EntertainmentKorean Actor Song Kang-ho is First Asian Honored With Locarno Excellence Award

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The Locarno Film Festival will pay tribute to leading South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, marking the first time this prestigious prize has gone to an Asian film personality.

Song, 52, who made his big screen debut at 29 in Hong Sang-soo’s edgy “The Day a Pig Fell into the Well” (1996), has since “never stopped experimenting,” said the Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema in a statement.

The fest also underlined the versatile talent’s masterful turns in works by South Korean filmmakers such as  Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo, Jee- woon Kim and Park Chan-wook that have propelled him to top star status at home and made him an international name.

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Song Kang Ho on WN Network delivers the latest Videos and Editable pages for News & Events Award -winning actor Song Kang - ho , who has been acclaimed for his subtle portrayal of ordinary South Korean Film Council Plans Cultural Exchange With North Korea , Launch of Asian Film Center.

Song Kang - Ho first worked in plays entering a troupe. And started working in film as supporting actor and minor roles that most people even couldn't notice. He caught his break through chance in 'Green Fish' as a supporting role with major impact.

His standout roles include turns in big-budget blockbuster “Shiri” (1999) directed by Kang Je-gyu; Kim Jee-woon’s wrestling comedy “The Foul King” (2000); Park Chan-wook’s “Joint Security Area” (2000); “Sympathy for Mr Vengeance” (2002) and “Thirst” (2009), Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder” (2003) and “Snowpiercer” in 2013, just to name a few.

Song is at Cannes this year as protagonist of Bong’s “Parasite,” which is world premiering in competition.

“So far the recipients of this prize have all been American or European; but for me it was important to open it up to Asian cinema,” Locarno festival artistic director Lili Hinstin, who is at her debut edition, said in the statement.

She described Song as the “peerless interpreter of the variety and intensity of emotions generated by Korean cinema,” emphasizing the diversity of his work.

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Song Kang - ho never professionally trained as an actor , beginning his career in social theater groups after graduating from Gimhae High School. In early 2000, Song 's popularity increased with his first leading role in the box office smash The Foul King, for which he reputedly did most of his own stunts.

Song Kang - ho never professionally trained as an actor , beginning his career in social theater groups after graduating from Gimhae High School. After getting a Broadcasting degree from Busan Kyungsang College,[2] he later joined Kee Kuk-seo's influential theatre company with its emphasis on instinctive

Song will receive the award on August 12 in Locarno’s Piazza Grande. He will also be holding a panel discussion the next day.

Previous Excellence Award recipients include, Ethan Hawke, Mathieu Kassovitz, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert.

The 72nd edition of Locarno Film Festival will run August 7-17.

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Cannes 2019: the excellent "Parasite" of the Korean Bong Joon-Ho well placed for the charts

Regularly in Cannes all sections, the Korean Bong Joon-Ho was in competition in 2017 with "Okja". He returns this year with "Parasite", screened on Tuesday, May 22nd.

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Joon-Ho is competing for the second time in Cannes, after "Okja" which had made a lot of ink in 2017 as the first production Netflix in official selection on the Croisette.

The director is one of the best in Korean cinema, alongside Park Chan-Wook's Hang San-So or Kim Ki-duk. Flirting with genre cinema ("Memories of Murders" - Grand Prix of the detective film of Cognac -, "The Host" and Snowpiercer ", two films of SF screened at the Directors' Fortnight and Deauville), Bong Joon-Ho also produced the intimate drama tinged with "Mother", seen at Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2009.

Family life

The Ki-taek family, composed of parents and two grown children, lives in a poor area of ​​Seoul. Unemployed, they steal right, left and live odd jobs.By relationship, the eldest gives English lessons to the daughter of wealthy owners of the capital.It is working to get his sister to hire as a teacher. art, she recommends her father as a driver, who convinces his boss to take his wife as governess.They take advantage of their new situation, until an incident makes everything fall into horror

The family is one of Bong Joon-Ho's major themes I valued his values ​​of solidarity against adversity in "The Host". The Korean director was returning to "Mother" where a mother was trying to clear her son of a crime he had not committed. The family of "Parasite" could be that of "The Host" 14 years later. But the apocalyptic monster of 2006, against which a resourceful family was united, gives way to the economic precariousness against which the union is the strength. Solidarity is the same and the complementarity of each against the common adversity.

The Meaning of the Image

Bong Joon-Ho always provides his characters with a communicative humanity. Humor is a big part of it, and his favorite actor Song Kang-Ho deserves the prize of male interpretation, as he is at every irresistible appearance.

The filmmaker can claim himself at the cost of staging. "Parasite" is from this remarkable point of view, in its very progressive writing, with a twist of theater that revives the film to a violent and confusing climax. The film could be summed up as the expression of a class struggle until death. As for the image, it is an elegance of all times. It would be surprising if this "Parasite" does not contaminate the jury.

The

Fact Sheet Genre: Drama / Thriller

Director : Bon Joon-Ho Actors: Song Kang-Ho, Yeo-jeong Cho, So-Dam Park

Country : South Korea

Runtime : 2 h12

Release : June 5, 2019

Distributor : Bookmakers / The Jokers Synopsis : The family of Ki-taek is unemployed and lives expedients. Their son manages to be recommended to give private lessons of English at the very rich Park. This is the beginning of an infernal gear, which no one will come out unscathed ...

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