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Pierce Conran

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

A journalist, producer and consultant, Pierce Conran has been based in Seoul since 2012, where he serves as an editor of the Korean Film Council’s KoBiz website, works as a drama critic for the South China Morning Post and writes film reviews for Screen Anarchy. He is also an advisor for the Fribourg International Film Festival, Fantastic Fest and the Wildflower Film Awards. Pierce has also produced half a dozen feature films, frequently appears on radio and TV news, and occasionally pops up in Korean films, series and variety shows.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Great Flood (2025) 56% EDIT “It soon stops being a disaster film, and veers off into madly ambitious yet maddeningly asinine speculative sci-fi.” – ScreenAnarchy Dec 20, 2025 Full Review Good News (2025) 91% EDIT “A richly entertaining and unabashedly commercial satire that keeps its finger on the pulse -- the gags are all in service of a larger picture about stifling social structures and ideologically bankrupt political apparatus.” – ScreenAnarchy Oct 10, 2025 Full Review Bugonia (2025) 88% EDIT “An intense cocktail of horror and social commentary born out of trauma and despair, served up with a twist of twisted black comedy ” – ScreenAnarchy Oct 10, 2025 Full Review Mickey 17 (2025) 78% EDIT “With his latest film, Bong Joon Ho reaches for the stars but what his characters discover in the far reaches of space is just another version of the messed-up world they left behind, a world Bong has laid bare for us time and time again.” – ScreenAnarchy Feb 18, 2025 Full Review Love in the Big City (2024) EDIT “Sometimes a film comes along and blindsides when you least expect it. The sublime surprise Love in the Big City is just such a film, enriching the landscape of Korean cinema in a year that has quietly seen low-key films return to the fore.” – ScreenAnarchy Oct 24, 2024 Full Review The Killers (2024) EDIT “Not everything works but the joy of cinematic rediscovery and experimentation that each of these filmmakers engages in makes this a thoroughly worthy anthology and one that benefits from being on the big screen, particularly for Lee's segment.” – ScreenAnarchy Oct 24, 2024 Full Review Mind Universe (2023) EDIT “Mind Universe is earnest and heartfelt but it's also simplistic and occasionally a bit too mawkish in its attempts to sell its emotion.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (2022) EDIT “Park's film is all about tone and sensation and while its loose story does thread several episodes together, it's merely a sounding board for the work's principal preoccupations - modern malaise and alienation.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Thunderbird (2021) EDIT “In the grim and gripping night-gone-wrong thriller Thunderbird greed pushes desperate characters to cut all the wrong corners.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Kingmaker (2022) EDIT “A richly drawn character study that encapsulate the 'opposites attract' adage, set against a frequently thrilling backdrop of electoral strategising and malfeasance.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Motherland (2022) EDIT “The loss of tradition in the face of encroaching modernity is an evergreen subject and while Mother Land doesn't quite express any sentiments or ideas we haven't seen before, it is earnest and richly realized. ” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review The Policeman's Lineage (2022) 71% EDIT “Delivers plenty of reliable thrills in a slick package, but eventually runs into trouble when its familiar elements begin to tangle themselves in a messy final reel. ” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review The Dream Songs (2022) EDIT “But if The Dream Songs occasionally frustrates, it's only because it has so effectively grabbed us. A richly cinematic and emotional journey, it's easily one of the year's most memorable debuts.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Door (1988) EDIT “This demented and gory B-movie denouement closes out a tense, unsettling and deeply involving tale that feels remarkably fresh 35 years after it was first released.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Sana (2023) EDIT “This is a mainstream Japanese horror film, so the most important thing is seldom the story, it's the scares. So how scary is Sana? Alas, despite being crisply filmed, this a far cry from J-horror's horrific highs.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Her Hobby (2023) EDIT “Her Hobby has very similar themes to Bedevilled, but while it doesn't measure up to its predecessor as a piece of exploitation cinema, there's a strong emotional core within the tale of female solidarity and its message will ring out loud and clear. ” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review House of the Seasons (2023) EDIT “House of the Seasons is particularly effective in this intro summer chapter which, despite its strong resemblance to Still Walking, is engaging, naturalistic and teeming with lived-in texture.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Ransomed (2023) 89% EDIT “Ransomed can't avoid indulging in a smidge of melodrama and nationalism in its closing moments, but it's a small price to pay for this very worthwhile big-screen package.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review That Summer's Lie (2023) EDIT “Other slippery lines toed by this surprising tale include the one between childhood and adulthood in a story that slaloms with furious abandon between teen pregnancy, social propriety and trying to do the right thing.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Concerning My Daughter (2023) EDIT “Heartwarming and sincere, this captivating drama tackles its themes with grace and level-headedness.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Moebius (2013) 79% EDIT “His message, framed in a terrifying and morbidly humorous narrative that recalls the tropes and themes of Greek tragedy, is clearer than it's ever been. It's also never been quite this powerful.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review The Time of Humans (2018) 20% EDIT “Featuring rape at almost every turn, Human, Space, Time and Human is what happens when you feed an ego and allow its pathological violence to go unchecked for two decades.” – ScreenAnarchy Jun 16, 2024 Full Review Exhuma (2024) 93% EDIT “It's a pulpy investigative thriller, spiked with gruesome images, and leavened by the banter traded by its popular stars, yet (ahem) dig beneath its well-tuned commercial attributes and you may also unearth something else.” – ScreenAnarchy May 14, 2024 Full Review Citizen of a Kind (2024) EDIT “One of Citizen of a Kind's successes is its inversion of typical gender tropes. The damsel in distress here is a handsome but helpless young man, while the male figures of authority are constantly upstaged by Deok-hee's amateur sleuthing.” – ScreenAnarchy May 14, 2024 Full Review 12.12: The Day (2023) EDIT “One of the final dark closets of modern Korean history gets thrown wide open in Kim Sung-soo's riveting historical drama 12.12: The Day.” – ScreenAnarchy May 14, 2024 Full Review
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