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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475750/ 

Typhoon aka Taepung (2005) is a Korean action drama. Another big budget film from the end of last year, which is not as good as much it costed but still a decent movie. As many times before, it is about a North-Korean terrorist, who’s chased on sea and in many countries. The story seems to be simple but the characters and the action scenes make it a good movie that’s worth watching.

The actors are not only good but good-looking which is an important thing for a film that itself tries to impress us with its visuals. The most handsome is the bad guy, Jang Dong-Kun, who we could see in Promise (Wu Ji) last time, or in TaeGukgi. He plays Sin, a man who tried to escape from the North to the South as a child, but South Koreans sent them back resulting the whole bus of refugees to die, including his parents. Only he and his sister escaped then at the Chinese borders, and they had to survive alone. The child Sin soon decided to take revenge on the South Korean people. Later he and his sister got separated and didn’t see each-other for 20 years. Now, Sin is a modern day pirate who takes a US ship that carries some nuclear waste. So the South sends an agent (Lee Jeong-Jae) to take him but things are not that simple. The long lost sister comes in the story and we slowly start to sympathize with Sin, not only because he looks so good but because we understand him and see his sensitive side. The same fellow-feeling makes the good guy wish that they could be friends but of course they have to fight instead. How is the title related to the story? I won’t tell but expect some wind.

Directed by Kwak Gyong-taek. The movie will be released in the US this year by DreamWorks.

Starring: Jang Dong-gun, Lee Jeong-jae, Lee Mi-yeon, Kim Kap-soo
Directed by: Kwak Gyeong-taek
Written by: Kwak Gyeong-taek
Genre: action, drama
Year: 2005
Country: Korea
Language: Korean
Runtime: 124′
Rating: 7

Stills: http://asiafan.org/gallery/v/stills/typhoon/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0778020/

Korean drama, romance - 2006. Yoon-hee is harrassed by her rich husband, and one day decides to kill herself, but then she’s saved by a similarly unfortunate policeman. As the movie title suggests, they develop a romantic relationship which leads to further complications…

The unhappy marrige and aggressive husband drives Yoon-hee into the arms of a patheric policeman, who’s divorced, lonely, is in debts and have a history of problems at work because he’s not corrupt like his boss. The movie starts with a fight coreographed to tango music, this rhythm and melody stays throughout the movie. The soundtrack is very beutiful and romantic, the composer, Lee Dong-joon did the soundtrack of Swiri and Taegukgi too. The romance part of the movie is a little bit overacted and forced, we can see a lot of earlier scenes in playback, and some dancing in slow-motion. And a lot of little things that make it too movie-like, e.g. the random wall they lean on when kissing happens to be red with roses on the wallpaper, and the rain - always knows in which moment it has to start pouring. But when we are almost asleap the romance turns into an action movie, people start to fight, kill, shoot, run, shout, and the situation is even more dramatic. This movie has an interesting plot and exciting second half, so it’s worth watching. The only thing I didn’t like was the lead actor’s look, I think this movie needed a handsome, sensual, softer man (after all it’s a romance) and he’s rather rough and …well, I can’t say he’s not nice but… not my type. It was hard to enter into the spirit of romance seeing a guy that I would avoid. But he’s a very good actor and had better roles, e.g. in Bad Guy, where he plays the main character. That one really suited him. He played in five of Kim Ki-duk’s movies by the way.

trailer
music video
stilles: http://asiafan.org/gallery/v/stills/romance/

Starring: Jo Jae-hyeon, Kim Ji-su
Directed by: Moon Seung-wook
Genre: drama, romance, action
Year: 2006
Country: Korea
Language: Korean
Runtime: 106 min.
Rating: 6
Music: Lee Dong-jun

Ayumi Hamasaki’s 40th single was released this week. The album titled Blue Bird contains 3 songs and 6 tracks together with remixes…

Tracklist

1. BLUE BIRD – 4:09
2. Beautiful Fighters – 5:17
3. Ladies Night ~another night~ – 4:04
4. BLUE BIRD (Harderground remix) – 6:24
5. BLUE BIRD (Instrumental) – 4:09
6. Beautiful Fighters (Instrumental) – 5:17

The titles song is a typical Ayumi song in Japanese, very catchy. It’s hard to say more, it’s simply a nice pop song from a pretty singer who has a beautiful voice. The second song, Beautiful Fighters is more dynamic with electronic sounds, but this is also a cathcing hit song. The third, Ladies Night is rock and then three remixes come. A pop album of a high standard, it’s worth getting it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430651

Japanese black comedy from 2004 starring Tadanobu Asano. I watched this movie because I liked the soundtrack so much. With expectations based on the music I was a little disappointed, even though I was prepared to see something comepletely mindless. The film also stars Vinnie Jones (Lock Stock.., Snatch, X-men). Director is Gen Sekiguchi, it’s his only movie so far.

Great movie for the fans os absurde humour and total confusion. The story: a man is unable to keep his wife dead, who comes back from the grave again and again, always in a different outfit. A hitmen ask everybody about what their “function” in life. A familyman is hypnotized into a bird and can’t change back, and a lot of other weird characters. Being a comedy it didn’t make me laugh not once. But thanks to the great soundtrack and the colorful pictures and the whole insanity it can be enjoyed. It’s even touching in the end.

Stills: http://asiafan.org/gallery/v/stills/ss5/

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Vinnie Jones, Hiroshi Abe, Reika Hashimoto, Sonny Chiba
Directed by: Gen Sekiguchi
Written by: Taku Tada
Genre: Vígjáték, dráma
Year: 2004
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Runtime: 120 min
Rating: 6

Utada Hikaru’s 4th album has just been released in June. Featuring previous hit single songs it’s a nice, long-avaited pop/dance album.

