Korean Film Archive

[Adam X]

Regardless, thanks for the reminder the Goryeojang release exists, zedz.

[L.A.]

Guess I’ll start reminding of old releases as well what others have posted.

[Michael Kerpan]

Guess I’ll start reminding of old releases as well what others have posted.

With all due respect, this sort of snotty remark is neither necessary nor welcome. We appreciate news you report -- and we appreciate other people's efforts at reporting (even if they sometimes overlap).

[L.A.]

I myself am trying to be careful not to post the same info what someone else has already done, like using the ”Search” function before posting. I can only guess I would get the same ”already posted before” remark and in this case understandably. Guess this is just my assumption.

[Michael Kerpan]

If a new poster over-exuberantly posts lots of "news" that is not, in fact, not new (and has already not only been posted but discussed), that person will almost certainly get a slap of some sort. The purpose for this is "training" them to be a good forum member in the future. If a veteran (and usually careful) poster accidentally slips up, I would submit that one (a) ignores it, (b) makes a good-natured quip (and then forgets the incident) or (c) sends them a very polite PM. Grumping about the fact that others don't pile on the "offender" (and saying you will deliberately post non-news as news to get even) is churlish. We are supposed to be some semblance of friends here -- and many of us have known each other (virtually speaking) for many many years. Yes, debates (and not only political ones) can get over-heated -- just as in real life. But grumpiness over petty matters is something that can and SHOULD be avoided.

[L.A.]

Michael, you knocked some sense into me.

Final time, sorry. Everyone, am I forgiven? [-o<

[Michael Kerpan]

My job is being the old (just turned 68) codger who does this sort of thing. Just behave from now on! (and keep providing news)

[feihong]

There's no right space for this as far as I can see, so I think this might be the thread for it. KFA releases classic Korean films on blu ray. So where is the blu ray for Memento Mori? Most of the hits from that era have some kind of blu ray out there, from Barking Dogs Never Bite to Peppermint Candy to the Hong Sang Soo movies (not hits perhaps, but notable films) to Friend to Sorum. Memento Mori––and in fact, the whole Whispering Corridors series, though Memento Mori stands apart from the other films in terms of quality––is conspicuously absent. The Tartan DVD is...sort of okay. It looks grungy, with some rough contrast-boosting, and the image looks horizontally squished a bit. I would say the color is rendered best, and the subtitles seem on-point. But the film has a lot of group shots with lots of characters in the frame, and those are not served well by this disc. This is a movie crying out for better treatment. It's a gorgeous, moving, absorbing film, from an era of Korean movies that will never come again. It should be on blu ray, but I think the rights to the film perhaps do not reside in any similar place to where the other films of that era are owned.

[L.A.]

DVD Compare has a review for the company’s latest offering North Korean Partisan in South Korea (1990) which came out last month.

[L.A.]

Green Rain (1966) also came out.

[TraverseTown]

The library where I work has these blu-rays and I've been loving going through them. Beautiful packaging, great essays in the booklets, everything in both Korean and English, and Region Free. I'd even consider importing some. I've watched the first 14 and my favorites so far have been Lovers in Woomuk-Baemi and Heavenly Homecoming to the Stars. They're a great entry point into Korean National Cinema, I'm gonna watch more films that are only available on the KOFA YouTube channel.

[barbarella satyricon]

...

[chatterjees]

I knew about the line for years, but never bought any of them. I kind of regret that now because I think some of the titles are OOP already. Is there any sites other than kimchidvd and yesasia that sells these titles for a reasonable price? Any suggestion is appreciated. I can't remember my kimchidvd account password, so I contacted them. I can see that they have handful of these titles, but can't add them to my cart.

[TraverseTown]

That’s a great endorsement. I’ve yet to look into the KOFA line of releases, so thanks for giving that a bump up in the priorities list. Also, would I be correct in guessing that the library you speak of is a university one? If not, that would be one public library that really goes above and beyond in its acquisitions.

