, this time Park Chan-wook decided on the theme of vampirism. Vampires are usually approached in various motives such as faith, sexuality, morality, immortality and love. In many movies these themes are simply just implicated or one overwhelms the other. However, Park juggles them all in a story about a Christian priest who, after having a blood transfusion turns into an immortal creature who thirsts for blood and sensual encounters. The visual style is not stylised into one genre category as the atmosphere dramatically changes from a horror to a melodrama and from a grotesque to spiritualism, while keeping the overall mood of a thoughtful tense absurdity. Park’s visual brilliance and uniqueness was also widely appreciated by the jury in Cannes.
Huang jin shi dai
Hong Kong, China, 2014
Mandarin with English and Czech subtitles
director: Ann Hui
cast: Tang Wei, Feng Shaofeng, Hao Lei, Yuan Quan, Tian Yuan, Jiao Gang, Zhang Yao, Wang Jingchun
distributor: Edko Films
For eight years already, director Ann Hui has been a very influential personality of the Hong Kong cinema. She is well known particularly for her sensitive dramas that focus on the everyday life of ordinary people. However, she is also not opposed to genre productions. Her latest film is filled with unique themes, focusing mainly on women, and particularly one. The story was based on the life of a famous Chinese poet, Xiao Hong, and is set in the nineteen thirties, the golden age of the poet‘s life. Though she succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of thirty, during her last ten years that were coloured by big historical events, she managed to influence many people and also fall in love a few times. As an author, she was appreciated only forty years after her death. Until now, many parts of her life are widely discussed.
Uneun namja
Korea, 2014
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Lee Jeong-beom
cast: Jang Dong-gun, Kim Min-hee, Brian Tee, Kim Hee-won, Kim Joon-seong, Jeon Bae-soo
distributor: CJ Entertainment
His mission was to kill her, but instead he decided to protect her. The simple premise of a flawed killer is anchored in a tragic story of fatal mistakes, broken lives and new chances. However, the main attraction is the breath taking visual work in the action sequences. Lee Jeong-beom guaranties this, as he was the one who, four years ago, left action movie fans breathless with his movie The Man from Nowhere. With that ambitious movie he proved that a simple story could become the basis of a fiercely intense innovative spectacle. This time the director focuses not only on contact fights but primarily on shootouts and tactical operations whose production was based on careful consultation with real members of Korean and American special forces.
Man jeuk
Hong Kong, 2008
Cantonese with English and Czech subtitles
director: Johnnie To
cast: Simon Yam, Kelly Lin, Gordon Lam, Lo Hoi-Pang, Kenneth Cheung, Lam Suet, Law Wing Cheong
distributor: Universe Films
At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Hong Kong film industry began to face a growing problem. Due to the commercially appealing Chinese films, the local movies subdued to the bigger market. And it was during these times that Johnnie filmed the movie Sparrow, which openly shows Hong Kong as a unique city with its own special genius loci. The main storyline is about a group of pocket thieves who become mesmerized by a mysterious woman in need of their help. This premise is turned into a brilliant visual spectacle, where every move equals a ballet-like grace and every detail turns into an imposing painting. However, the movie Sparrow isn’t just a quirk, it’s quite free and playful, full of puns and filled with unpredictable coincidences, which are so typical for the director’s work.
Sao du
Hong Kong, China, 2013
Cantonese with English and Czech subtitles
director: Benny Chan
cast: Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Lo Hoi-Pang, Yuan Quan, Ben Lam, Ken Lo
distributor: Universe Films
Benny Chan’s star-studded action thriller returns to the two characteristics of Hong Kong‘s golden age of cinematography – foreign locations and heroic bloodshed genre. Bloody melodramas, mainly aimed at men, with heavy doses of pathos, became synonyms for Hong Kong cinema after the amazing worldwide success of John Woo’s films. The fact that the movies were shot abroad showed the power of the local film industry. The White Storm therefore belongs to the kind of movies that, with a high production ambition and obvious attempt to follow up to the classical films, foretell the better days of Hong Kong film industry. The movie telly a story of three policemen friends who are after the leading members of Asian drug mafia. The traces lead them to Thailand and during the difficult international operation they find themselves in a situation that will greatly test their friendship.
Do ma ji
Hong Kong, 2014
Cantonese with English and Czech subtitles
director: Lee Chi Ngai
cast: Tony Leung Ka Fai, Ekin Cheng, Kelly Chen, Eric Tsang, Wong Cho Lam
contact: U.F.O. United Filmmakers Organization
Although in the west, Hong Kong is known for martial arts movies and thrillers, the locals mainly enjoy Cantonese comedies filled with burlesque gags, exaggerating acting, and humour specific for Cantonese language. One of those is a recent movie called Horseplay, which strikes us with its fresh nonchalant mood. The premise is a chase after a valuable ceramic horse statue. The characters chasing after this priceless artefact are a Hong Kong policeman, a Chinese state employee, an ambitious journalist and a brilliant thief. European audience might also appreciate the fact that the film was shot in London as well as in Prague. Though this wasn’t the first Hong Kong film shoot in the Czech Republic, in this movie the locations function not only as a decoration, they are in fact important keys to the story.
