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The celebrated filmmaker received the Etoile du Cinema award.

Acclaimed Korean filmmaker Yim Soon-rye received the honorary Etoile du Cinema award at the Busan International Film Festival (Biff) on Saturday, October 7, at an event hosted in partnership with Screen International.

French writer/director Bertrand Bonello presented Yim with the award, which is bestowed on talent revered by Korean-French film fans.

The ceremony took place during ‘French Night’ at Biff at the Paradise Hotel in Busan, held by the French Embassy in Korea and Unifrance.

Lim is known for a string of features including Korean hostage crisis drama The Point Men,...

Mexico’s Monterrey Film Festival (ficmonterrey) is chasing new ambitions in a bid to raise its international profile. Buttressed by generous state, local and private backing as well as some federal funding, the festival, running Sept. 28 – Oct. 4, aims to become Mexico’s most prominent international film festival and a key creative hub in Mexico.

This year’s 19th edition boasts a new director, Janeth Aguirre, also its first female director, and new hires: Diana Cadavid, a programmer for Toronto (TIFF), LA Latino Int’l Film Fest (Laliff) and Colombia’s Cali, who has taken charge of the festival’s burgeoning industry section, and LA-based PR agent Alvar Carretero of Joshua Jason Public Relations.

In recognition of its country guest of honor, South Korea, the fest will open with “Little Forest” by Yim Soonrye, one of the few prominent women film auteurs in South Korean New Wave cinema. Five of her...

Now a household name in the Korean entertainment industry, Kim Tae-Ri’s humble beginnings may come as a shock to many for the actress, who has an impressive resume for just a seven-year career. While technically, she hasn’t been acting for just 7 years, her mainstream film debut was in 2016, and she was clearly set up for success right from the start. The 33-year-old actress, who is known for looking youthful and even played a 21-year-old just last year, discovered her love for acting back in college. She began as a theatre actress in her second year of university and starred in a couple of music videos thereafter. She auditioned with over 1500 other women to play the important role of an orphan in acclaimed director Park Chan Wook’s erotic thriller The Handmaiden. She hasn’t looked back since, won many awards for the role, and proved her place in the industry.

The successful distribution of Korean media around the world has led to the celebration of brilliant filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. However, if you ask an American cinephile or film critic to name one Korean woman director they would likely not be able to come up with an answer.

With its ongoing series “A New Wave of K-Cinema: Korean Women Directors,” The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is hoping to change that. Across the month of June, the Los Angeles museum is showing 10 contemporary Korean films made by women that “explore the complexities of diverse conditions, including the trauma of domestic violence, investigations into gender and class politics, humanity’s relation to nature and the environment, and love and friendship.”

Hyesung ii, who organized “A New Wave of K-Cinema,” told TheWrap it is a series she has had in mind since she began working at the museum. “As...

Exclusive: Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) and Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave) have been set for key roles in feature Hope, the first project from acclaimed Korean director Na Hong-Jin since 2016 hit The Wailing.

The largely Korean-language film will follow the residents of Hopo Port, where a mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. Before long, the residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.

Additional casting and pre-production is underway for a shoot later this year in Korea. We understand husband and wife Fassbender and Vikander will speak English in the film and wanted to take part after being impressed by the director’s previous work. It will mark the second time they’ve appeared together in the same film after The Light Between Oceans.

Korean producer-distributor Plus M Entertainment, owned by multiplex chain Megabox,...

Serial killer thrillers are common fodder for South Korean cinema, with some of the best features in the sub-genre coming from the country and indeed, some of the best features from the country being in this sub-genre. Every year sees a number of releases about psychotic killers to varying responses from the audiences and critics. While 2020 was a tepid year from films in general, 2021 has so far fared much better and thus of course serial killer films would also make a return. One such release is “Midnight”, which saw a hybrid release both in theatres and on the local streaming platform Tving. A release which was pretty much swept under the radar due to a lack of a strong marketing campaign, it benefited from a strong word of mouth upon release.

“Midnight” is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

Hearing impaired Kyeong-mi lives with her mother and works in a customer service centre.