Tracklist
1. This is love | 2. Keep Tryin’ | 3. Blue | 4. Nichiyou no Asa | 5. Making Love | 6. Dareka no negaiga kanau koro | 7. Colors | 8. One Night Magic | 9. Kairo | 10. Wings | 11. Be My Last | 12. Eclipse | 13. Passion

The song Passion is from the game Kingdom Hearts II and Dareka no negaiga kanau koro is from the movie Casshern which was directed by Utada’s husband. Colors, This Is Love and Keep Trying are songs that fans could hear in tv commercials before. You can watch the first hit, Be My Last also unplugged played by Utada on a guitar.

Artist: Utada Hikaru
Media type: Album
Released: 2006
Label: Toshiba-EMI Japan
Rating: 7

http://www.heavensdust.com/ 

I came across HeavensDust’s music by chance and I fell for it at once, the band is mixing Japanese traditional music with doom metal. A little dark but beautiful music. They have 3 albums released already, and we can find a video on their website and listen to songs too. Their bassist is a girl (just expecting her baby), the keyboardist is also female, the others are guys, and the songs have English lyrics. Anyone’s fond of the music style of bands like Paradise Lost, Korn and having an interest in Japanese (music) will like them. It’s also worth cheking out the official site, if only for the nice pictures

Tracklist
1. Silent Scream
2. Unknown Pain
3. Time Will Take
4. Grace
5. Before I Die
6. Ashes To Ashes And Dust To Dust
7. Meaning Of Life
8. Desire Pearing The Water Of Truth
9. Where Is My God
10. Red So Deep…
11. Fade
12. Forever Sleep
13. Hatred Falling To Angel’s Wings
14. Home
15. Words
16. Devotion

Their last album, Higher Than Heaven, Louder Than God (2005) is an interesting mix of heavy metal tunes and soft, dreamy soundscapes made by Japanese instruments, creating a peculiar atmosphere full of contradictions. The band was formed in 2000, besides the guitars and vocals we can hear shakuhachi, koto and wadaiko in their songs. There are some non-metal, tranquil, instrumental songs (eg. Desire Pearing…) on the album and lyrical ones. Only thing I’d criticize is the mixing which could be more dynamic and clear, sometimes parts of the sound are repressed by another (ie. guitars covering up koto). My favourite from the 16 songs is Before I Die, it has the most catching melody, and this is what plays in the music video. Before this album another cd was released with 5 songs (and titled Before I Die), which has another version of the song with female vocals sung by keyboardist Kazuha Oda.

http://www.myspace.com/heavensdust

Artist: HeavensDust
Media type: CD
Released: 2005
Label: Reverse Records
Rating: 10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419730  

This is an amazing movie, the kind that reminds us that cinema is not only a background entertainment for eating popcorn but a (complex) form of Art. It has unique, beautiful visuals (won best cinematography prize at MIFF), and captivating soundtrack that perfectly suits the pictures, mood and story. The aching but beautiful, thrilling and sometimes erotic atmosphere itself makes it worthy to watch (as people like to watch even such nonsense movies as Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 just for the picture and mood) but this time there’s something even more valuable underneath the artistic surface: the story.

It’s not a movie with gunfights and car chases so the plot can be summarized in one sentence. A borderline (BPD, a personality disorder) woman and her former psychiatrist meet and start to talk about their lives, and they get close and they get crazy and so on… Most of the “action” happens inside the characters, in their psyche, thoughts, feelings. But even with relatively little action there are a lot of surprises, twists in the story, nothing is what it seems to be at first. At times it can be a little difficult to know if we see reality or some imagination or hallucination of the characters but after a while it comes to light, and these “Aha!”-like moments drag us even deeper in the turmoil of passion, desire, drama and despair. But this is the kind of pain which can be enjoyed for its beauty, the same reason why people like sad songs.

Also, there are a lot of things in this movie for the thinking kind, for people who like to analyze, find reference, meaning, metaphors, symbols and so… Everything is in its place, almost every frame has a cleverly composed geometry, lighting, colors. I haven’t seen Kim In-shik’s first movie either but I will watch it soon, it must be good too. Acting is superb. I think the director/writer and actors did much research on the psychology topic as well, the portrayal of BPD and the relationship of the characters are perfectly worked out (except some exaggeration). Lead actress Kim Hye-su won an award for it in Korea.

But it’s not a movie for everyone. It’s artsy and melancholic. Don’t watch it when you’re not in the mood - it’ll be wasted. The best occasion is maybe a rainy, lonely night with a bottle of wine Also, it requires a certain amount of empathy, fantasy and openness. If you’ve never been depressed, lost, left alone, angry, instable, hoping, longing etc., then it’s not so easy to feel for the characters, and probably a part of the story will mean nothing to you. The imaginations of Ji-Su are connected to her feelings, her strange but somewhat coherent inner world, so it also needs some empathy to see it in context. But the movie is still enjoyable for its artistic values or as a thriller, if someone just accepts that she’s cracked and that’s the way crazy people are.

I think this film is mostly a drama and a thriller. There is some mystery in it, but it’s not so far from the “reality” of lunatic people. What makes me surprised is to see this movie put in the horror genre. Wow. There is some blood and maybe a scary scene but it’s definitely not a horror movie!  It’s sad that this movie haven’t received more international recognition, and was only shown in a few countries. It deserves much more.