Korean DVD Release List: Updated February 16

dvdfromkorea.com has a hazy date of August and some info for Kim Ki-Duk's latest, The bow, which I didn't see mentioned here or the release date list.

http://www.dvdfromkorea.com/board/board/content.asp?tb=board_4&page=1&num=51

i saw today after i made my 'a bittersweet life' preorder that the date has shifted back to 27th... from the 20th. i chose koreandvds.com because they still said the 20th until this morning, unlike dvdfromkorea which already made the correction. anyhow : still frustrated that 'crying fist' sold out its initial stock so waiting for that to ship since last friday...

yep, my 'crying fist' shipped on the 21st after a second lot came in stock. my 'bittersweet life' hasnt made it out yet though, and the initial stock of that sold out too. ive seen 'sold out' quickly on things at koreandvds.com in the past, and i dont suppose its at all predictable... they simply must be selling tonnes of those 2 films abroad because theyre two of the top movies of the year...

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in September? Yeah, right...

Lady Vengeance DVD within 2 months from its theater release? Sounds highly unlikely, although the earlier the merrier for me.

Woah! Finally! A Korean DVD release of All About Lily Chou-Chou! Pleeeaaase let it have the same picture quality as the Japanese DVD, only with English subtitles.

mmmm, got my directors cut of A BITTERSWEET LIFE in the mail today!

me too, finally. really pissed it took so long. now awaiting to be viewed, 'a bittersweet life', 'crying fist', 'survive style 5+', 'demon spies', 'genesis' (seen 'aftermath' now...). how will i cope?

Gar. My Bittersweet Life is delayed in the mail somewhere ... shipped before Antarctic Journal but I got Journal yesterday (and it's good) and still no sign of Bittersweet ...

That's a tough list to choose from Logboy ... Crying Fist and Survive Style are both excellent ...

Logboy....do you recommend Aftermath?

Well, speak of the devil ... it just turned up ... ends up they shipped it from their Hong Kong depot rather than the Canadian one because I had a copy of The Wayward Cloud in the same order ... got stopped by customs ...

Logboy....do you recommend Aftermath? - Marten.

yes, if you understand what your getting yourself into. the films very nicely shot, though clearly displays the flaws which would convince you it was real. nicest looking rubber corpses ever. overdubbing was a give away too... the illusions broken all too easily. still, nastiest thing ive seen in a good while. challenging and interesting. not really an exploitation movie, but not a flick for the kids - its clearly got much more too it that deserves to be easily dismissed without some serious consideration...

btw : my post has been slow cos the local sorting depots lift has broken down, and they cant get the stuff upstairs easily.

Logboy....being somewhat morbidly curious, I wasn't expecting a family-friendly movie :) I much appreciate your prompt response.

Lady Vengeance DVD is expected to come out in November, according to CJ Entertainment. They also plan to release vengeance trilogy box set after that. (source: dvdprime.com)

korean drama should has a audio with Cantonese not just mandarin

YES! I was hoping The Showdown would come out soon. I think it was X who assured me that it would be out by the end of the year.

haven't had finances available for awhile. i'm ready to order the director's cut of A Bittersweet Life. Any suggestions on the best (fastest) site to order it from?

Fade Into You, Camellia and the If You Were Me Animation should make their way to DVD soon.

re : 'the son of the general' - is this 'first of a trilogy' the one that leads to the two listed above it by the same director, culminating in 'sopyonje'?... i might buy that one alone, but if its the end of the trilogy its three films...? confused!

son of the general is the first of a trilogy (the other being son of general number 2 and 3). They were released in successive years (1990, 1991, 1992) and follow the life of Kim Doo-Han. If you've heard of or seen the TV Drama 야인 시대 (The Rustic Era), that's the same story. Thought they'd release this in a boxset, but it looks that won't happen. Maybe they'll release the first three and then a boxset, but I don't know. Price is about half the average Korean release, so worth getting them anyway.