There’s nothing I love more than a film about food. I love almost everything about them. The mouth-watering shots. The ever-present nostalgia. The way they so easily lend themselves to philosophical ideas. It’s almost always a joy, even when the movie itself is mediocre. So, when I read the premise of Haruki Kadokawa final feature, “Mio’s Cookbook”, I had high hopes. A food film/period drama by a legendary producer and highly respected veteran director? On paper, it’s a perfect hybrid. Perhaps due to the fact that it was Kadokawa’s first big directorial effort since 1990 (“Heaven and Hell”), but against all odds, though, this adaptation of the popular series of novels by Kaoru Takada failed to stir the same feelings in me that so many other food films I’ve seen, and after an overlong runtime of two hours, whimpers its way to an unimpactful stop.

Further agreements struck for ‘Slate’, ‘Pipeline’ and ‘The Anchor’.

South Korean sales company Finecut has closed a raft of deals ahead of the EFM, led by a pick-up of crime thriller Midnight (working title) by The Jokers Films for France.

Finecut has also secured deals for action fantasy Slate, heist feature Pipeline and mystery thriller The Anchor.

Midnight marks the feature debut of director Kwon Oh-seung and follows a deadly game of hide-and-seek between a psychopathic killer and a deaf woman. It stars Jin Ki-joo (Little Forest) and Wi Ha-jun (Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum).

Slate, which premiered at Tokyo International Film Festival in November,...

What started as the Korean New Wave in the late 90s really flourished in the 2000s. The 2010s, however, is where we saw what we can call the “new” golden age for Korean cinema, where several new-name directors made their mark, established filmmakers cemented their names in world cinema, actors became stars, blockbuster cinema raked in big money and independent cinema also thrived. Thanks to the success of films like “The Handmaiden” and “Train to Busan” on a global level, a new audience started having a much keener interest in films from the country, while the unprecedented, historic success of “Parasite” at the end only went on to bookend the truly spectacular decade that the 2010s was for South Korean cinema.

In an effort to winnow some of the best Korean movies of the decade (2011-2020), we came up with 40 we felt were the ones that truly stand out in terms of quality,...

A Korean space opera with a large budget and a star-studded cast. Possibly the first of its kind, it’s hard for it to live up to its hype. Despite the film not being perfect, it’s still a big step for Korean cinema to branch out, and try new things.

“Space Sweepers” revolves around the crew of ‘Victory’, a notorious space-junk collector ship in 2092. Earth is becoming uninhabitable, and humans are quick to ruin space next. The crew is down on their luck, need money, and need it fast. It is then rather convenient that such a solution falls into their laps, a humanoid robot girl, wanted by police as well as terrorists. Before long, it turns into a story about putting others above yourself or saving yourself.

The production ends up being a little cheesy, yet charming. Fun, but in the large scope of science-fiction films, middle-of-the-road. This...

Between tradition and modernity: The Korean Film Week 2020 deliberately focuses on the Korean woman and provides an insight into the life of “ordinary” Korean women in five selected feature films. In a cinematic foray through the last century, from Korea in the 1920s to the present day, the program focuses on the change of gender roles of women and the external and internal conflicts associated with it.

The film program introduces this change from tradition to modernity and takes the viewer into a time “in-between”. A time of rapid industrialization and urbanization of the country – a time of radical changes in the lives of women.

The festival will open with a classic of Korean cinema: The Houseguest And My Mother (1961) by Shin Sang-ok. It tells the story of a young widow in Korea in the 1920s who sticks to the long-standing Confucian tradition of not marrying again. In Yeongja’S...

“Little Forest” is a film with a bit of pedigree. The original source is a 2002 Japanese manga of the same title, written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi and subsequently adapted in a two-part live action movie in 2014. Now it has been picked up and readjusted by director Yim Soon-rye, one of the most important Korean female filmmakers and a leading figure of Korean New Wave Cinema. “Little Forest” was released by Megabox at the end of February and earned $5 million only in the first five days. It is part of Five Flavours Asian Film Festival this year,

“Little Forest” is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

The film is the simple story of a very hungry young woman. She is hungry for tasty real food, for soul food and for answers she cannot find and therefore she will eat her way to happiness. Hye Won (Kim Tae-ri) is that...

Five Flavours Asian Film Festival invite you for a journey through taste, colors, and sounds of the Asian continent, hoping they can provide food for your thoughts and solace for your spirits.

The Programme of this year’s Festival comprises more than forty titles representing the extreme variety of Asian cinemas – from horror cinema to sweet melodramas, from grasping auteur cinema to relaxing journeys around the continent.

All the films will be presented online between November 25 and December 6.

