Latest news with #HolyNight
South China Morning Post
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Holy Night: Demon Hunters movie review – Ma Dong-seok in tiring Korean action horror
2/5 stars Advertisement Supernatural thriller Holy Night: Demon Hunters might better have been titled 'Ma Dong-seok: Demon Puncher'. This lowbrow exercise in low-rent exorcism offers little more than the hulking Korean superstar, also known as Don Lee, throwing down against an assortment of sketchily drawn spirits. Produced and co-written by Ma together with first-time director Lim Dae-hee, the film is the latest, and certainly weakest, in a string of recent Korean horror titles that delve into the dark realm of demonic possession. While a smattering of intriguing ideas are brought to the altar, they are immediately abandoned in a final product that pales next to the likes of box office hit Exhuma , or even the underwhelming Dark Nuns Kang Bow (Ma) runs the detective-agency-style outfit 'Holy Night', together with exorcist Sharon (Seohyun) and rookie/cameraman Kim Gun (Lee David), which specialises in bizarre and otherworldly cases that the police cannot solve. Advertisement They are approached by psychiatrist Jung-won (Gyeong Su-jin) after her medical expertise fails to stop the psychotic episodes of her younger sister Eun-seo (Jung Ji-so).
Straits Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
At The Movies: K-occult thriller Holy Night: Demon Hunters packs a punch, a bittersweet Happyend
Holy Night: Demon Hunters (NC16) 92 minutes, opens on May 8 ★★★☆☆ The story: Holy Night is an elite team of exorcists in Seoul and the South Korean capital's only defence against the rise of a devil-worshipping criminal network. A psychiatrist (Kyung Soo-jin) calls on Holy Night when her sister (Jung Ji-so) begins exhibiting disturbing symptoms no medical diagnosis can explain. The K-occult thriller Holy Night: Demon Hunters, which began as a 2024 webtoon, introduces Don Lee as the star detective and agency boss Ba-woo: His physical strength is his superpower. Sharon (Girls' Generation pop idol Seohyun) is the psychic shaman aswirl in boho-chic gowns, while young sidekick Kim Gun (David Lee) provides technical support plus comic relief. They operate, charmingly, out of a shabby antique mall, and theirs is a recognisable world of downbeat realism however fantastical the exploits as they investigate and then battle to save the possessed girl contorting and levitating in billows of smoke. The action is intense and atmospheric, until it becomes a repetitive cycle of Ba-woo punching the invading demon and Sharon bellowing 'return to hell'. They should know, after an hour in, that this approach is not working. Sharon goes all in nevertheless with her incantations and exorcism kit of knives, mirrors, copper bells and bronze rattles. Writer-director Lim Dae-hee marries Eastern mysticism with Western tropes for the detailed rituals. The first-time film-maker has also scripted an intimate backstory for Ba-woo, whose tragic boyhood is connected to the cult spreading the dark forces. The three heroes are each a captivating personality, dynamic in their synergy. The sequel hinted at in the end credits is certainly not unwelcome because they are capable of much more than just this one job. Hot take: Don Lee of The Roundup film series (2017 to present) may have found himself another hit franchise. Happyend (PG13) 113 minutes, opens exclusively at The Projector on May 8 ★★★☆☆ Hayato Kurihara (left) and Yukito Hidaka in Happyend. PHOTO: THE PROJECTOR The story: In near-future Japan, two students at a Tokyo high school prank their humourless principal (Shiro Sano), who installs an invasive surveillance system to identify the culprits. The boys' contrasting responses fissure their lifelong bond. 'Something big is about to change,' warns the prologue. It will not be due to a devastating earthquake, which is a constant threat seized on by the government to expand its emergency powers. The changes in the J-teen drama Happyend are Kou's (Yukito Hidaka) and Yuta's (Hayato Kurihara) central dynamics, with city-wide civil protests against authoritarianism the backdrop. Kou is a working-class Zainichi Korean. His people were massacred by the thousands in the wake of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, and the darkening national mood is rekindling the xenophobia: 'hikokumin' (traitor) is graffitied outside his family restaurant one night, rousing him into political activism. He becomes serious and distant. Seems like only yesterday he and Yuta were horsing around, and Yuta still is, this coddled aspiring deejay without a care. The tensions expose the fundamental differences between the boyhood best friends. Their rift is perhaps inevitable. Also in their tight circle of half-dozen sharing a love of underground music are a half-black American (Arazi) and a Chinese girl (Shina Peng), all of them destined to go their separate ways: Japanese writer-director Neo Sora limns the shifts during their final graduation weeks, at that wistful transitional moment between adolescence and adulthood. Kurihara is the winner of Best Newcomer at the 2025 Asian Film Awards, and Sora's subtle, observational debut feature is deceptively simple in story. It is titled after a composition by his father Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the score, too, honours the late musical mage in synching with the youthful vitality of the cast. Hot take: Here is a bittersweet coming-of-age experience, unassuming but emotionally textured. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Geek Tyrant
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Trailer for the Occult Action Horror Movie HOLY NIGHT: DEMON HUNTERS — GeekTyrant
Here's the trailer for wild-looking action horror film titled Holy Night: Demon Hunters , which stars Train to Busan breakout star Don Lee ( The Roundup ), who leads a team of battling exorcists. Lee plays Bau in the film, 'the leader of a secret team known as Holy Night, that hunts down demon-worshipping cults threatening Seoul. Alongside Sharon (Seohyun), who can detect and exorcise demons, and Kim-kun (David Lee), their tactical support, the team faces a rising evil. 'When psychiatrist Jung-Won (Kyung Soo-Jin) seeks their help to save her younger sister Eun-Seo (Jung Ji-So) from demonic possession, the mission becomes more dangerous than ever.' In the story, 'Seoul descends into chaos as a devil-worshipping criminal network emerges. In a desperate plea for salvation, the police turn to 'Holy Night'—a secretive trio of demon hunters armed with supernatural powers.' The upcoming action horror hybrid was written and directed by Lim Dae-Hee from a story by Don Lee. Watch the new trailer below and let us know what you think! Capelight Pictures releases Holy Night: Demon Hunters the movie is out now.
