The Korean Film Festival DC 2009 starts tomorrow, April 17, and runs weekly until June 10. The long list of films and dates are mostly weekend screenings, in case you were wondering how the festival could run for almost 2 months. Programming blocks are New, Classic, and Women Directors of Korean Cinema. Don’t worry English-speakers. All the films are subtitled. I recommend BREATHLESS and TREELESS MOUNTAIN. Monster list below of films, times and synopsis.

The Korean Film Council and the Korea Foundation have made this movie going experience possible.

VENUES:
Freer Gallery of Art, Meyer Auditorium, Independence Avenue at 12th Street SW, Washington, DC
Metro stop: Smithsonian
www.asia.si.edu

AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD
Metro stop: Silver Spring
www.afi.com/silver/new

New Korean Cinema
LIKE A VIRGIN
Wednesday, April 22, 9:30pm, AFI
Thursday, April 23, 9:10pm, AFI
A young woman trapped in a man’s body discovers that same body may hold the answer to her problems in this offbeat comedy-drama by Lee Hae-jun and Lee Hae-young. Oh Dong-gu is a high school student who has become convinced that he was meant to be a girl rather than a boy. Emboldened by the sassy attitude of his favorite singer, Madonna, and determined not to be intimidated by his father, an alcoholic former boxer whose tirades drove his wife from him, Dong-gu works a part-time job and saves his money, dreaming of the day he can afford a sex change operation. When he learns that a wrestling tournament is being held with a large cash prize going to the winner, Dong-gu decides grappling just might be the ticket to his new gender. (Description adapted from the All Movie Guide) (2006, 112 min., Korean with English subtitles)

GOING BY THE BOOK
Friday, April 24, 7pm, FGA
Jung Jae-young’s deadpan performance as Do-man, an unwaveringly straight-arrow cop, and a cleverly engineered plot make this one of the best Korean comedies of recent years. After a rash of bank robberies, the new police chief of the town of Sampo institutes a training drill in which the officers reenact a robbery so they can better solve them. But when Do-man takes to his role as the robber with the same exactitude he brings to his job every day, pretty soon a very real hostage situation threatens to embarrass everyone involved. Ra Hee-chan’s debut feature “manages to sneak in elements of social satire while being the most well-made, entertaining and downright likeable take on the bank heist in a very long time.” (Robyn Citizen, Critics Notebook) (2007, 102 min., Korean with English subtitles, video)

MILKY WAY LIBERATION FRONT
Sunday, April 26, 1pm, FGA
A witty, black comedy, Yoon Seung-ho’s directorial debut earned him comparisons to the young Woody Allen. It follows the personal and professional foibles of a filmmaker who is so neurotic that merely writing a screenplay about a character suffering from aphasia causes him to contract the condition himself. Although he manages to overcome this obstacle with the help of a ventriloquist friend, but his problems continue to mount when his girlfriend breaks up with him and the producer of his film threatens to turn the project over to an up-and-coming directorial team of Mongolian twins. Yoon’s film is full of Korean film industry in-jokes, but its sense of the absurd is universal. (2007, 99 min., Korean with English subtitles)

TAXI BLUES
Sunday, April 26, 3pm, FGA
Seoul is home to some 70,000 taxis, operated for the most part by drivers who work exhausting 12-hour shifts for little take-home pay. To make Taxi Blues, documentary filmmaker Choiha Dong-ha spent a summer working as a taxi driver, with a camera mounted on his dashboard as he carried passengers from all walks of life to every corner of the city. Choiha creates candid, sometimes unflattering portraits of his clients, and documents the toll this grueling job took on him in a film that, in the words of Korean cinema expert Darcy Paquet, “gives new insight and understanding into a profession that for many people seems so ordinary as to be invisible.” (2005, 98 min., Korean with English subtitles)

NIGHT AND DAY
Saturday, May 2, 3:30pm, AFI
Sunday, May 3, 6:10pm, AFI
Sung-nam is a 40ish, married painter who takes it on the lam to Paris after getting caught smoking pot with some American tourists in Seoul. But his escape doesn’t come a moment too soon: feeling trapped in life and blocked in his art, the getaway proves welcome — only now that he’s actually settled in the City of Light, what should he do? Hong Sang-soo creates a beautifully observed, characteristically wry chronicle of Sung-nam’s attempt to savor his wandering year even if it’s come 20 years too late. Not speaking a word of French, Sung-nam joins a floating group of Korean ex-pats and exchange students. When he meets art student Hyun-ju and her roommate Yu-jeong, it could be that love is in the air—or is it just Paris? Hong’s eye for telling details has never been sharper, and Sung-nam’s running commentary on the French and those aspiring to live like them is often hilariously perceptive. (Description by the New York Film Festival) (Hong Sang-soo, 2008, 145 min., Korean with English subtitles)