Preparing this year’s edition forced the organisers to face up to completely new challenges – from the matters of logistics to finding new ways of thinking about their mission, priorities, building bridges between filmmakers and audiences outside the screening rooms. The online edition of the Festival is not a compromise, but a different way to reach the, perhaps even wider, audiences, discover the rich variety of Asian cultures, and explore the contemporary...

Exclusive first look image revealed for The Devil’s Deal.

South Korean investor-distributor Megabox Plus M is launching an international sales arm and has unveiled an initial slate led by The Devil’s Deal, directed by Lee Won-tae.

Lee’s last film was the 2019 Cannes midnight screenings title The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil starring Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok from Train To Busan). Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions picked up the crime action film for English-language remake last year before its world premiere.

The Devil’s Deal is a political drama starring Cho Jin-woong, Lee Sung-min (The Man Standing Next) and Kim Moo-yul.

“Did you eat yet?”

It’s an all-too-common question — a greeting, a worry, a substitute for the words “I love you.” Food is incredibly personal. On one hand, it’s a sign of affection, of family, of community; on the other, it sets apart cliques, the poor, the exotic. From lunch breaks to late-night snacks, food proves time and time again that it is more than just sustenance. It structures our very lives.

So we too welcome you to sit down and take a breather from your day-to-day. Nourish yourself. Feast your eyes. Today’s menu includes ramen westerns and fried chicken ponzi schemes, irresistible dosa and roast duck wars. Just make sure to grab a bite first… you’ll thank us later after you get through this mouthwatering list!

1. Tampopo

“Tampopo” is a very entertaining film about the necessity of enjoyment in our lives, a celebration of the art...

Born in 1961 in Incheon, Yim Soon-rye graduated from Hanyang University in 1985 with a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Theater and Film. She received her master’s degree in Film Studies from Paris 8 University in 1992 with a thesis titled “Study on Kenji Mizoguchi”. Upon her return to Korea in 1993, she worked as an assistant director on Yeo Kyun-dong’s “Out to the World”. In 1994, she directed her first short film “Promenade in the Rain”, which won the Grand Prize and the Press Award at the 1st Seoul International Short Film Festival.

She made her feature film debut with “Three Friends” (1996), which explored Korean masculinity and marginalization through the lives of three young men who have difficulty adjusting to the social system. It won the Netpac Award at the 6th Pusan International Film Festival.

Her films include both critical acclaimed films such as “Walkiki Brothers” and commercial...

One of South Korea’s most profitable directors, Choi Dong-hoon has his last two films “The Thieves” and “Assassinaton” in the top ten highest grossing Korean films of all times at the South Korean box office. Even his two films preceding those, “Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard” and “Tazza: The High Rollers”, feature in the top sixty on the same list. Though he was set to return with the thriller “Wiretap”, that project has since been shelved after its lead star Kim Woo-bin was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer. But he has now locked into his latest project, which will be a simultaneously filmed two-part sci-fi film featuring aliens.

Two of South Korea’s brightest young talents , Ryu Jun-yeol and Kim Tae-ri, have already signed on star in both parts of the series. While other actors are still to be confirmed, Choi Dong-hoon is known to work with superstars who often return for his future projects.

South Korean heartthrob Gong Yoo and actress Jung Yu-mi and have had a successful professional relationship, having featured in hits films “Silenced” and “Train to Busan” together previously. While the former hasn’t been on the big screen since Kim Jee-woon’s 2016 film “The Age of Shadows”, Jung Yu-mi was last seen in her “Train to Busan” director’s follow-up film “Psychokinesis”. The two team up once again for Kim Da-young’s directorial debut “Kim Ji-young: Born 1982” (translated title).

Synopsis

Kim Ji-young has one of the most common female names for people her age. She works at a PR agency. She gets married and has a daughter. So she can raise her daughter, Kim Ji-young quits her job. She leads an ordinary life up to this point. Suddenly, Kim Ji-young begins to talk like her mother, her older sister and other people. She seems possessed by other people. What happened to her?...

Ryu Jun-yeol has had quite the upward career graph. Beginning his career as an important part of an ensemble of young actors in 2015’s “Socialphobia”, he begun making his mark on South Korean cinema in 2017 with important supporting roles in “A Taxi Driver”, “The King” and “Heart Blackened”, some of the year’s biggest films in which he shared screen space with South Korean bigwigs such as Song Kang-ho, Jung Woo-sung and Choi Min-sik respectively. He followed that up with more prominent roles in films such as “Little Forest” and “Believer” the following year. Now, 2019 brings with it his first leading roles in the financial thriller “Money” by director Park Noo-ri.