Gwansang
Korea, 2013
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Han Jae-rim
cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Jeong-jae, Baek Yoon-sik, Jo Jeong-seok, Lee Jong-suk, Kim Hye-soo
distributor: Showbox
The Face Reader is set in the middle of 15th century in Joseon dynasty. Nae Kyung is the most talented face reader in the whole country. He can tell a lot about a person just looking at his face features, including his future and true character. He lives peacefully, secluded from society, together with his brother and son, until a beautiful concubine convinces him to work for her. Thanks to his abilities he gets to a special post at the palace and helps with hiring king’s officials. However, things begin to stir as he finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy aimed against the king. Period films are a common and popular genre in South Korea, particularly in television. The Face Reader combines light drama with comedy. What makes the movie outstanding is the amazing star cast. The audience can look forward to see film veterans such as Song Kang-ho and Lee Jeong-jae as well as the rising stars Jo Jeong-seok and Lee Jong-suk.
Gake no ue no Ponyo
Japan 2008
Czech dubbing
director: Hayao Miyazaki
distributor: HCE
The next-to-last project of world wide famous animator Haya Miyazaki is a beautiful geyser of fantasy. The visual spectacle is more powerful than the story itself, however, is the most freely approached attempt of the director’s masterpieces. The frame of the story is a relationship between an ordinary boy and a playful creature from the underwater kingdom. The adventure that enfolds is not at all tight by rationality. In the times of artificial western 3D animation one may appreciate the classic plane work of the famous studio Ghibli, because in the right hands, such animation gains the true dimension, which the Euro American animation so often lacks.
The screening features only Czech dubbing.
Boksuneun naui geot
Korea, 2002
Korean with with English subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Sin Ha-gyoon, Bae Doo-na, Song Kang-ho, Lim Ji-eun, Ryoo Seung-beom, Lee Dae-yeon
distributor: CJ Entertainment
Desperate people do desperate deeds. This is the premise of the now already classic motion picture that belongs to the crucial pieces of the „Korean New Wave.“ A deaf-mute young man, recently fired from his job, tries to gather money for his sister, who is in a bad need of kidney transplantation. His girlfriend advises him to kidnap his previous employee’s daughter. Seemingly simple and trouble-free plan changes to a spiral of unpredictable turning points and desperate violence. This famous debut of Park Chan-wook is mainly about revenge and its consuming blindness and futility. Maliciously unpredictable coincidence leads the characters to surreal absurd situations, while their personalities and motivations strengthens the inevitable tragedy, during which they find themselves on the border of understanding and compassion.
Haemoo
Korea, 2014
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Sim Seong-bo
cast: Kim Yoon-seok, Park Yoo-chun, Han Ye-ri, Lee Hee-joon, Moon Seong-geun, Kim Sang-ho
distributor: Finecut
This movie is Sim Seong-bo’s movie debut. The director co-wrote the screenplay for the milestone of Korean cinema – Memories of Murder by Bong Joon-ho, along with another well-known screenwriter who actually produced the Sea Fog. Sea Fog is an adaptation of a theatre play, which was based on real life events that happened in the autumn of 2001. Twenty-five Korean-Chinese illegal immigrants choked in a cargo hold of a fishing ship during a voyage over the border. The movie focuses on the dramatic incident as well as the morals of the ship crew. The breath taking cinematography colours the claustrophobic mood on board of the ship that has to struggle against the wild elements as well as the tough border security. Sea Fog was nominated for Oscars in the best foreign film category.
Oldeuboi
Korea, 2003
Korean with with English and Czech subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong, Kim Byeong-ok, Ji Dae-han, Oh Dal-soo
distributor: Celsius Entertainment
Forget about the desperate American remake and come and see the invincible original piece that belongs to the most crucial movies of South Korean cinematography. One night, an ordinary family man is captured and kept a prisoner for reasons to him unknown. After fifteen years, when his previous life already ceased to exist, he is released and has five days to find the instigator of his suffering. The second part of the tragedy trilogies of Park Chan-wook proves that revenge ends in not only in destruction of others but mainly a complete self-destruction. The director colours the rage of the main protagonist with a breath taking cinematography, which on its own foretells, that the unmerciful quest for the instigator is still part of the devious plan.
