Our mark is 銀幕, ginmaku — the silver screen, and the same two characters in Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

I came to Tokyo at twenty-three for a summer job at a Shibuya mini-theatre and the job never quite ended. Fifteen years of festivals later I still think the only review that counts is the one the room gives you: where the laugh lands, the moment three hundred people stop moving at once, whether anybody stays for the credits.

Cinepuuulse follows Asian cinema — Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand — across about a hundred and twenty sources. A good number of them are Spanish, French and Portuguese, because those countries programme this work seriously and write about it better than most of the English-language trade. Genre and art-house get the same seat here. I am not ranking them, and nothing is scored out of ten.

Each story is a headline, a short excerpt, one still and a link to the outlet that did the reporting. We never republish the piece, and the still belongs to its studio or its photographer. A Korean trade paper appears in Korean, a French review in French. We point at the work; we do not put words in anyone's mouth.

— Daren Wise, Tokyo

← Cinepuuulse Archive

SCMP FilmHong Kong

Prime Video K-drama Love in Disguise: Yim Si-wan, Seol In-ah lead gender-reversal romcom

10.23

Lead cast: Yim Si-wan, Seol In-ah, Kim Jung-hyun, Yeonwoo Latest Nielsen rating: 4.7 per cent In the romantic comedy Love in Disguise, Yim Si-wan plays a vain corporate heir suspected of murder who…

Streaming K-drama & series

Read at SCMP Film ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Prime Video K-drama Love in Disguise: Yim Si-wan, Seol In-ah lead gender-reversal romcom

Related

Hong KongHBO Max K-drama Make Me Tingle: Nam Ji-hyun, Kim Jae-young lead tame sex romcom SCMP Film

JapanTakashi Miike pushes the envelope with ‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ The Japan Times

SpainMoscas: Una delicada y precisa fábula sobre el descubrimiento del dolor (****) El Mundo — Cine

SpainSentido y sensibilidad: El desahucio recurrente de las hermanas Dashwood (**) El Mundo — Cine

NordicsAnna-Lena Laurén: Ryssland skulle behöva en Thomas Mann i dag Dagens Nyheter — Film

UKMax Clendaniel Wields a Cheesy Horror Prop as an Ego-Shattering Weapon in Improvised Comedy ‘Dummy’ Directors Notes