“Money” is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Jo Il-hyun, the son of raspberry farmers, comes from humble upbringings but dreams of becoming a stock broker and getting rich. He joins one of the top firms on the Yeouido,...

Korean Film Nights continue with a second season for 2019 “Love Without Boundaries” – a programme of titles exploring Korean cinema’s bold exploration of romantic relationships existing on society’s margins. From the 4th of July to the 8th of August.

This season is programmed in collaboration with the Birkbeck Film Programming and Curating Ma course.

Love, in its many guises, has always been a central concern in cinema. From the long-established vision presented in Hollywood studio pictures to the local dialect of any national cinema, romance has always had a place on film. Outside of cinema’s mainstream however, many exemplary filmmakers have long strove to represent a range of transgressive love stories in their work, bucking the idealised view codified in typical cinema fare. Delving deep into the key works from Korean cinema that have pushed against socially-accepted views of love and relationships, our season seeks to offer a...

Korean actor Ryu Jun-yeol and Japanese actress Nana Komatsu will both be awarded the Rising Star Asia Award at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, which will run from June 28th to July 14th, 2019.

Ryu Jun-yeol in Lee Hae-young’s “Believer

Ryu, who got his break in the Korean Academy of Film Arts feature graduation project “Socialphobia”, exploded as a film star in 2017, with star-making turns in “The King”, “Heart Blackened” and the year’s biggest hit “A Taxi Driver“. He followed it up in 2018 with equally impressive roles in “Little Forest” and “Believer” and has already featured in “Hit-and-Run Squad” and the financial drama “Money” already this year.

Tokyo-born Nana Komatsu, meanwhile, started her cinematic journey in 2015 with “Close Range Love” and suspense thriller “The World of Kanako“. Her impressive filmography includes “Destruction Babies“, Martin Scorsese’s “Silence”, hit romantic drama “My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday” as well...

“Little Forest” is a film with a bit of pedigree. The original source is a 2002 Japanese manga of the same title, written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi and subsequently adapted in a two-part live action movie in 2014. Now it has been picked up and readjusted by director Yim Soon-rye, one of the most important Korean female filmmakers and a leading figure of Korean New Wave Cinema. “Little Forest” was released by Megabox at the end of February and earned $5 million only in the first five days. It is part of Udine Far East Film Festival’s line-up as a European Premier.

The film is the simple story of a very hungry young woman. She is hungry for tasty real food, for soul food and for answers she cannot find and therefore she will eat her way to happiness. Hye Won (Kim Tae-ri) is that young woman; she grows up with...

CinemAsia is back. The 12th edition will open doors on the 5th and will run until the 10th of March 2019.

The rich Programme includes 35 feature films from 14 countries and regions, of which there are 3 international and 12 European premieres.

Let’s have a look at all the titles and the sections:

Opening Film

Aruna & Her Palate by Edwin

Closing Film

The Lady Improper by Jessey Tsang Tsui-shan

Competition

The Competition champions new talent, featuring 9 films by directors with a singular voice, tackling multicultural themes.

A Boy and Sungreen by Ahn Jun-YoungAve Maryam by Ertanto Robby Soediskam

Born Bone Born by Toshiyuki Teruya (Japan. 2018)

Guang by Quek Shio-chuan

Long Time No Sea by Heather Tsui

Long Time No Sea

Official Selection

The Official Selection offers a wide spectrum of genres that challenge, inform and entertain. This year the theme “Little People. Big World” spotlights minority or marginalised children all over Asia, but...

2018 was, by most accounts, a mixed bag of a year for South Korean cinema. Where critics darling Lee Chang-dong returned to the scene after an eight-year hiatus to much fanfare and applause with “Burning”, small films like “Little Forest” and “Intimate Strangers” ended up being more well received than tentpole blockbusters like Kim Jee-woon’s “Illang: The Wolf Brigade”, for example. 2019 has begun very strongly, with “Extreme Job” going on to become the 2nd highest grossing South Korean film of all time on the domestic box-office. Here’s a list of some films we can look forward to with much anticipation in the remainder of the year.

Bad Police (Lee Jeong-beom)

It’s Lee Sun-kyun vs the world in “Bad Police”

Six years after the action packed “No Tears for the Dead”, the director of the iconic “The Man from Nowhere” is back with “Bad Police”. Telling the story of...