Hwayi: Goimooleul samkin ai
Korea, 2013
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Jang Joon-hwan
cast: Kim Yoon-seok, Yeo Jin-goo, Jo Jin-woong, Jang Hyeon-seong, Kim Seong-gyoon, Park Hae-joon
distributor: Showbox
This movie is set in the year 2012 and follows a ten and a half year old gang of four thieves who haven’t been caught yet. With the woman who takes care of them, they make a pseudo-family that pretends to have a successful business abroad. Hwayi, their son they kidnapped during a robbery in 1998, is haunted by a vision of a monster figure since he was a child. After Hwayi grows up, he falls in love for the first time and begins to notice how different his life is from the life of other teenagers. The gang teaches him their special abilities and prepare him for his first mission. But then, his past finally reaches him and he is compelled to face it. The director Park Joo-seok became known for his unique debut, an important movie of the Korean New Wave, paranoid thriller called Save the Green Planet. Now after ten years he returns with the same genre and similar motive – the study of human psyche and its degeneration that climaxes in a bloody finale.
Chinjeolhan geumjassi
Korea, 2005
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Lee Young-ae, Choi Min-sik, Kwon Ye-yeong, Kim Si-hoo, Nam Il-woo, Kim Byeong-ok
distributor: CJ Entertainment
The last part of Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy. This time it’s an opulent stylized road to redemption, which originates in the confrontation with violence and pain. The main heroine was imprisoned for thirteen and a half years, charged with something she wasn’t guilty of. And in the prison she schemed a detailed revenge to the real perpetrator. Once she is released, she begins to fulfil her dangerous mission. The movie is a net of complicated flashbacks that slowly unravel the truth behind the main characters and their motivations and help the viewers recognise the true cause of what’s to unfold. The ambiguity of the main protagonists and their deeds are told in an almost Baroque-like cinematography that depicts the world of the movie in variously intertwined points of views.
Seolgookyeolcha
Korea, France, USA, 2013
English and Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Bong Joon-ho
cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ko Ah-seong, Ewen Bremner, Alison Pill
distributor: Bontonfilm
Snowpiercer was supposed to be one of the biggest worldwide cinematographic sensations of last year. However, due to the American distributors, who owed the rights and had the control over the film release in other countries, the last film spectacle of the film genius Bong Joon-Ho didn’t reach the overseas audience that easily. This though doesn’t change the fact that Snowpiercer is another one of those unusual blockbusters, which are so typical for this director. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the last band of humans survives on a train that ceaselessly travels around the globe, trapped not only in the train itself but also in the new ice age. The story is based on a French comic book, which Bong transformed into a unique metaphor of human society where an individual is trapped in a net of moral issues and pragmatism. The movie was filmed in Prague in the Barrandov studios and has a brilliant famous cast.
Ssaibogeujiman kwaenchanha
Korea, 2006
Korean with English and Czech subtitles
director: Park Chan-wook
cast: Rain, Im Soo-jeong, Choi Hee-jin, Lee Yong-nyeo, Yoo Ho-jeong, Son Yeong-soon
distributor: CJ Entertainment
Parka Chan-wook’s seventh movie wasn’t very well received after its release. However, this was mainly because of the expectations from fans who loved his previous revenge trilogy. The movie is a fantasy-like hyper-stylised romantic comedy set in a psychiatric hospital and it’s clear that Park needed to escape the genre he was fitted into as an artist mainly by the foreign audience. The story is about a fragile girl who believes she’s a cyborg and a young man who is convinced that he can steal other people’s characteristics. The director approached the movie playfully as we get to see different points of views of various mental patients. The fantasy and jocoseness envelops the central motive of all Park’s movies: the influence of an individual on the lives of others and the difficulties of communication between people.
Pavel Sladký
Filmasia Press Service
phone: +420 777 09 11 59
pavel.sladky(at)filmasia.cz
Tisková zpráva 1
Tisková zpráva 2
FILMASIA
Asian Film Festival in Prague
Since 2005 festival Filmasia presents contemporary dynamic Asian cinema. Every year it takes place first week of December in Prague. Filmasia presents films that were shown all around world and had great success at film festivals or domestic cinemas. We presented in Czech premiere films by Park Chan-wook, Kim Ki-duk, Hou Hsia-hsien, Johnnie To, Wong Kar-wai, Tsai Ming-liang, Takashi Miike and many others.
Come and meet the Asian cinema in Prague!
1. edition
2005
2. edition
2006
3. edition
2007
4. edition
2008
5. edition
2009
6. edition
2010
7. edition
2011
8. edition
2012
9. edition
2013
Karla Stojáková
Jiří Flígl
Karolína Kyselová
Pavel Sladký
Haruna Honcoopová
Vladimír 518 — illustrator
Jan Kříbek — graphic designer
Jan Kokolia — festival trailer
Jana Hadravová — web
FILMASIA
Asian film festival in Prague
Festival organiser:
AXMAN PRODUCTION
Senovážné náměstí 10
110 00 Prague 1
Czech Republic
office(at)filmasia.cz
