Park Chan-wook's 'Decision to Leave' draws favorable media reviews at Cannes Director Park Chan-wook poses during the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, May 24. Reuters-Yonhap Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's latest feature film, "Decision to Leave," has attracted high scores and favorable reviews from foreign news media following its premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival earlier this week. Screen Daily, British film magazine Screen International's daily magazine for the film festival, reported Tuesday (local time) that the Korean film took an average score of 3.2 out of 4, the highest score yet on its Cannes jury grid for this year.The score raised expectations among Korean film fans that he might take home the top honor of the Palme d'Or this time. Park previously won the Cannes 2004 Jury Grand Prize with "Oldboy" and the 2009 Jury Prize with "Thirst," and returned to the festival with his competition entry "The Handmaiden" in 2016.Considering that other strong competitors "Tori and Lokita" by the Dardenne brothers and "Broker" by May 25, 2022
'The Witch: Part 2' director still has more story to tell Actress Shin Si-ah in a scene from the film “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” / Courtesy of NEW Sequel to rare superpower heroine franchise returns with rookie actressBy Kwak Yeon-sooOn returning with the much-anticipated sci-fi thriller “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One,” a sequel to “The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion” (2018), director Park Hoon-jung made it clear that there is still more story to tell. The upcoming film tells the story of a girl who comes out into the world as a lone survivor of a top-secret lab where the facility creates creatures with superpowers. The first installment of the female-centered heroine franchise attracted over 3.1 million moviegoers in 2018.“It's taken us four years to get a sequel. Our project has been delayed due to COVID-19. Under challenging circumstances, we weren't sure when we could resume filming. The plot also changed over time. I feel like I haven't told a 10th of the story in mind, but I think this one turned out to be May 24, 2022By Kwak Yeon-soo
Park Chan-wook returns to Cannes with romance 'Decision to Leave' Korean auter Park Chan-wook, center, poses with Park Hae-il, right, and Tang Wei at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, May 23. Reuters-Yonhap Korean auteur Park Chan-wook has said that his latest Cannes-competing feature "Decision to Leave" is a precocious romance that is not as intense as his previous revenge-themed works, such as "Oldboy" (2003), but is one that he really wanted to make."Decision to Leave," which premiered at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Monday (local time), as one of the in-competition films of the festival, is about a police detective who falls in love with a woman suspected of murdering her husband.Starring Chinese actress Tang Wei of "Lust, Caution" (2007) and Korean actor Park Hae-il of "Memories of Murder" (2003), it is a stylish romantic love story of two married people but has no sex or violent scenes that are easily seen in Park's renowned pieces, "Oldboy," "Thirst" (2009) and "The Handmaiden" (2016)."I wanted to make a love story for grownMay 24, 2022
Actor's short film 'Dark Yellow' nominated for Asia competition at Japan's film festival A poster for actress Koo Hye-sun's fifth short film “Dark Yellow” / Courtesy of IOK Company By Kwak Yeon-soo“Dark Yellow,” a short film directed by actress Koo Hye-sun, has been nominated for the competition section of Japan's Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2022, an Academy Awards-accredited film festival that specializes in Asian short films.The 24th edition is scheduled for June 7 to 20. Koo's fifth short film follows a woman who works at a flower shop and a man who becomes interested in her. “Dark Yellow” premiered at the 2021 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, where the 38-year-old actor-director explained that her film is told from the perspective of women through the color yellow. “Rather than wanting to purposefully make a film about women, I followed the perspective of women. By making this film, I wanted to understand both women and men. I wanted to deal with subjects such as our inferiority complex and vulnerabilities,” she said. “Dark YelloMay 23, 2022By Kwak Yeon-soo
Hollywood blockbuster sequels poised to hit theaters, streaming platforms A scene from the film “Jurassic World Dominion.” Courtesy of Universal PicturesBy Kwak Yeon-sooA raft of sequels to Hollywood blockbusters are poised to bring more people back to theaters in the coming months following “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which outdid the original “Doctor Strange” in ticket sales in Korea.Moviegoers are flocking back to cinemas now that there is a wide selection of movies available. As a result, “Doctor Strange 2” attracted more than 5.47 million moviegoers as of Sunday, outpacing “Doctor Strange,” which attracted 5.45 million people. “Jurassic World Dominion,” which will be released on June 1, is the sixth and final installment in the franchise which dates back more than three decades. The film picks up after the events of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (2018) where dinosaurs have escaped the island of Isla Nublar and are now living among humans. It features the return of Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and BD Wong from the first installment of the sMay 23, 2022By Kwak Yeon-soo
