Tag Archives: Real-life incident

Sewol: Years in the Wind (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): The chronicle of their long plight

I still remember how shocking the sinking of MV Sewol incident was to me and many other South Koreans. When there came sudden news reports on the incident during the morning of April 16th, 2014, it did not seem that … Continue reading

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Life Goes On (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): As they hold up

South Korean documentary “Life Goes On” is often sad and heartbreaking in its intimate presentation of several different persons who have tried to go on despite tragically losing their loved ones to some of the most traumatic accidents in the … Continue reading

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Society of the Snow (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Under that unimaginably extreme condition

What would you do under a situation as grim and extreme as whatever the survivors of the Andes Flight Disaster experienced in 1972? This is surely a hard and difficult question, and Netflix film “Society of the Snow”, which was … Continue reading

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Noryang: Deadly Sea (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Driven into the last battle

South Korean film “Noryang: Deadly Sea”, the third and (definitely) final film of the trilogy after “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” (2014) and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” (2022), is often relentlessly epic and loud in what it is expected to present on … Continue reading

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20 Days in Mariupol (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A close look into one Ukrainian city under siege

Ukrainian documentary “20 Days in Mariupol”, which received the Audience Award at the World Cinema Documentary Competition of the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, is a vivid and disturbing presentation of the first 20 days of one Ukrainian … Continue reading

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12.12: The Day (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): That infamous night in Seoul, 1979

South Korean film “12.12: The Day” is an intense fictionalized version of what happened at one terrible night of December 1979 in Seoul. Although I and many other South Korean audiences are well aware of how the story eventually ends, … Continue reading

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Captain Volkonogov Escaped (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Escaping for redemption

“Captain Vokonogov Escaped” sounds like your typical war thriller flick, but it reaches for something else instead, and that is interesting in my humble opinion. Following its plain military officer hero’s desperate attempt toward redemption and some peace, the movie … Continue reading

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Finding Yingying (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Yingying Zhang is missing

Documentary film “Finding Yingying” focuses on the undeniably heartbreaking human aspects of one real-life missing case. Yingying Zhang, a graduate student at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois who was only 26 at the time of her missing, is a … Continue reading

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Oppenheimer (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): American Prometheus

Christopher Nolan’s latest film “Oppenheimer”, which was finally released in South Korean yesterday, is overwhelming to say the least. If you do not have much knowledge about its real-life hero’s life and career, you may get confused more than once … Continue reading

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206: Unearthed (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Unearthing the tragedies of the Korean War

South Korean documentary film “206: Unearthed” illuminates one tragic fact of the Korean War, which I and other South Koreans should remember as long as possible. During that dark and dangerous period, millions of innocent civilians were massacred around the … Continue reading

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