Sopyonje is another film, about a group of pansori performers facing difficulties in continuing their work when western-styled music becomes popular in Korea. But that's just the surface, it goes much deeper in exploring how popular culture changed, even slowly destroying age old traditions. Great, great stuff.

So Son of The General is first of three (the other two coming soon), Chunhyang and Sopyonje are unrelated films from the same director.

thanks. whats chunhyang like? are there any noteable reviews or even trailers for either you know of (without having to look...!). thanks, X.

Im Kwon-Taek's Chunhyang is good, but I'm no huge fan of it. Too much Orientalism, and Jo Seung-Woo and a lot of the other cast members were either too green or not good enough (in the past, these roles were played by greats like Shin Sung-Il and Moon Hee, so it's hard not to look at their performance there). And, even though there's no really need to delve further into the politics of the period, he paints the situation as a little too much of a black and white affair. Which is not the case. Nope.

Besides that, the story's been told so many times in Korean films and TV Dramas it's kind of like Romeo & Juliet. I prefer the 1968 Kim Su-Yong version, Shin Sang-Ok's 1961 version, and Han Sang-Hoon's 1987 version (there's like dozens of films and at least 6 TV Dramas telling the story). At least it's better than the 1994 TV Drama with Kim Hee-Sun and Lee Min-Woo, but I guess just about everything is better than that...

But it's definitely worth a look, especially for the Pansori performance by Master Jo Sang-Hyun (which is really, really amazing. Especially if you've never seen any Pansori performance before). And we're still talking about Im Kwon-Taek: even his 'bad' films are always at least interesting.

Darcy likes it a
lot.

as for trailers, I'm afraid it will be quite hard to find them. No luck at the usual places (Naver, Cine21, Yahoo, Maxmovie...). Guess it's too 'old'.

If I had to buy only one of those three films, I'd get Sopyonje pronto. It's Im's best film of the last 20 years and truly an amazing work. Son of The General is quite entertaining, especially if you know the story a little, but you have to sort of put it in the context of early 90s Korean Cinema. Characters are a little too black and white, machismo abounds (that's inevitable though, given the period it covers), and it doesn't exactly paints the Japanese as good peeps. Still, it's fun.

Yay, The Showdown!

sure dvdfromkorea has 'rebirth' listed as 'revenge' at lease, thats what i have my eye on and the logo matches 'rebirth' which you recommend (and i will order)... heeelllpp!

ah... English titles, always an headache, especially for TV Dramas, which technically have no 'official' English Title. When I watched the show on KBS World, it was called 'Rebirth', and some TV channels in the US call it 'Resurrection' (same thing, translated from the original Korean). Now YesAsia and a few other retailers use 'Revenge', which might be what KBS America and KBS Media want to call it.

Quick way is comparing cast and crew. If they match, then here's your answer.

Anyway, Revenge is Rebirth. Same show. Don't know why they call it revenge, as the Drama is about more than avenging something, but hey... it's their show. If you're searching with YesAsia, just paste the Korean title, and it should lead you to the link anyway.

when is the immortal yi soon shin coming out on DVD, if it hasn't yet? Please inform me as soon as it's available! Thanks.

So the Im KwonTaek set has been pushed back to february? I have waited on this instead of buying the singles. Is this really gonna happen? Should i still wait?

I'd say, if you're interested in the films, buy the single releases. The cost couldn't possibly be lower (around 13 bucks), and I doubt they'll find anything of note to add to the Boxset.

It was in a publicity ad on one of those DVD Magazines a while ago, so I left it up there. Even DVD Prime's release list still has it. But haven't heard anything about it in more than a month.

I'd say go for the single releases.

Has Spectrum added more titles to the Taehung Pictures Collection? 태백산맥 (The Taebaek Mountains) wasn't on the original list of titles when the deal was first announced.

possible. ^_^

PLEASE, PLEASE - we want Yi Soon-Shin!!! We are at episode 73 and already lamenting that the series will end in ONLY 31 more episodes!! (I also missed the first episodes.) Take pity on us and produce the DVDs (with English subtitles, not dubbing).