BUSAN — Alfonso Cuaron shared his love of movies with his son. Having him follow in his footsteps was another story. The two-time Oscar-winning auteur of "Gravity" and "Roma" is visiting Busan on his first trip to Korea, with a talk on his career scheduled for later Thursday at the Busan International Film Festival. Next to him was his son Jonas, a fellow filmmaker and longtime collaborator who co-wrote "Gravity" with him. "I kind of discouraged him from studying film or anything related," Cuaro

BUSAN -- "Diary of a Mad Old Man" opens with its stroke-stricken protagonist trying, and failing, to masturbate under his desk. Half-paralyzed at nearly 70, the old man (Lily Franky) pours what's left of his strength into furiously lusting after his daughter-in-law. He sneaks glances at her in the shower, but his true obsession is her feet — specifically, getting to suck her toes. That daughter-in-law is played by Fan Bingbing. And she says she had a blast with the role. "For me, what matters mo

The Singapore International Film Festival will open its 37th edition with "The Assassin(s)" as planned, organizers said Wednesday, rebuffing calls from South Korea's conservative People Power Party to drop the political thriller from its opening-night slot. In a statement to Singaporean media, the festival said it was aware of the controversy but stood by its selection. Its programmers chose the film independently, the statement added, on grounds of its artistic merit and contribution to contemp

BUSAN — A Korean carmaker commissioning a short film about Marilyn Monroe for her 100th birthday feels somewhat out of left field. That, in a nutshell, is "Flesh Impact," a short film made for Hyundai Motor Group's luxury marque Genesis — a key sponsor of the Busan International Film Festival. Writing and directing the project is Maggie Gyllenhaal, the Oscar-nominated actor who has been building a career behind the camera since her 2021 directorial debut, "The Lost Daughter." Having made her fir

BUSAN — Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh sees a bit of herself in the Busan International Film Festival. Both started out in Asia but set their sights on the wider world. Three decades on, both have more or less made it. "Like the Busan International Film Festival, I have come a long way," Yeoh said at Wednesday's press conference at Busan Cinema Center. "We started here in Asia with the hope of going global — to share our films and our culture with the rest of the world. I hope in some small way we h

BUSAN — The Busan International Film Festival opened its 31st edition Tuesday with a small-scale anthology film. Hours earlier, organizers had sidestepped questions about a political thriller whose entire team pulled out of the event amid fierce backlash. At a press conference for the opening film, "The Table: Day and Night," a reporter asked director Kim Jong-kwan to weigh in on the controversy, raising concerns over apparent political pressure. Programmer Jung Ji-hye, who oversees the festival

With wars dragging on and stories of artificial intelligence going rogue filling every feed, can we really say with confidence that the world is getting better? According to Stefan Sagmeister, the answer depends on how far back you're willing to look. The New York-based Austrian designer is best known for creating album art and packaging for the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and Talking Heads, work that has won him two Grammys. He opened Friday's Herald Design Lounge 2026 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza w

Herald Design Lounge, an annual design conference of keynotes, talks and panel discussions, held its first edition under its new name on Friday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul. Organized by Herald Media Group, publisher of The Korea Herald and The Herald Business, the event explored the future of design across graphics, architecture and media art under the theme "Beyond Visuals." Speakers examined how design shapes our experience with technology as generative AI upends the creative p

Since it hit theaters Sept. 23, the journalism thriller "The Assassin(s)" has been in the crosshairs for suggesting that a former president might have been involved in his wife's death. Much of the furor has played out on social media, fueled by right-leaning online forums and conservative influencers. It has since reached just about everyone involved with the film, including its cast. On Friday, production company Hive Media Corp. said the film's team would skip next week's Busan International

"Reawakened Man" (South Korea) Opened Sept. 30 Action/Fantasy Directed by Baek Jong-yeol A man (Koo Kyo-hwan) discovers he comes back to life three days after every death. "The Assassin(s)" (South Korea) Opened Sept. 23 Drama/Thriller Directed by Hur Jin-ho Reporters (Park Hae-il, Lee Min-ho) and a cop (Yoo Hae-jin) dig into the 1974 assassination of first lady Yuk Young-soo, pushing back against censorship under an authoritarian regime. "Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub" (South Korea) Opened Sept.

Plenty of Hollywood stars have stopped by Seoul on a press tour. Tom Cruise practically commutes. Since his first trip in 1994 for "Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles," the ageless superstar has flown in to promote nearly every major film he's starred in, among them the "Mission: Impossible" series and "Top Gun: Maverick." By now he's been here 13 times, more than any other Hollywood actor. In most of those films, he was the guy who saves the world. This time, he is the one who n

"I still feel like I'm always drifting and floating somewhere, whether I'm in the US or even when I'm in Seoul, where I was born and raised. I think I've leaned on art a lot because of that feeling." The sense of displacement and rootlessness RM described at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the leader of the world's biggest boy band through its meteoric rise. Fame on that scale tends to leave a person without a fixed place to stand,

Ho-seok (played by Sul Kyung-gu), the laid-off welder at the center of Lee Chang-dong's Silver Lion winner "Possible Love," is a shell of the man he used to be. Stoic but warm, he used to have his co-workers at SP Heavy Industries over for drinks in his yard, treating them like brothers. Two years after losing his job, he barely speaks and drinks too much. He can't get through a counseling session for fired workers without bolting from the room. His wife, Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), meets a documentar

This article contains spoilers for "The Assassin(s)." More than half a century after South Korea's first lady was shot dead during a live broadcast of a national ceremony, a movie about her murder has become the country's biggest holiday box office hit. It has also become the latest flashpoint in Korea's long-running partisan battle over its own history. "The Assassin(s)," a political thriller from director Hur Jin-ho ("Christmas in August," "A Normal Family"), opened in Korean theaters Wednesda

Korea Herald correspondent SAN FRANCISCO — Rarely is painter Ha Chong-hyun introduced by his own name alone; the term dansaekhwa almost always comes attached. Loosely translated as monochrome painting, it refers to a style shared by the likes of Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan and Yun Hyong-keun, contemporaries who came of age in the wreckage of the 1950-53 Korean War and built careers out of muted palettes, repeated marks and slow, laborious processes. Over the past decade or so, the label has also becom