Seoul Report and False Rumours

[Stephen Cremin]

The Pusan International Film Festival is just coming to a close.  As usual, 
Japanese films were extremely popular, as well as films from South-East 
Asia.  The further opening up of the film industry to Japanese product in 
September sees Iwai Shunji's "Love Letter" released on 13 November head to 
head with "Tell Me Something", a psycho-horror from the director of "The 
Contact" starring Han Suk-Kyu and Shim Eun-Ha.  Since almost everybody here 
seems to have seen Iwai's film on video, its touch competition indeed.  
Speaking of which it seems that filming on Iwai's Y2K project has been 
pushed back to March 2000.

And finally to nail a false rumour on the head.  Unfortunately, Korean DVDs 
of "Shiri", etc, are in fact NOT subtitled, contrary to word-of-mouth.  VCDs 
of "Harmonium in My Memory", perhaps the best Korean film of the year, are 
subtitled though and can be picked up here for less than 1,000 yen.  Sorry 
for inadvertently spreading the DVD rumour, not for the first time.  Anyway, 
"Shiri" will be released in Japan in December this year by CineQuaNon.

Stephen Cremin

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