Just in case you haven't been keeping up on this, movies from Korea are the new "It" Asian cinema. Leading the way in this art house trend is the work of director Chan Wook Park whose film, OldBoywon the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The Brooklyn Academy of Music's Rose Cinemas will be doing a mini-festival of Park's films this weekend and OldBoy, set to be released theatrically later in March, will kick off the series with a screening tonight at 7:30 pm.
All four nights of the program look great from If You Were Me (2003) an omnibus of short Korean films on Friday, to Joint Security Area (2000) about the tensions along the dividing line between North and South Korea on Sunday. BAM's programmers also highly recommend Saturday's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) so you may just be forced to go every day this weekend. For more on Korean cinema: Film Comment's Chuck Stephens on the new wave films from Korea in the November/December 2004 issue.
[Photo of Ji-tae Yu as Lee Woo-jin in OldBoy via Tartan Films]
