Ji-woon Kim is a decent director who shows a bit of range over other horror directors, but I haven’t been blown away by his films. I Saw the Devil has an interesting twist on the revenge killer plot, but it’s big on gore. A Tale of Two Sisters has a big reputation that might have underwhelmed my experience of it. The Good The Bad and the Weird is kinda fun. I’d watch that again. A Bittersweet Life is good.
He is (or at least was) a talented director whose films worked well within the boundaries of genres, though he was certainly never on the same level as contemporary Korean masters like Hong Sang-soo or Lee Chang-dong. His “The Quiet Family” is a brilliant black comedy definitely worth checking out, I slightly prefer it to Takashi Miike’s remake. “A Tale of Two Sisters” is likely one of the most accomplished of the countless Asian horror films that came out in the 2000s. It doesn’t transcend the genre like Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s films, but the shock effects and psychological twists worked quite well. “A Bittersweet Life” is a rather average gangster film which tried to be more than it actually was. It had some stylish cinematography, but other than that I didn’t find it worthwhile at all. The trailer for “The Good, the Bad and the Weird” made me entirely lose interest in Kim Ji-woon as a director, so I can’t tell anything about his most recent work.
Yeah, I haven’t been exactly impressed by his films, although I did enjoy A Bittersweet Life very much. He’s a commercial filmmaker, I guess should be said. Nevertheless, he’s shown that he can create interesting narratives without falling into generic redundancy.
He excelled early on as a director of online shorts, the best of which is ‘Coming Out’, shot as a video confession of a girl telling her brother that she is a vampire. However, I have to agree with most people who have commented thus far in that he hasn’t advanced much over the years in his talents. My favorite of his horror features is ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’, if it’s worth anything to you
Decent filmmaker who can consistently entertain his audience.
Apursansar, I wouldnt say its fair to compare him to the likes of Hong Sang-soo or Lee Chang-dong since they have little in common to begin with. I would say he is a notch below Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook and maybe Kim Ki-duk.
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You’re right, that wasn’t an apt comparision. He definitely belongs to the league of Korean commercial filmmakers, and his body of work mostly shares similarities with that of Park Chan-wook. While both directors started with promising and inventive films, their recent works don’t seem to differ a lot from the usual Hollywood output.
yes. Although Park’s Thirst was more interesting than anything Hollywood has produced in years. And right now, imo, commercial cinema doesn’t get any better than Bong Joon-ho.
Don’t forget Marc that regardless of some of those individuals’ uneven filmographies (I mean seriously….I Am a Cyborg mister Park?), commercialism does lead to several…enjoyable moments once in a while. It’s quite possible that Bittersweet Life and some his shorts may have been flukes should he end up being more Hollywood than ever but so far (from what I’ve seen at least), I’d say HIS commercialism isn’t insulting to the viewer’s mind compared to his Hollywood and a handful of European counterparts.
I won’t go as far to say that those Korean adventure examples are a new Hong Kong action era or anything but you get my point.
Hell, I’ll take any The Host (speaking of Bong) over all those repetitive Bollywood comedies of the past 5 years!
^ I like that. Did you see Barking Dogs Never Bite?
he isn’t one of my favorites, but I think it’s a bit more than a commercial or genre filmmaker like, for example, Jae-young Kwak or Sang-jin Kim. His stories have some interesting variation on a theme (A Tale of Two Sisters as a non-horror like Dark Water or the parodistic “Boiling Point style” A Bittersweet Life) and he made some solid script comedies (The Quiet Family and The Foul King) which prove he’s an eclectic director.
the most interesting thing of Kim Ji-woon is how he plays with time, his movies have a peculiar pace and flashbacks/flashforwards in some of his films are quite evocative. Nothing radical like Peppermint Candy, anyway.
but I don’t think it’s fair to put him near Kim Ki-duk: his filmography until 2003 is an another league, too many differences between their styles and themes.
speaking of Bong, for me more than Barking Dogs and The Host (i love them both, especially the second), Memories of Murder and Mother are his masterpieces.
He’s a talented director who can bend any genre into something you’ve never seen before.
He’s NOT a horror director & he doesn’t ‘work well within the boundarie of genre’ he’s a genre-bender. I wrote my thesis on South Korean New Wave Cinema & he was one of my case studies.
The Quiet Family (1998) is a good place to start. The Foul King (2000) is also excellent. Always good to start at the beginning with a director like him.
Thank you very much guys… your comments are appreciated. :)
“he doesn’t ‘work well within the boundarie of genre’ he’s a genre-bender. I wrote my thesis on South Korean New Wave Cinema & he was one of my case studies.”
Well, in that case you might as well go a bit into detail and describe how he does this for those who don’t regard him as a genre-bender (like for instance Kiyoshi Kurosawa) to understand your point of view.
Agustina
Does anyone have any opinions regarding Ji-woon Kim? Are his films worth watching? I’ve read some good stuff about him… Has anyone watched “I saw the Devil” (2010)?
I want to get my hands on his films.