More from Soomee Park
‘Kill Boksoon’ Filmmaker Talks Netflix Action Thriller With Shades of Female ‘John Wick’
Director Byun Sung-hyun was baffled when he first learned that his feature film Kill Boksoon would be invited to the Berlin International Film Festival last month. “I didn’t expect it at all,” he said at a press conference for Kill Boksoon held in Seoul earlier this month. “I thought Kill Bok-soon was not the type […]
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Could Reality TV Be the Next Global Trend in Korean Content?
In October 2021, Yoo Ki-hwan, content manager at Netflix Korea, received an e-mail from a stranger with a bold pitch for a show involving 100 contestants competing in a series of brutal challenges to win a cash prize worth 300 million Korean won (about $315,000). The scale of the show was so grand that it […]
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AFM: How Korean Cinema Came to Rule the Crime Genre
Lee Sang-yong’s 2022 feature, The Roundup, had many twists and turns before it was finally released in South Korean theaters in May. The production originally began in 2019, but filming was temporarily postponed, as location permits did not come through in Vietnam, where the story is mostly set, because of the pandemic. The industry’s old saying […]
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Busan’s Asian Film Content Market Wraps Up Amid Optimism and Post-Pandemic Concerns
The Asian Content Film Market (ACFM), the Busan International Film Festival’s industry platform, wrapped up this week with organizers and market participants voicing a mix of optimism and concern for the post-pandemic state of the movie market. The event, which was held in the city’s massive BEXCO convention center, attracted 1,059 companies and 2,185 industry […]
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Busan: Classic Korean Film ‘Nakdong River’ — Previously Feared Lost — Is Rediscovered and Restored
Nakdong River, by the director Jun Chang-geun, was one of just 12 Korean films produced during the Korean War — and for years it was thought to have been lost. So when staff at the Korean Film Archive recently happened upon a print of the film — miscategorized and kept in the wrong section of […]
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Busan: Korean Content Veterans Discuss Their Industry’s Stunning Global Growth
With Korean films and dramas continuing to find mass success among the American mainstream — Squid Game, Parasite and Extracurricular to name just a few — veterans of the Seoul entertainment world gathered at the Busan International Film Festival on Sunday to discuss how their industry achieved such milestones, as well as strategies for even […]
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Busan: ‘Avatar 2’ Producer Jon Landau Premieres 15-Minutes of Footage in Korea
Select attendees at the Busan International Film Festival on Thursday got a sneak peek at 2022’s most anticipated movie — James Cameron’s long-gestating mega-tentpole Avatar: The Way of Water. A 15-minute showreel of exclusive footage from the Avatar sequel was shown to a large Korean audience who had paid about $5 each (7,000 Korean won) to […]
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Busan: Lars Von Trier’s ‘The Kingdom,’ K-Dramas From Netflix and Disney+ Headline Second Series Selection
The Busan International Film Festival has unveiled a selection of nine series for its On Screen section, a program launched last year that highlights innovative series created by TV producers and streaming platforms. This year’s selection, which has grown from three titles to nine, will include original series from Disney+, Netflix and TVING, the streaming […]
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Busan Film Festival to Open With Iran’s ‘Scent of Wind,’ Close With Kei Ishikawa’s ‘A Man’
The 27th edition of Busan International Film Festival will open with Scent of Wind by the Iranian director Hadi Mohaghegh and close with A Man by Japan’s Kei Ishikawa. Launched in 1996, Busan has long been considered Asia’s premiere film festival, famous both for launching the careers of exciting new Korean and Asian auteurs, as […]
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Busan Film Festival Unveils Diverse Competition Lineup
The Busan International Film Festival has unveiled its 10-film selection for New Currents, the event’s main competition section that focuses on Asian cinema. Since the festival launched in 1996, the program has been one of the region’s most important platforms for introducing emerging directors. This year, two Indian films have been selected for the section […]
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Korean Film Figures Condemn Venice for Honoring Kim Ki-duk Despite Sexual Abuse Allegations
South Korean film organizations are heaping criticism on the Venice Film Festival in response to a decision to screen the final film of the late Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk despite the multiple sexual abuse allegations he was facing prior to his death. Kim died from COVID-19-related complications in Latvia in 2020. He had lived his […]
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Troubles at Home Cloud Korea’s Global Success
In 2021, Kang Hye-jung, the CEO of South Korean production shingle R&K and the wife of star director Ryu Seung-wan, produced Escape From Mogadishu, a political thriller based on North and South Korean diplomats trapped in a civil war in the Somalian capital in 1991. Directed by Ryu, the film became the most-watched Korean film of […]
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