South China Morning Post
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Ma Dong-seok on new action-horror movie Holy Night: Demon Hunters and its dark-hero energy
Actor and producer Ma Dong-seok, best known for his bone-crunching action in the The Roundup series, is set to captivate audiences once again, this time venturing into the occult with his latest film, Holy Night: Demon Hunters. Advertisement In the movie Ma plays Bau, a formidable troubleshooter using his fists to exorcise demons as a leader of the 'Holy Night' team. The 54-year-old actor, also known as Don Lee, expressed his enthusiasm for the project in a recent interview, highlighting the action sequences made possible by the film's fantasy elements. 'I put a lot of effort into the action sequences, and the fantasy genre allowed for a more impactful and refreshing result,' he said. He also shared his satisfaction in supporting the debut of director Lim Dae-hee. While working on the highly anticipated next instalments in The Roundup series, with at least one expected to film next year, Ma focused on the unique aspects of Holy Night: Demon Hunters.
Washington Post
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
The turbulent beauty of art nouveau is still all over culture
There is no train in 'Monaco • Monte-Carlo.' The railway ad instead pictures a woman, poised at the shore's edge. Encircled in rings of carmine- and blush-tinged blossoms, she looks up, hands held in wonder, her lips cherry red. Anticipation swells in the Alphonse Mucha poster, in the liquid folds of a satin skirt, in the stirring of plans unformed. This is not the world as it is, but as it could be. Mucha, the subject of a Phillips Collection survey, was a student of the world. As a child in Moravia, in the present-day Czech Republic, he spent his days poring over 'flowers, the neighbours' dogs and horses,' noting every curve and flourish, as he wrote years later. 'I tried not only to depict them, but also to preserve them.' Mucha's sketches are nimble, some ecstatic. One, of a man at rest in a high-backed chair, is impossibly fluid, his coiled mustache and tousled hair a flurry of razor-sharp slashes. His pastel 'Holy Night' is a furious study of cornflower and powder blues, veiled by a web of tissue-paper-thin streaks. Mucha examined life closely, intensely. He was, artist Charles Matlack Price observed, 'the most perfect and painstaking draftsman.' Mucha was a close observer of the world, drawing out the strange and fantastical. Art should project 'moral harmonies,' he professed; it should 'know how to charm.' In his pictures, he didn't bother with facial details. More interesting to him was capturing the movement, the verve of his subjects, suffusing them with luster. In one picture, he swapped out an actress's short, red curls for cascading blond tresses; in another, he elongated a model's fingers, coiling them around a fluted bouquet. His work is all affect, made 'to glorify beauty,' he said, to awaken the soul. This movement — the sweeping lines, rich patterning and swirling ornamentation — became an instantly recognizable element of art nouveau, the style Mucha helped lead to lasting popularity through 20th-century commercial art, global comics and counterculture. As an illustrator in fin de siècle Paris, Mucha saw his images reach wide audiences, especially images featuring the beloved French actress Sarah Bernhardt. His theater posters are wide awake. In one, for the Alexandre Dumas play 'The Lady of the Camellias,' he set Bernhardt against a violet ground, dappled with pearl-gray stars. As the title courtesan, she is forced to give up her lover, her death all but inevitable. She turns away, enveloped in cream-colored blooms. In 'Lorenzaccio,' Bernhardt is still more withdrawn. Draped in billowing opals, she is Lorenzo de' Medici, who kills the tyrant of Florence. Bernhardt here is steely, lost in thought before a gilded archway, a mint-green dragon snaked about her. Each captures what Mucha called the 'particular magic of her movements,' Bernhardt's sinuous lines and chilly, spellbinding gaze. There's much to gaze at in Mucha's pictures. Take 'Zodiac,' a woman in profile, glittering in syrupy crimson, teal and eggshell, her hair a spiral of copper. (Mucha was especially fond of redheads, writing in a 1908 article, 'A man admires a red-haired woman for the same reason that he papers the walls of his bachelor apartment red … because red is his favorite color.') He was unguarded, his work brimming with periwinkle-blue diadems and whirling arabesques, his studio overgrown with rococo tables and grand palms. The effect is thrilling, if slightly manic. He once lamented, 'I never had time to finish the work.' That energy carried over to Mucha's classroom. He was an in-demand teacher and charmer, earning 'a reputation as a kind of joker,' a student recalled. 'We had a circus.' His philosophy was simple: Art should stir the viewer, inviting them to a higher plane. The idea recurs in the show in a French-blue Grateful Dead cover — of a skeleton, crowned with bloodred rosettes — and a Pink Floyd print — of a castle floating through a scarlet- and yellow-soaked sky — the pictures at once conjuring and falling short of the Czech master. Mucha saw his work as a reprieve. People 'needed to breathe fresh air,' he maintained, 'to quench their thirst for beauty.' That splendor, edged in Mucha's prints with sumptuous brocades and rubies, may be what's missing from some of his many followers. As one pupil said, 'There are few who have been on this Earth like Mucha.' Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., NW. 202-387-2151. Dates: Through May 18. Prices: $20; $15 for seniors; $12 for military personnel; $10 for students and teachers; free for members and visitors 18 and under. Admission is pay-what-you-wish daily from 4 p.m. to closing. On the third Thursday of the month, the museum stays open until 8 p.m. and admission is free after 4 p.m.
