{"id":524903,"date":"2025-10-24T14:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524903\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:20:12","slug":"ha-jung-woo-accepts-honorary-award-from-the-london-east-asia-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524903\/","title":{"rendered":"Ha Jung-Woo Accepts Honorary Award From The London East Asia Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe 10th London East Asia Film Festival got off to an action-packed start last night with a brand-new print of John Woo<\/a>\u2019s 1992 undercover cop drama Hard Boiled, starring Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung. Present at the event \u2014 to receive an Honorary Award from festival director Hyejung Jeon \u2014 was Korean star Ha Jung-woo, originally known for his charismatic performances in such modern genre classics as Park Chan-wook<\/a>\u2019s The Handmaiden and Na Hong-jin\u2019s The Yellow Sea but now making his way as a writer-director.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccepting the award at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, Ha paid his respects to one of the host city\u2019s most famous sons. \u201cLondon is a very meaningful place to me,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I was a kid, I watched Modern Times featuring Charlie Chaplin and as I was watching it, I was thinking, \u2018Hey, I want to be someone like that.\u2019 Films, or cinema, have always been something very special to me. So while watching [Charlie Chaplin] in my teens, I thought about my future, and that path has led me here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHa also noted that his attendance at LEAFF year was a milestone for him. \u201cI\u2019ve been to a lot of film festivals<\/a> \u2014 thanks to some great directors \u2014 as an actor,\u201d he recalled, \u201cbut this is the first time I\u2019m at a film festival as a director. So, it\u2019s very meaningful to me, and my time spent here will definitely be memorable. I hope that I\u2019ll be able to see you again at the London East Asia Film Festival, either as an actor or a director.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso accepting an Honorary Award was the flamboyant Hong Kong auteur Yonfan, now 78. Yonfan was immediately smitten with Ha, joking, \u201cTruly, you are so poised and handsome \u2013 you should be in my next movie, but I am retired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYonfan revealed that he had been in the venue once before: \u201cIn 1973 for the world premiere of Lady Caroline Lamb [by Robert Bolt] in 1972. And I think that many of you were not born then, but I was still making movies.\u201d The director also acknowledged that after his prolific heyday, making a film a year, he had slowed down drastically since 1995, before stopping in 2019 with No. 7 Cherry Lane. But if Yonfan misses the business, he didn\u2019t show it. \u201cI appreciate very much the people and the stars that helped me to make films,\u201d he said. \u201cActually, I think that I just love to play and have fun. And making movies is always fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tActor Ha\u2019s new film, The People Upstairs, a remake of the 2020 Spanish comedy by Cesc Gay, will compete in LEAFF\u2019S main competition strand, which features eight titles from filmmakers who have directed four feature films or fewer.<\/p>\n

\n\tLEAFF Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t96 Minutes (Hung Tzu-Hsuan)
Behind the Shadows (Jonathan Li, Chow Man-yu)
Family Matters (Pan Ke-Yin)
Girl (Dir. Shu Qi)
Green Wave (Lei Xu)
Pavane for an Infant (Chong Keat Aun)
Project Y (Lee Hwan)
The People Upstairs (Ha Jung-woo)<\/p>\n

\n\tLEAFF closes on 2 November with a screening of the Japanese Oscar submission Kokuho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 10th London East Asia Film Festival got off to an action-packed start last night with a brand-new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,10841,4884,170446,43313,257,121181,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-524903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-festivals","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-john-woo","13":"tag-korea","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-park-chan-wook","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115429587365992906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}