'Stranger Than Korea' offers double-feature screenings

By Jon Dunbar

A new community cinema initiative is offering subtitled movie screenings to galvanize foreign interest in Korean movies.

K-Cineclub, which had its first event on Oct. 9, will start the “Stranger Than Korea” monthly movie screening series Sunday. Intended to introduce the early films of famous directors, this first double feature offers Kim Jee-won’s “The Foul King” (2000) and “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003).

Kim is best known for the Hollywood film “The Last Stand” (2013), as well as Korean blockbusters “The Good, The Bad, The Weird” (2008) and “The Age of Shadows” (2016). The curtain rises at 4 p.m. at Seoul Art Cinema.

The films will screen with English subtitles, but subtitles are available in Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamese through the smartphone app KMS.

Although the poster says the screenings are for foreign students, all foreign and Korean film buffs are welcome. Tickets cost 6,000 won.

Future screenings include Park Chan-wook’s “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” (2005) and “JSA” (2000) on Nov. 14 and Bong Joon-ho’s “Mother” (2009) and “Memories of Murder” (2003) on Dec. 11.

“We will screen early works of Kim Jee-woon, Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho that are world widely well-known recently to discover Korean films’ trends and Korean culture and society features in those films,” the group says on their website.

K-Cineclub is a film society for Korean and foreign movie fans to watch and discuss Korean films. As well as “Stranger Than Korea,” the club also holds weekly community screenings and other activities including reviewing and translating Korean films and planning film festivals and indie movie screenings.

It receives support from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, as well as 00Network, which promotes the revitalization of Sewoon Sangga, or Sewoon Shopping Mall, in central Seoul, plus Mogukjang, Cineclub Festival of the Film Festivals, and the Seoul Film Society.

Seoul Art Cinema is around the corner from exit 14 of Jongno 3-ga Station on lines 1, 3 and 5. After leaving the station, turn right. Seoul Cinema will be on your right, and Seoul Art Cinema is on the third floor.

Visit k-cineclub.com or facebook.com/groups/kcineclub for more.