after dark
You get the tickets. We've got the plan.
While North Korea has made the world's headlines for all the wrong reasons, South Korea has been quietly forging a reputation for ground-breaking films that Hong Kong audiences can't seem to get enough of.
The event: Without any bluster and bravado, the Korea Film Festival's startling, thought-provoking and internationally acclaimed movie selection will keep everybody happy. Highlights of the programme's 17 features and pick of animated shorts, presented by the Consulate-General of the Republic of South Korea, include:
Chiwaseon (Strokes Of Fire) by the director considered to be the country's foremost film-maker, Im Kwon-taek. Last year Im was the first South Korean to win the best director award at Cannes with this portrayal of the life of celebrated artist Jang Seung-up, whose huge appetite for alcohol and women - along with the pursuit of art - became legendary. Tomorrow, 7.35pm and Tuesday, 9.30pm.
Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, directed by Park Chan-wook, whose poignant 2000 effort JSA (Joint Security Area), about the friendship between North and South Korean soldiers guarding the no-man's land between the two countries, won him audiences across the globe. JSA star Song Kang-ho appears in this latest quirky tale about a deaf man who kidnaps his boss' daughter to extort money for his sister's kidney transplant. When his sister and the kidnapped girl both die, a quest for revenge begins. Tomorrow, 2.45pm; Sunday, 7.35pm and March 5, 7.30pm
Too Young To Die (top), although the film was warmly received on the international arthouse circuit, it was once banned in South Korea. This beautiful love story centres on a couple in their 70s who meet, fall in love and have mad sex - repeatedly. Shocking? Not really, but a superb challenge to preconceived notions of how 'old people' should behave.
March 2, 4pm.
The true shock quotient is filled by director Kim Ki-duk's Bad Guy (left). Hugely controversial, it is the story of a college girl trapped into a life of prostitution by a gangster. It is so explicit, violent and vulgar that viewers have been known to walk out of cinemas.
Today, 9.40pm; tomorrow, 5.45pm;
March 5, 9.50pm.
Sink your teeth into: Some visiting Seoul residents have said Korea House Restaurant (Korea Centre Building, 19/F; 119-121 Connaught Rd, Central, Man Wa Lane entrance. Tel: 2544 0007, 2544 1227. Open: 12pm-3pm, 6pm-11pm) is the most authentic Korean restaurant in Hong Kong. Its Kowloon counterpart (8/F, BCC Building, 25-31 Carnarvon Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui. Tel: 2722 6506. Open: 12pm-11pm) is also worth a try - and offers excellent value. You can't go past the set barbecue menus, priced from $80 (for chicken or pork). They include soup, rice, dessert and several kinds of superb homemade kimchee, among other non-barbecue specialities.