I’m afraid not. I’m doing a work study in a film archive and their video library is for internal use only. I think they have a relationship with KOFA and they send them all their releases directly.

I really can’t endorse them enough. Although they aren’t my favorites, I highly recommend Aimless Bullet and A Day Off also. They definitely feel like films that would be more famous in world cinema if they were more accessible.

Between making their discs and YouTube so easy to use in the West, they really have gone above and beyond other archives and labels in turns of making their films accessible to a wide audience. They even upload a new HQ of each film after they get restored even if a SD version is already on there.

And on the discs, they even subtitled most of the audio commentaries in English. Most of the commentators are other Korean filmmakers talking about how the films were important to their individual works.

My favorite booklet was from The March of Fools, that went into extreme detail regarding precisely what content of that film was censored and removed.

[barbarella satyricon]

...

[SaulJ]

I have been researching these releases A LOT before committing to making a purchase, as they seem to be perennially expensive. However, I am still doubtful about one aspect: how good are the subtitles and booklet translations on these? Reading the KFA website, the translations seem to be spotty at times. I know the releases aren´t done by the same people who produce content for the website but I haven´t been able to find any source firmly confirming the quality of the subtitling.

[TraverseTown]

I have been researching these releases A LOT before committing to making a purchase, as they seem to be perennially expensive. However, I am still doubtful about one aspect: how good are the subtitles and booklet translations on these? Reading the KFA website, the translations seem to be spotty at times. I know the releases aren´t done by the same people who produce content for the website but I haven´t been able to find any source firmly confirming the quality of the subtitling.

I don't speak Korean so I can't comment on the quality of the actual translations, but I've seen all their releases now and I can say the English content is great. I can't remember any distracting errors in subtitling at all, and there's some grammatical/syntactic weirdness in the booklets but nothing that ever affected my ability to clearly understand.

[L.A.]

Jiokhwa / The Flower in Hell (Shin Sang-ok, 1958)

Shin’s work on Blu-ray is always a pleasure.

[Jigvell]

I finished The Flower in Hell yesterday and that means I finally watched all of these films :)
Booklets with every release are very much appreciated, they help to shine the light on "state" of these films (lot of them suffered from censorship).

Also people keep mentioning films in previous posts that they would like to see released by KOFA, but I would like to remind you that one of the criteria is that a film must be on the best 100 Koren Films list - 100 Korean Films (2014)
One film that wasn't on the list was The Devil's Stairway (but it's included on the list from 1996, so I guess that kind of counts).

[Orlac]

Also people keep mentioning films in previous posts that they would like to see released by KOFA, but I would like to remind you that one of the criteria is that a film must be on the best 100 Koren Films list - 100 Korean Films (2014)

Rats, I was going to ask them to release Golden Dragon, Silver Snake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQu6U6 ... odlesoupus

[L.A.]

Jiokhwa / The Flower in Hell (Shin Sang-ok, 1958)

Shin’s work on Blu-ray is always a pleasure.

DVD Compare.

[L.A.]

Whale Hunting (Bae Chang-ho, 1984) came out earlier this week.

[L.A.]

Whale Hunting (Bae Chang-ho, 1984) came out earlier this week.

DVD Compare.

[L.A.]

Mabu / The Coachman (Kang Dae-jin, 1961) out now.

[sabbath]

2022 lineup:

Burning Mountain / 산불 (Kim Soo-yong, 1967)
Sorum / 소름 (Yoon Jong-chan, 2001)
The Hut / 피막 (Lee Doo-yong, 1980)
Declaration of Idiot / 바보선언 (Lee Jang-ho, 1984)

Not officially announced yet, but as always, this year's bid notice for classic Korean movie Blu-ray production and consignment sales (in Korean) revealed them.

You can watch Burning Mountain, The Hut and Declaration of Idiot on KOFA's YouTube channel with English subtitles.