'The Roundup' lures 2.5 million moviegoers over weekend A poster for “The Roundup” / Yonhap The local action comedy "The Roundup" is on course to become a box office hit, luring more than 2 million people on its first weekend, data showed Monday.The sequel to the 2017 hit comedy "The Outlaws" attracted 2.53 million people from Friday to Sunday, bringing its cumulative total to 3.55 million in the five days following its release last Wednesday, according to the data from the Korea Film Council.This is the first time in more than two years that a Korean film has attracted more than 2 million people on a weekend since the political drama "The Man Standing Next" (2019) posted a 2.01 million attendance on the last weekend of January 2020, overlapping with the four-day Lunar New Year holiday.On Saturday, in particular, 1.03 million people saw the film, marking the highest daily score for a Korean title since June 1, 2019, when Bong Joon-ho's award-winning family satire "Parasite" lured 1.12 million."The Roundup" tells the storMay 23, 2022
Kim Hee-sun to return to big screen after 19 years Actress Kim Hee-sun / Courtesy of MBCBy Kwak Yeon-sooActress Kim Hee-sun, who recently wrapped up filming the MBC drama, “Tomorrow,” will return to the big screen for the first time in 19 years. Her last movie was the 2003 romance film, “A Letter from Mars.”In the upcoming romantic comedy film, “Sweetish” (literal translation from Korean), she will portray a single mother. Actor Yoo Hai-jin will play her partner ― a guy who has never dated before. The filming will start in June.It will be written by Lee Byeong-heon, well known to have directed “Extreme Job” (2019) and “Twenty” (2015), and directed by Lee Han, who was behind “Innocent Witness” (2019) and “Punch” (2011)Kim debuted as a TV commercial model in 1993 and was propelled to stardom after appearing in dozens of works, including the drama, “Men of the Bath House” in 1995 and “Sunflower” in 1998.She has been featured in Chinese movies and TV series, including “The Warring States” (2013) and SBS' “Alice&rdMay 22, 2022By Kwak Yeon-soo
'Cyber Hell' director tells of disturbing 'Nth room' crime A poster for Netflix's latest crime documentary, “Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror” / Courtesy of Netflix By Kwak Yeon-sooDirector Choi Jin-seong belatedly learned about the “Nth room” crimes that triggered shock waves in Korea in early 2020. The crimes were of a new type that he had never heard of; they used hacking techniques to get private information, blackmail many young women and minors to send sexually exploitive images and videos and trade them with thousands of users via cryptocurrencies through the encrypted messaging service, Telegram. What's more shocking is that these perverted and sadistic perpetrators were mostly young men in their late teens and early 20s. After some research and interviews with “Team Flame” (college students who first broke the story), journalists and police, Choi realized the crimes were more horrendous and systematic than he had imagined. So he decided to make a documentary about them. His alarming film, “Cyber Hell: ExposiMay 22, 2022By Kwak Yeon-soo
'The Roundup' surpasses 2 million viewers within 4 days of release Poster of “The Roundup” / Korea Times file The action comedy "The Roundup" continued to shatter box-office records among Korean films during the pandemic, data showed Saturday.The sequel to the 2017 hit movie "The Outlaws" surpassed 2 million cumulative viewers Saturday, four days after its release, according to its distributor ABO Entertainment Co.The action flick starring Ma Dong-seok set the first four-day record among Korean films released since COVID-19 broke out in early 2020.The movie broke the previous record set by "Deliver Us from Evil," which reached the 2-million mark on the fifth day of its release in 2019."The Roundup," released Wednesday, garnered about 467,000 viewers on opening day. This was the largest first-day score in the past three years for a domestic film, outnumbering the previous record of 354,000 set by the zombie apocalypse thriller "Peninsula" in July 2020."The Roundup" tells the story of Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma) heading to Vietnam to eMay 21, 2022
Lee Jung-jae makes directorial debut with 'Hunt' at Cannes Korean actor and director Lee Jung-jae poses during a photocall for his film "Hunt" at the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, May 19. AFP-Yonhap "Squid Game" star Lee Jung-jae made his directorial debut with the espionage action thriller "Hunt," which premiered at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Friday.At the Grand Theatre Lumiere, the main venue of the world's most prestigious film festival, "Hunt" was first shown as part of the non-competition Midnight Screening section and received a three-minute standing ovation.Lee, who also starred in the movie, and lead actor Jung Woo-sung stood together and thanked the audience, who clapped and cheered for the 131-minute film that depicts the intelligence war between South and North Koreas during the military regime in the 1980s."I hope everybody enjoyed the movie. Thank you, merci beaucoup!" Lee said after the screening."Hunt" is a story about two rival intelligence agents in South Korea, PyMay 20, 2022