The rise of Ryu Jun-yeol as an actor has been an interesting one to watch. Starting his film career in the excellent 2015 social thriller “Socialphobia”, he really exploded on the scene in 2017 with three important and appreciated supporting roles in hit films “The King”, “A Taxi Driver” and “Heart Blackened”. These were followed by equally lauded roles in “Little Forest” and “Believer” in 2018. Only two months into the new year, we have the trailer for his second film of 2019, and his first leading role, in director Park Noo-ri’s “Money” (literal title).

Synopsis

Il-Hyun begins to work as a stock broker. His dream is to become rich. Il-Hyun meets a stock market scammer known as “Ticket Man”. He asks Il-Hyun to help in a stock market scam. Meanwhile, Han Ji-Cheol works for Financial Supervisory Service and has chased “Ticket Man” for a long time. He senses something suspicious with Il-Hyun.

Hoping to bring a “The Fast & The Furious” vibe to South Korean cinema is director Han Jun-hee (“Coin Locker Girl”) with his latest action film “Hit-and-Run Squad”.

Synopsis

Eun Shi-yeon is a police lieutenant. She is demoted to a hit-and-run investigation team from the regional investigation unit at the National Police Agency. At the hit-and-run investigation team, Eun Shi-yeon works with Police Constable Seo Min-jae, who has a knack for cars, and Woo Sun-young . They try to catch Jung Jae-cheol. He is the first Formula One racer in South Korea, but he suddenly retired as a race car driver. He is now businessman.

Han Jun-hee has been able to call upon an able starcast for the project. Gong Hyo-jin, who was recently seen in the hit urban thriller “Door Lock” as well as in a special appearance in “Be With You” earlier last year, plays Eun Shi-yeon. Ryu Jun-yeol, who...

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® has announced the contenders for the Official Competition and the long list of films in the other “Strands”.

The Best Film Award recognises inspiring, inventive and distinctive filmmaking and this year’s line-up showcases the enormous depth and diversity of talent working in the global film industry today, with 50% of the films from a female director or co-director.

The Festival has also welcomed as Jury President Academy Award-nominated director of Room (Lff Official Competition 2015), Lenny Abrahamson, whose long-awaited film adaptation of Sarah Waters’ horror novel The Little Stranger will be released this September. For the first time, the winner of the Best Film will receive their award in front of a public audience at a special screening on Saturday 20 October at Vue Leicester Square.

And here is the full list of Asian entries in this rich edition of BFI...

“Little Forest” is a film with a bit of pedigree. The original source is a 2002 Japanese manga of the same title, written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi and subsequently adapted in a two-part live action movie in 2014. Now it has been picked up and readjusted by director Yim Soon-rye, one of the most important Korean female filmmakers and a leading figure of Korean New Wave Cinema. “Little Forest” was released by Megabox at the end of February and earned $5 million only in the first five days.

Little Forest is screening at the 17th New York Asian Film Festival

The film is the simple story of a very hungry young woman. She is hungry for tasty real food, for soul food and for answers she cannot find and therefore she will eat her way to happiness. Hye Won (Kim Tae-ri) is that young woman; she grows up with her widowed mum...

2018 is halfway over already, so now is a good moment to cast our eyes back over the last six months, and more specifically, the cinematic offerings that emerged from Asia. Traditionally the first half of the year tends to be weaker, and certainly most of the Chinese New Year offerings left plenty to be desired. Chen Kaige's Legend of the Demon Cat, Raman Hui's Monster Hunt 2, Soi Cheang's The Monkey King 3 and Chen Sicheng's Detective Chinatown 2 all managed to underwhelm, while the endless barrage of sub-par Japanese and Korean dramas and thrillers was as relentless as it was soul-crushing. That said, Korean offerings like Little Forest, Be With You and I Can Speak weren’t bad at all, while Colour...

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In Korean cinema, when characters retreat to the countryside things generally don't work out too well for them, but in Yim Soon-rye's new drama Little Forest, a young woman regains her spirit, and as she does so, many viewers will leave the theater with a desire for the simple life. This adaptation of a popular Japanese manga (already adapted into a two-part Japanese film) gives Kim Tae-ri her first lead role since her breakout part in Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden and offers a distinct Korean flavor in what is a cinematic love letter to 'slow living'. Hae-won is a young country girl who returns to her mother's humble home following a stint in the city. She was studying to become a teacher and supporting herself...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...