DAYTIME DRINKING
Friday, May 15, 7pm, FGA
The multi-talented Noh Young-seok wrote, directed, produced, edited, designed the sets and composed the music for his first feature, a droll independent comedy. Dumped by his girlfriend and stranded in the countryside after his drinking buddies forget to join him on a trip they planned, the film’s hapless hero winds up on a series of comical misadventures as he bumbles across the wintry landscape encountering rude guesthouse operators, mysterious seductresses and endless opportunities to drink himself into a stupor in the middle of the afternoon, all of which lead to a hangover of epic proportions. Clever and refreshingly unpretentious, Daytime Drinking marks the debut a talented new director on Korea’s independent cinema scene. (2008, 116 min., Korean with English subtitles)

THE CHASER
Saturday, May 16, 7:30pm, AFI
Wednesday, May 20, 7pm, AFI
In this utterly riveting, twisting, no-holds-barred thriller, an ex-cop turned pimp races against time to locate one of his girls after she’s kidnapped by a serial killer who’s been terrorizing the streets of Seoul. Director Na Hong-jin embeds the film’s harrowing suspense and relentless brutality in a furious denunciation of police ineptitude and corruption. As the morally compromised hero, Kim Yoon-suk gives a knockout performance in more ways than one. One of Korean cinema’s biggest hits last year and winner of best picture, director, actor, and screenplay at the 2008 Korean Film Awards. (Description by the Film Society of Lincoln Center) (2008, 125 min., Korean with English subtitles)

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST
Sunday, May 24, 5:30pm, AFI
Wednesday, May 27, 7pm, AFI
The sidelong glance, the shared ice cream, the lazy afternoon nap, the date that no one’s calling a date - out of these tiny details Hur Jin-ho builds a movie about the beginning of falling in love. Considered by many to be the Great Korean Movie Romance, this is a gentle mediation on life, death, and parking violations that’s lingers on your eyes long after it’s over. In 1998, it swept the Korean Film Awards, coming away with “Best Picture”, “Best Director”, “Best Actress” (Shim Eun-Ha), and “Best Cinematography.” (Description by Subway Cinema) (1998, 97 min., Korean with English subtitles)

THE SHOW MUST GO ON
Sunday, May 31, 2pm, FGA
Song Kang-ho, star of, among other films, The Host and Memories of Murder, and one of the best actors in Korea if not on planet Earth, gives a true star turn in Han Jae-rim’s The Show Must Go On. He plays a successful gangster whose main aspiration is to provide an idyllic middle-class lifestyle for his family. But when trouble at work spills over into his domestic life, he finds himself on the verge of losing everything. “Brimming with crime, comedy and (finally) poignancy.” (Russell Edwards, Variety) (2007, 112 min., Korean with English subtitles)

BREATHLESS
Saturday, June 6, 12:30pm, AFI
Monday, June 8, 7 PM, AFI
Lead actor Yang Ik-June also serves as director, scriptwriter, and producer of this story based on the autobiographical experiences of a gangster and extortionist. Having grown up with a violent father whom he held responsible for the deaths of his mother and sister, things begin to change his life when he meets cheeky schoolgirl Han Yeon-Heui who is herself the daily victim of the brutality of her mentally-ill father and insensitive brother. (Description courtesy of the International Film Festival Rotterdam) (2008, 130 min., Korean with English subtitles)

EPITAPH
Tuesday, June 9, 9:20pm, AFI
Wednesday, June 10, 9:20pm, AFI
Both visually lyrical and horrific, this film codirected by Jung Sik and Jung Beon-sik is a bloodstained foray into the depths of obsessive love and unbearable grief. Set in a small Korean hospital, the once peaceful place is now a labyrinth of haunted corridors and the stage for frightful events: a medical student is inexplicably drawn to a beautiful dead girl; a troubled child is tortured by bloody visions of her dead parents; and a married couple find themselves investigating a series of gory murders. Certain to give you goosebumps and have you peering over your shoulder with every ghastly twist, this Korean chiller will keep you guessing till the end. (2007, 98 min., Korean with English subtitles)

