juliaw

Na Hong-jin has always operated with an uncompromising appetite for dread, but his latest canvas tests the limits of that maximalism in ways that are deeply frustrating. The remote isolation of Hope Harbor provides an undeniably potent atmospheric foundation during the opening act. We observe police chief Bum-seok and officer Sung-ae navigating the quiet, da...

Watching Toshirō Mifune pace the perimeter of an austere modernist living room perched high above Yokohama remains one of the supreme lessons in cinematic staging. I kept thinking about this film for months after an archival 35mm projection at the Walter Reade, constantly returning to how Kurosawa arranges human bodies across the wide Tohoscope frame. The in...