#Terracotta 'n' Chill
However you look at lockdown, it's a blessing in disguise this year.
There's no;
forgetting what day it is
making breakfast in bed
buying flowers from a petrol station.
forgetting to book a fancy restaurant.
And most importantly buying that ring.
We suggest, you whatsapp a flower emoji. Tell your partner all the things you would have done and had planned. Get a take out and pick a film (we've recommended some below).
Now you can stay home and #terracottanchill
Happy Valentines!
When I Get Home, My Wife Always Pretends to Be Dead
In the third year of a stalling marriage, Jun returns home to find his wife dead and blood all over her body. As he calls for an ambulance, she suddenly jumps up and surprises him...it was just a prank.
Each day when he comes home, he finds a new ruse from his wife, portraying different deaths, each more elaborate than the last one.
He finally asks the question on Yahoo! about what's behind her behaviour (a real-life query which inspired a manga adaptation, a song and this film) and slowly rediscovers what marriage is all about.
April Snow
From director Hur Jin-ho (Forbidden Dream) comes this two-time award winning film about love and loss.
In-su (Bae Yong-jun ) and Seo-young (Son Ye-jin) meet in a hospital after their respective partners are involved in a car accident. However, after learning that their spouses have been having an affair, the two begin one of their own.
This classic of the Korean New Wave is now available for the first time to watch in the UK and the delicate nuance of the affair has drawn comparisons with Wong Kar-Wais’ In The Mood For Love.
Christmas in August
A touching, tragic, romantic film, with the sensibilities of Francois Truffaut films, this enduring story launched Han Suk-kyu to prominence and set him on the path to Korean actor stardom.
Jung-Won (Han Suk-Kyu, Shiri) is a photographer, who runs a small studio in a rural suburb of Seoul. As he passes his days with the daily studio routines, enlarging class photos and taking family portraits, his life changes as when a young traffic meter maid Da-Rim (Shim Eun-Ha) enters his studio with a request for photos of parking violations.
The two make an unlikely pair and are not immediately attracted to each other. Even so, they go on dates and over time, their friendship strengthens, but Jung-Won has a terminal illness, a fact which is known only to his immediate family.
Il Mare
Remade as The Lake House starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, this is the first time that the original version is available to watch in the UK.
In 1999 Eun-jo (Jun Ji-hyun) a successful voice actress, ended her tenancy of Il Mare, a quaint house on a lake. She leaves a Christmas card requesting the next tenant forwards her correspondences. When the tenant, an architect student replies, Eun-jo discovers that his letter is dated 1997, two years before she contacted him, and that he is the original owner of the property. And so begins a friendship separated by 2 years.
But who is this mystery man?
Memories of a Dead End
Yoo-mi, a 29-year-old Korean civil servant, is in a long-distance relationship with her Japanese fiancé who works in Nagoya. Her dreams of marriage are shattered when she visits him and is instead confronted with his new girlfriend.
Stranded and wandering in an unfamiliar city, she visits a guesthouse at the end of a street, appropriately named End Point. Yumi slowly escapes from her agony with the help of guesthouse worker, Nishiyama and the other guests from the guesthouse.
My Girlfriend Is An Agent
Due to her continual lying, a man breaks up with his girlfriend, unaware that she is a secret agent. A few years later, they meet again without knowing that this time they both have secrets.
With more than a tinge of Mr and Mrs Smith, and with similarly action packed scenes, add in a mission to save the world from Russian arms dealers, MY GIRLFRIEND IS AN AGENT was so popular it spawned a Korean drama TV series, 7TH GRADE CIVIL SERVANT
Woman on Fire Looks For Water
Two seemingly doomed love affairs play out along a Malaysian river's fishing villages.
Young Ah Fei lives in a small fishing village, where he catches and sells frogs. His bachelor father Ah Geng is a fisherman. The old man sees his death approaching and goes to a nearby village to look for a woman who was his great love, but whom he did not marry back then.
His son is in love with a girl who only wants a relationship if he earns more. Ah Fei goes to work in a factory and faces a dilemma when his boss wants him to marry his daughter. While the father regrets the decision he took in his youth, his son looks as if he’s about to make the same mistake.