Women Directors of Korean Cinema
FOREVER THE MOMENT
Friday, April 17, 7pm, FGA
Saturday, April 18, 5pm, AFI
Special Appearance by Yim Soon-rye
A major hit at the Korean box office, Yim Soon-rye’s crowd-pleasing sports melodrama won the Best Picture award at the 2008 Blue Dragon Awards (Korea’s equivalent to the Oscars). The film recreates the on and off court turmoil leading up to the Korean women’s handball team’s silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Yim focuses on the unique struggles faced by female athletes as they try to balance their daily lives with their sports careers, and skillfully builds up the tension to the exciting finale, in which “everything is where it ought to be, including our tears.” (Brian Hu, Asia Pacific Arts). (2008, 124 min., Korean with English subtitles)

WAIKIKI BROTHERS
Saturday, April 18, 2pm, FGA
Special Appearance by Yim Soon-rye
This wistful comedy documents the disintegration of a never-quite-successful rock band made up of a bunch of high school friends now sliding into middle age. Sprinkled with goofy cover versions of Western and Korean pop hits, Im’s film depicts its characters’ inability to let go of their dreams with perfect emotional pitch. “The start-it-up garage-band myth has never had such a witty and despairing redress.” (Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice.) (2001, 105 min., Korean with English subtitles)

THE WEIGHT OF HER CRUSH AND BLUSH
Sunday, April 19, 1pm, FGA
Special Appearance by Lee Kyoung-mi, Yim Soon-rye
Lee Kyoung-mi’s debut feature is a madcap comedy of vengeance and obsession. It stars Gong Hyo-jin (in a brilliant comic performance), as a middle school teacher who suffers from a condition that makes her blush bright red whenever her emotions get out of control. Unfortunately for her, this happens quite a lot. Obsessed with one of her colleagues, who just happens to be married and dating another fellow teacher on the side, she befriends her love object’s daughter in order to concoct a revenge scheme that ends up spinning hilariously out of control. Intended for mature audiences. (2008, 101 min., Korean with English subtitles)
Yim Soon-rye’s short film The Weight of Her is a satirical look at female body images set in a girls’ finishing school, with a surprising twist at the end. (2003, 20 min., Korean with English subtitles, video)

TREELESS MOUNTAIN
Sunday, April 19, 5pm, AFI
Tuesday, April 21, 7pm, AFI
Six-year-old Jin and her younger sister Bin live on the edge of disaster, but they are not aware of it. One day their mother packs all their belongings. For Jin, the days of going to school are over. Mommy is gone, leaving her and Bin in a hostile home with their alcoholic big Aunt and a piggy bank to slowly fill with tinkling coins and shining hopes. Evoked by early childhood memories, the story of a precocious journey to maturity comes into focus with exquisite simplicity in Kim So-yong’s gentle masterpiece. (Note courtesy Toronto International Film Festival) (2008, 89 min., Korean with English subtitles)

THE WONDER YEARS
Friday, May 29, 7pm, FGA
Kim Hee-jung, the first Korean director to receive support from the prestigious Cinefondation Cannes Residence program, makes an assured debut with this poignant character study. Talented young actress Lee Se-young plays Soo-ah, the daughter of a struggling single mother, whose overactive imagination and teenage angst lead her to believe that her real mom is actually a famous pop star. Superb performances and Kim’s subtle direction make this a closely-observed portrait of an adolescent misfit’s physical and psychological world. (2007, 95 min., Korean with English subtitles)

Korean Cinema Classics
THE SEASHORE VILLAGE
Friday, May 8, 7pm, FGA
This film by pioneering director Kim Soo-yong begins with a tragedy: despite bad omens, a fishing boat departs from a small village, only to be lost at sea, leaving several of the town’s women widows. Widely praised for its questioning of the restrictive Confucian beliefs on gender roles that dominated Korean society at the time, Kim’s film tells the story of one of them, who, left alone after only ten days of marriage, decides to freely pursue her passions. (1965, 91 min., Korean with English subtitles)

THE MAN WITH THREE COFFINS
Sunday, May 10, 2pm, FGA
Man with Three Coffins is about two travelers - a man carrying his wife’s ashes to her hometown, and a nurse secretly escorting the dying CEO of a business conglomerate to his – who cross paths on their way to their destinations, which lie near the DMZ. Drawing on Korean Shamanist imagery and themes (including fortune telling and reincarnation), and haunted by the legacy of the Korean War, Lee Jang-ho’s beautiful, brooding film is, unfortunately, rarely given its due as a great work of Korean cinema. But, asDarcy Pacquet writes, it is “too good to be forgotten.” (1987, 104 min., Korean with English subtitles)

For more info on the Korean Film Festival DC 2009, visit the AFI website.